Wallace Beery, The Big House

as MACHINE GUN BUTCH

A dormant beast. That's how I would describe Wallace Beery's Machine Gun Butch. And it is a perfectly fitting role for Beery to boot--that bulldog mug of his can be goofy and lovable as well as brutish and terrifying when the situation calls for it. It's interesting that he was the one singled out in a film chockful of great performances seeing as his isn't the largest in The Big House (in fact, he disappears for a big chunk of the film's middle) but it's not surprising; it's the loudest and flashiest performance in the picture. Beery has got the tough guy type down to a t, and yet there are shades to Butch that make him pretty adorable, like a cuddly bear if you will. What I liked most was that any sentimentality we feel towards the character is summoned unpretentiously rather than forced down our throats a la The Champ...we're neither blatantly asked to love or hate him. He plays Machine Gun Butch like a child in those prison scenes for much of the film--unruly and immature, controlled by authorities...he's such a silly, stupid goof that it's made all the more shocking when he morphs into the very savage killer his name suggests later on in the picture, with a highlight being that vicious scowl of betrayal he shoots Chester Morris. He's a completely different person, filled with animalistic rage, and I found it to be a chilling characterization.