When Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels was first released, the US Government’s Office of Censorship, not wishing to hand any propagandist advantage to its World War II enemies, declined to approve it for international release on the basis of its “long sequence showing life in a prison chain gang which is most objectionable because of the brutality and inhumanity with which the prisoners are treated.” That ‘long sequence’ runs to just 12 minutes, and in terms of depictions of chain gangs, is well down the brutality scale. What’s more, it’s quite possible that more damaging to the high moral ground occupied by the US was Sturges’ satirical treatment of the Hollywood culture. (more…)
Posted on October 13th, 2010 at 8:50 pm. Updated on October 13th, 2010 at 8:55 pm.
An HIV-AIDS diagnosis. A prison sentence. These men are lumbered with both, held doubly captive. Doubly reviled. Life sentences, and not much of a life at that. (more…)
Posted on August 24th, 2010 at 10:52 pm. Updated on August 25th, 2010 at 6:43 am.
As the bound hero Ji Kang Hyuk (Lee Sung Jai) is dangled upside-down above a bucket of water and beaten, you could be forgiven for thinking that the title of this movie is an irony-laden reference to prison conditions in Korea. You don’t expect it to be the title of the Bee Gees’ song which he asks to play as he martyrs himself to the causes of equal justice for all and bringing about an end to harsh, unjust sentences. (more…)
Posted on July 31st, 2010 at 10:45 pm. Updated on August 1st, 2010 at 11:15 pm.
With all the fuss about 2009’s Un Prophète being a prison movie masterpiece – if not a masterpiece in any genre – this less celebrated Spanish prison film may have been overlooked. It might not be in the same class – it’s certainly no masterpiece – but there’s an awful lot to like. (more…)
Posted on June 27th, 2010 at 5:15 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2019 at 8:47 pm.
This is an exploitation movie, of a different kind. 1930s-style. (more…)
Posted on May 30th, 2010 at 8:06 pm. Updated on May 30th, 2010 at 8:06 pm.
This is a pretty faithful remake of the 1932 film of the same name. It is better, but you wonder a bit why they bothered to do it all again. (more…)
Posted on May 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 pm. Updated on May 22nd, 2010 at 11:03 pm.
This is the sort of movie that gives prisons a bad name. And filmmakers a worse one. (more…)
Posted on April 24th, 2010 at 9:00 pm. Updated on April 26th, 2010 at 12:06 am.
It has just about everything, this movie with prison reform at its rather smug heart – violent escape bids, papier-mâché dummies in beds, murders, a brutal Warden… And it’s the only prison movie I know where the prison itself does the narration, not unlike Mr Ed: (more…)
Posted on April 12th, 2010 at 9:19 pm. Updated on August 19th, 2012 at 5:18 pm.
In 1939 Mutiny in the Big House hit the cinemas, with an awfully idealised portrait of a prison chaplain. This movie, released the following year, gives us much the same fare – but because the chaplain is distrusted and reviled for most of it, it’s much more palatable. (more…)
Posted on April 4th, 2010 at 8:29 pm. Updated on April 4th, 2010 at 8:29 pm.
I confess that haven’t seen the original Green Street Hooligans, and I don’t think I’ll be tracking it down soon. Mind you, those who have seen both seem to agree on two things: that this film is the inferior of the two and the sort of sequel that gives sequels a bad name. (more…)
Posted on March 28th, 2010 at 2:11 pm. Updated on March 28th, 2010 at 2:11 pm.