Prison stuff. In prison movies.
This is not a softcore exploitation movie, 1928-style. You’ll find it filed under ‘Gay-Themed Films of the German Silent Era.’ But while it is all of those things, it is also much more: a push for penal reform, a brave contribution to the debate about the purpose of punishment, and some poignant studies in guilt and prisoners’ longing for intimacy. (more…)
Posted on October 11th, 2009 at 7:19 pm. Updated on October 16th, 2009 at 6:12 am.
As a prison film, this is disappointing. But it’s disappointing because it is so faithful in its retelling of the story of the Georges Bizet opera (or the Prosper Mérimée novella, if you want to go back further), and the film’s prison scenes account for such a tiny proportion of the screen time. (more…)
Posted on October 11th, 2009 at 1:23 pm. Updated on August 28th, 2019 at 8:05 pm.
Yeah, it’s a bit schmaltzy at times, but this is an under-rated (or at least undeservedly less well known) addition to the prison sporting contest genre. It has its formulaic elements, too, but is a much better bet than the other rodeo movie of which I’m aware (Stir Crazy, 1980) and the series of The Longest Yard movies (which aren’t about rodeos but take prison sporting events to some very strange places). (more…)
Posted on October 4th, 2009 at 6:10 pm. Updated on January 12th, 2010 at 9:06 pm.
There’s a slight edginess to Stefania’s story which sets it apart, but not very far apart, from your traditional 1930s prison melodrama. (more…)
Posted on September 25th, 2009 at 10:29 pm. Updated on September 25th, 2009 at 10:44 pm.
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.
A remake of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing just eight years after that film’s release. Why? You might well ask. (more…)
Posted on September 13th, 2009 at 8:11 pm. Updated on September 14th, 2009 at 8:35 pm.
Convicts 4 what, exactly? Better scripts, perhaps. (more…)
Posted on September 12th, 2009 at 1:06 am. Updated on September 12th, 2009 at 2:09 pm.
Crime lord Yves Perret (Jack Palance) is aggrieved at the success that unorthodox cops Ray Tango (Sylvester Stallone) and Gabriel Cash (Kurt Russell) have had in busting his drugs and arms dealing operations. He hatches an evil plan. Rather than have them knocked (which would clearly be the easiest option), he wants them framed, tried, jailed, and then killed in jail. Make sense? As much as the rest of the movie… (more…)
Posted on August 30th, 2009 at 9:24 am. Updated on April 18th, 2020 at 1:21 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.
The blurb on the back of my DVD reads, “When a man is falsely convicted of the murder of his wife’s lover and ends up on death row, he develops intense relationships with three women.” It’s not a great movie, admittedly, and there is some detail in the plot to which you have to pay attention, but you’d hope that enough of the movie’s publicists would have stayed awake long enough to know that he was accused of killing his wife and then strung along four women romantically. His wife. Four women. (more…)
Posted on August 27th, 2009 at 6:37 pm. Updated on March 7th, 2016 at 10:44 pm.