Correctional Officer Dan Cappelli (James Russo) embarks on a sexual relationship with a prisoner, then helps her escape, and is later involved in a gun fight in which she dies. “It’s strange, ” he says. “I never got to know her. Still, I will never forget her.” But then, Dan, you’ve got a memory like an elephant! Most of us struggle to remember our own names, let alone women who’ve seduced us, dragged us into lives of crime and forced us to live as fugitives! (more…)
Posted on September 19th, 2009 at 7:10 pm. Updated on September 27th, 2009 at 7:07 pm.
I wonder if audiences in 1938 felt at all cheated, expecting to see a dramatic prison break and getting nothing of the sort. Well, that’s not entirely true; we do see an attempted escape, which our hero thwarts, and we learn much later that there has been a successful break. But those incidents are far from the main game. Perhaps Break is used here in the sense of an ‘interruption’ to or a ‘brief rest’ from civilian life. (more…)
Posted on August 28th, 2009 at 10:14 pm. Updated on March 11th, 2017 at 8:24 pm.
James Cagney as the ruthless, psychopathic gangster ‘Cody’ Jarrett holds this film noir classic together. He’s not your everyday, two-dimensional gangster. His third dimension comes principally in the shape of his pathological relationship with his fiercely protective Ma (Margaret Wycherly), whom Cody loves more than his vapid wife Verna (Virginia Mayo). More than anything, in fact. He’s also prone to crippling headaches and a deteriorating mental state which render him temporarily vunerable, but when his Ma is around she makes sure that his position as gang leader is never compromised. (more…)
Posted on August 25th, 2009 at 10:16 pm. Updated on August 25th, 2009 at 10:29 pm.
It’s hard not to enjoy a movie about a progressive girls’ borstal where the main character, Ann (Jill Ireland), is warned that her monthly visit with her father must be short, and the visit is then terminated after precisely 1 minute 12 seconds. When she pleads for a little longer, she’s told, “I’m afraid the rules have to be obeyed.” Wonderful stuff. (more…)
Posted on August 24th, 2009 at 2:53 pm. Updated on September 1st, 2009 at 9:55 pm.
If there’s an earlier, full-length, talkie prison comedy, I haven’t heard of it. Well, Pardon Us, I suppose, and Hold ‘Em Jail, but they’re a bit like silent movies with words, in parts. And Up the River (1930), though that’s a comedy-drama. There may be fifty others; I don’t know. I do know, however, that there are plenty worse prison comedies than this one. (more…)
Posted on August 1st, 2009 at 10:23 pm. Updated on November 30th, 2013 at 10:57 am.
They don’t get any more melodramatic than this. Thankfully. (more…)
Posted on June 21st, 2009 at 3:58 pm. Updated on September 27th, 2009 at 8:11 pm.
I’m deeply, deeply suspicious of any film where the Director casts himself in the lead role and not only gives himself the best lines, but gets to bed the beautiful woman and be the hero all at the one time. Not even Woody Allen can always pull that off, and Rob Schneider certainly can’t in this limp, misconceived comedy. But it’s not just that. This is a one-joke movie, and when that one joke concerns homosexual rape, or any rape (even if it’s mostly about the avoidance of rape), it’s going to have trouble making me laugh.
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Posted on May 31st, 2009 at 6:15 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:42 pm.
Literally ‘The Hot Death’, and an absolute shocker. Made by a director who apparently went on to make some ‘legendary’ exploitation movies, this is a boring, limp-scripted, horribly acted, and uninspired effort. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 11:57 pm. Updated on August 11th, 2013 at 12:02 pm.
It sadly says much about the world that there could be ten Ernest P Worrell movies. This is the third or fourth, and I’m pleased to say that I haven’t seen any of the other nine. It seems that the character was created for a series of TV ads and just grew from there; how remains a mystery. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 11:52 pm. Updated on August 23rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm.
Ringo Lam (who directed the Hong Kong Prison on Fire movies) directs this as well, but if that gives you some optimism, the fact that it stars Jean-Claude Van Damme probably won’t. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 7:25 pm. Updated on March 8th, 2016 at 3:02 pm.