Prison stuff. In prison movies.
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.
I’m not keen on sci-fi prison movies, so it’s good that while this is set ‘sometime in the future’, it’s hardly futuristic, with very 1980s-90s cars and fashion and people speaking on pay phones. But like Fortress (1992), it provides a wonderful illustration of real prison innovation. (more…)
Posted on September 25th, 2012 at 10:16 pm. Updated on September 25th, 2012 at 10:20 pm.
Comparisons between this and A Prophet (2009) are inevitable; for a while, the trajectories of the main protagonists in both movies, two young men introduced into hostile new prisons, are almost identical.
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Posted on September 18th, 2012 at 9:18 pm. Updated on September 18th, 2012 at 9:18 pm.