Prison stuff. In prison movies.
Made by some of the same people who brought you Police Academy I and II. That’s as much as you need to know, really. Or if it’s not, the fact that it has yet to make its way to a DVD release probably tells you much the same thing. (more…)
Posted on December 2nd, 2012 at 7:08 pm. Updated on December 19th, 2013 at 7:57 pm.
One can imagine Ronnie Barker, not much more than an extra in this movie, sitting back and watching Charlie Drake play a too-eager-to-please prisoner in a delightful old British nick and thinking, “If I just made him gruffer, more of a rogue, less honest… it’d be funnier.” And then going away and making Porridge 10 or so years later, to so much more acclaim than this ever achieved. Which isn’t to say that The Cracksman has no merit. (more…)
Posted on November 27th, 2012 at 8:38 pm. Updated on November 27th, 2012 at 8:38 pm.
You know what you’re getting with the Naked Gun series, and questions like, “Is it sensible to select a high-profile cop to go undercover in a large maximum-security prison?” are happily irrelevant. (more…)
Posted on November 20th, 2012 at 8:15 pm. Updated on November 20th, 2012 at 8:15 pm.
In some ways this is the antithesis of an action movie; an accidental political prisoner becomes a celebrated revolutionary leader, also by accident, after he invents a board game in prison. If there is such a thing, it is quite possibly an inaction movie, and all the better for it. (more…)
Posted on November 2nd, 2012 at 9:20 pm. Updated on January 1st, 2017 at 9:04 am.
Late in 1927 The Jazz Singer was released, becoming the first ‘talkie’ blockbuster – and condemning this silent epic to a much smaller audience than it perhaps deserved. It was a decidedly international co-production, with the director (Norman Dawn) and the principal actors all American, but the story a quintessentially Australian one. (more…)
Posted on November 1st, 2012 at 7:42 pm. Updated on November 1st, 2012 at 7:52 pm.
Martin Flavin’s 1929 stage play of the same name was made into a film four times, it seems: this one – and possibly an alternative Spanish version, El código penal – in 1931, Penitentiary (1938), and Convicted (1950). Not even The Longest Yard (1974) has had as many remakes, and one of those at least featured a change of football codes; all the Criminal Code productions are virtually scene-by-scene replications.
Posted on October 30th, 2012 at 10:10 am. Updated on April 9th, 2013 at 10:11 pm.
Part prison movie, part undertaking movie, part discovering-where-you-came-from-and-who-you-are movie. (more…)
Posted on October 16th, 2012 at 1:04 pm. Updated on October 16th, 2012 at 1:04 pm.
A remake of the 1926 silent film of the same name, Devil’s Island also shares a lot in common with The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), Those High Grey Walls (1939) and the later Hellgate (1952); all have the chief protagonist providing medical assistance to a wounded reprobate and then being charged with being an accomplice. The hero in this one, however, seems less a victim of circumstance. (more…)
Posted on October 11th, 2012 at 7:53 pm. Updated on October 11th, 2012 at 8:00 pm.
Looking for creative solutions to prison overcrowding? Try this for size. (more…)
Posted on October 7th, 2012 at 9:11 pm. Updated on August 28th, 2019 at 8:02 pm.
I was hoping that the 20 minutes of action in this film that takes place in a prison – 20 minutes more, it must be said, than The Defiant Ones (1958), on which the story is loosely (and not very seriously) based – might have given this a prison movie feel. I was wrong. (more…)
Posted on October 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 pm. Updated on November 19th, 2012 at 8:33 pm.