I thought that this was a variation on the theme played out in several films – including The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), Devil’s Island (1939) and Hellgate (1952) – where doctors (and one veterinarian) treat injured felons because they’re injured, and then get charged with being an accessory. This is a little different; the small town doctor here does take a bullet from the chest of a young man (whom he had delivered 26 years previously and known all his life), but also gives him money and hides him for a few days – in doing so knowingly helping him evade arrest. So he might be a little more culpable than some other doctors in those other movies. (more…)
Posted on December 12th, 2013 at 11:08 am. Updated on December 12th, 2013 at 11:08 am.
Three years after The Concrete Jungle was released, a film called Concrete Hell (aka Turning to Stone) hit the cinemas in Canada. There are plenty of parallels between the two, aside from their shared interest in building materials used in prison construction. Both feature young women charged with cocaine importation who are deserted by their male partners and dropped into brutal prisons which are controlled by big-haired queen bees. The Concrete Jungle definitely came first. Turning to Stone is definitely better. (more…)
Posted on November 27th, 2013 at 9:09 pm. Updated on November 27th, 2013 at 9:09 pm.
There’s no place like prison to learn that your lover is a loser… and then fall in love again. Just ask Jean Forest. (more…)
Posted on November 18th, 2013 at 8:16 pm. Updated on November 18th, 2013 at 8:16 pm.
There is no shortage of messages here. “Prison is a state of mind; the walls, the bars, the locks, the barbed wire,” is the upfront one, direct from director Sananjit Bangsapan. But then the leading lady boasts that ‘Stoicism overcomes all’, and others’ stories remind us that ‘One doesn’t have to be in prison to be imprisoned’. Or for life to be tough, for that matter. And finally we’re cautioned, by one who should know, that ‘Sex causes trouble’. So many messages! So little consequence. (more…)
Posted on November 13th, 2013 at 8:39 pm. Updated on August 28th, 2019 at 8:01 pm.
Unchained is the story of one man’s struggle – with the unerringness of his belief that he’s always in the right, and against the temptation to escape. But it is (or was) also an opportunity for America’s first major minimum-security prison at Chino (the California Institute for Men) to showcase itself – and its first warden, Kenyon J Scudder, on whose book Prisoners are People the film is partly based. (more…)
Posted on August 29th, 2013 at 10:45 pm. Updated on August 29th, 2013 at 10:55 pm.
“Molly, no girl goes on fighting the world just for the kicks she gets out of it. There’s always a reason. In your case, it could be something that happened in your early life,” proffers Superintendent Norma Calvert. “I never got over being born,” Molly says drily. (more…)
Posted on August 18th, 2013 at 3:06 pm. Updated on August 18th, 2013 at 3:06 pm.
Back in 2006 this was released as a movie on DVD. It had been Hugh Jackman’s first major screen role a decade or more earlier, and the marketers were no doubt looking to cash in on his X-Men fame. Yet it’s not a movie at all, but rather the unedited (and conveniently feature-length) first episode of the Correlli TV series, masquerading as something else. (more…)
Posted on July 29th, 2013 at 11:03 pm. Updated on August 3rd, 2013 at 8:47 pm.
Is this any less of a prison movie because it concerns a prison for children as imagined by a child? Possibly. (more…)
Posted on June 26th, 2013 at 10:13 pm. Updated on June 26th, 2013 at 10:15 pm.
I’m not overly conversant with the horror genre, but I think that what this movie is trying to say is that it is a horrible job being a prison warden. (more…)
Posted on March 31st, 2013 at 1:22 pm. Updated on March 16th, 2014 at 8:30 am.
Some movies just make you feel old. I hadn’t seen any of the previous 7,069 Naruto manga or anime (or any of the previous seven films) which might have helped, but I still had this unsettling sense, as I struggled to keep up with the plot, of 7-year-old Japanese kids (any 7-year-old kids, really) taking it all in with ease. (more…)
Posted on January 16th, 2013 at 9:01 pm. Updated on January 16th, 2013 at 9:01 pm.