6000 ENEMIES

US, 1939, 62 minutes, Black and white.
Walter Pidgeon, Rita Johnson, Paul Kelly, Nat Pendleton, Grant Mitchell, John Arledge, Guinn Williams, J.M. Kerrigan.
Directed by George B. Seitz.

6000 Enemies looks like a Warner Bros film, and is related in theme to Each Dawn I Die with James Cagney. It is a law film, a prison film, a gangster film.

Walter Pidgeon, emerging as a top actor at this stage, portrays a hard-as-nails DA, ambitious, who sends many people to Sing Sing, including Rita Johnson who is innocent. However, he is then framed by a New York gangster and himself is sent to Sing Sing. He wants to be with the prisoners, however there is a riot sequence in which he is attacked. The gangster sends thugs to kill him in prison, including Nat Pendleton who is sympathetic after the DA puts up a good fight. Paul Kelly appears as the sympathetic prison doctor. Grant Mitchell is the dim-witted prison warden, more interested in his meals and the decor of his room than in the welfare of the prisoners.

The film also shows the assassination of the DA's younger brother outside Sing Sing. Eventually, becoming more friendly with Rita Johnson who saves his life, he is able to get information which acquits him – and acquits her, for a happy ending.

Direction is by George B. Seitz who had made four Andy Hardy films at this stage and was to make the others before his untimely death in 1944. This is an MGM film, but looks like a Warner Bros film – and is a tough, improbable, but enjoyable supporting feature.