20,000 Years in Sing Sing is a 1932 American PreCode drama film starring Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, and set in Sing Sing Penitentiary, the notorious maximum security prison in New York State. This movie was directed by Michael Curtiz and was based upon the nonfiction book Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing, which was written by Lewis E. Lawes, the warden of Sing Sing from 1920 to 1941. Spencer Tracy portrays an inmate and Bette Davis plays his girlfriend.
Connors makes trouble immediately, but several months confined to his cell changes his attitude somewhat. As the warden had predicted, Connors is only too glad to do some honest work on the rockpile after his enforced inactivity.Nonetheless, his determination to break out is unshaken. Bud Saunders Lyle Talbot, a highly educated fellow prisoner, recruits him and Hype Warren Hymer for a complicated escape attempt. By chance, however, it is scheduled for a Saturday, which Connors superstitiously regards as always unlucky for him. He backs out, forcing Saunders to take another volunteer. The warden is tipped off and, though two guards are killed, the escape is foiled. Trapped, Saunders jumps to his death. His two accomplices are captured and returned to their cells. ........
Source: Wikipedia