Editing The Big House (1930 film) (section)

==Evaluation in film guides==
''[[Steven H. Scheuer's TV Movie Almanac & Ratings 1958 & 1959]]'' gave ''The Big House'' a "Good" rating of 3 stars (out of 4), summarizing its plot as "[D]esperate convicts try a prison break", with the evaluation, "[T]his early example of prison melodrama is still entertaining". ''[[Leonard Maltin's TV Movies & Video Guide]]'' (1989 edition) also put the rating at 3 (out of 4 stars), describing it as "[T]he original prison drama" and indicating that "this set the pattern for all later copies; it's still good, hard-bitten stuff with one of Beery's best tough-guy roles". In the third edition (2015) of his ''Classic Movie Guide'', Maltin also mentioned the surviving French and Spanish-language versions and added that "Charles Boyer stars in the former".

British references had some positive words for the film, with the 1984 edition of ''[[David Shipman's The Good Film and Video Guide]]'' giving 1 star out of 4 ("Recommended with reservations"), noting that it is "[An] untypical MGM film, about prison life which is now laughably conventional but was then very influential". Shipman describes Wallace Beery and Chester Morris as "two old lags" and Robert Montgomery as "the wealthy guy too weak for the system". [[Leslie Halliwell]] in the 5th edition (1985) of his ''Film and Video Guide'', rated it 2 stars out of 4 and described it as an "[A]rchetypal prison melodrama and a significant advance in form for early talkies."