Up the River

Two convicts, St. Louis and Dannemora Dan, befriend another convict named Steve, who is in love with woman's-prison inmate Judy. Steve is paroled, promising Judy that he will wait for her release five months later. He returns to his hometown in New England and his mother's home.

He is followed there by Judy's former "employer", the scam artist Frosby. Frosby threatens to expose Steve's prison record if the latter refuses to go along with a scheme to defraud his neighbors. Steve goes along with it until Frosby defrauds his mother. At this moment St. Louis and Dannemora Dan break out of prison and come to Steve's aid, taking away a gun he planned to use on the fraudster, instead stealing back bonds stolen by Frosby. They return to prison in time for its annual baseball game against a rival penitentiary. The film closes with St. Louis on the pitcher's mound with his catcher, Dannemora Dan, presumably ready to lead their team to victory.^[1][2]

• Spencer Tracy as Saint Louis
• Claire Luce as Judy Fields
• Warren Hymer as Dannemora Dan
• Humphrey Bogart as Steve Jordan
• Morgan Wallace as Frosby (Uncredited)
• William Collier, Sr. as Pop
• Joan Lawes as Jean
• Bob Burns as Slim - Bazooka Player (Uncredited and in blackface)
• Edythe Chapman as Mrs. Jordan (Uncredited)
• Ward Bond as Inmate Socked by Saint Louis (Uncredited)
• Steve Pendleton as Morris (Uncredited)^[3]

Tracy had previously starred in two Warner Bros. shorts earlier the same year and Bogart had been an unbilled extra in a silent film, as well as starring in two shorts. Up the River is the first credited feature film for both actors, and is the only film that Tracy and Bogart ever appeared in together. Both had been cast in The Desperate Hours in 1955, but neither would consent to second billing, so the role intended for Tracy went to Fredric March instead. Bogart is listed fourth after top-billed Tracy in Up the River but his role is equally large and his likeness is featured prominently on posters that did not include Tracy's image. This is the only film Bogart made with director John Ford. Nearly three decades later, Ford directed Tracy again in The Last Hurrah (1958).

After Up the River, Fox gave Spencer Tracy a contract as a leading man for the studio. Although Tracy's Fox films are highly regarded and considered classics ninety years later, very few made money when initially released so Tracy was eventually fired by Fox, then quickly snapped up by producer Irving Thalberg at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he became an extremely successful star.

• List of baseball films

• New England Vintage Film Society, ed. (2008). Spencer Tracy: The Pre-Code Legacy of a Hollywood Legend. Newton, MA: New England Vintage Film Society. ISBN 978-1-4363-4138-7.

• Up the River at IMDb
• Up the River at AllMovie
• Up the River at the TCM Movie Database