Prison stuff. In prison movies.
You’ve got to wonder why someone would still feel the need to make a movie like this, as if “Let’s drop an ordinary decent guy and a sadistic guard into an episode of America’s Hardest Prisons” has never been done before. Or warrants a re-run. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:49 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Feel-good comedy starring Burt Reynolds, filmed partly on location at Georgia State Prison, Reidsville. This is the original (and supposedly better) of the two Longest Yards, and apart from being a prison film is also considered by many as the best gridiron movie ever made. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:47 pm. Updated on March 4th, 2010 at 9:38 pm.
In January 1939 Henri Young was one of four prisoners who took part in a failed attempt to escape from Alcatraz. This film purports to give a ‘fact-based’ account of his story. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:44 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
It’s hard to know what to make of a film which has the tagline “Liberty is not just a brand of yoghurt!” It’s a curious French-Canadian mix of titillation and pretension, of comedy and drama, and it winds up not working entirely on any level. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm. Updated on February 13th, 2010 at 11:11 pm.
It’s hard to know whether this fits into the prison movie genre or the slightly more esoteric university research movie genre. But I’ll pretend it’s the former, because it is all about imprisonment even if the people aren’t in prison. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:38 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
This is an old-fashioned tear-jerker, under the guise of a film with something important to say about prisoners’ capacity to change, amongst other things. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm. Updated on April 25th, 2020 at 5:42 pm.
There’s much to like in this horror film which dips its lid to the 1960 French prison classic Le Trou. Like Le Trou, almost all of the action takes place in a shared prison cell, and the strength of the film is in the characterisations, the complex relationships between the cell-mates, and its unhurried pace which matches the ordinariness of the prison routine. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
First written by Miguel Piñero as a play while he was a prisoner in Sing Sing, and then shot in ‘The Tombs’ – the Men’s House of Detention in Manhattan, it’s not surprising that this has an authentic feel to it. Piñero also played a minor character in the movie, but missed its premiere as he was back inside on an armed robbery charge. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:27 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
One of the better 30s prison films, thanks to fine performances from Jimmy Cagney and George Raft. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.
Also known as The Concrete Jungle. Advertised when it was released as ‘The Toughest Movie Ever Made in Britain’, this is part underworld movie and part prison movie. (more…)
Posted on May 16th, 2009 at 3:20 pm. Updated on August 21st, 2009 at 6:45 pm.