A late film noir, with an interesting plot and undeniable potential, unfortunately poorly taken advantage of.

The classic film noir has unscrupulous, false, treacherous characters, always looking for an opportunity to deceive the next. Sometimes, from so much conspiring, they end up suffering the effects of their own poison on their skin or else captured by enemies or the police.

But this Behind the High Wall is a film that is too scrupulous, full of feelings of guilt, regret, too moralistic, precisely the opposite of what characterizes film noir. It is the result of a different era in which traditional values prevailed, in post-war abundance.

Thus a banal melodrama, often implausible, masquerading as film noir.

Frank Carmichael (Tom Tully) has been the acting warden forever. He does his best for the inmates but the governing body who is to decide if he is to become the permanent warden and sometimes even the inmates themselves do not appreciate his efforts. He does have a great and loving marriage with his wheelchair bound wife, Hilda (Sylvia Sidney).

Then, one day, there is a prison break and he's taken hostage by the escapees. There is a high speed chase and crash in which the only survivors were the driver for the convicts and the warden. This is after the warden shoots and kills an escaping con who happens to have a suitcase full of money - one hundred thousand dollars. And here you have the classic noir dilemma - A basically good man who is feeling wronged - in this case by his employer - and who is tempted, in this case by a sudden opportunity with only a short time to decide. The warden buries the money near the crash site and a moment later the police arrive and the driver of the convicts wakes up.

The driver, Johnny Hutchins (John Gavin) is arrested for the murder of the one cop who died in the escape. Johnny says he was not in on the escape, that he was taken hostage, but the police and the DA are not buying his story. He is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Now on the surface these look like two very different things - The warden keeping the stolen money and the driver being sentenced to death for murder. They are joined only by the fact that the warden was a witness in Johnny's murder trial, and he truthfully can only say that Johnny was the driver and that he didn't see him being forced to do anything. But then after the trial and sentencing the warden discovers proof of Johnny's innocence. But to reveal that proof would also reveal himself as a thief. Complications ensue.

So the second half of the movie amounts to the warden wrestling with his conscience, made doubly hard because every day he sees Johnny sitting on death row. His wife is part of the dilemma too since he told her about the money and she is tormented by the situation. The warden becomes short tempered and begins to drink more. Johnny becomes angrier because of his unjust fate. This could have become boring and claustrophobic because of the lack of action, but it is very well done and suspenseful.

I'd give this 9/10 if not for the occasional odd histrionics that the actors employ, some right out of techniques used in the silent era. For example, to show how upset Johnny is at one point he puts his fist in his mouth and grimaces. I thought it boiled down to lapses in direction, and it did turn out that the director was mainly a supporting actor during his career and not at all an experienced director. Later he'd switch to directing TV where he was more effective.

I'd definitely recommend it if you like a good noir.