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.
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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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 3rd, 2012 at 9:34 pm. Updated on November 19th, 2012 at 8:33 pm.
“Federal agent Hart (Jack Holt) goes undercover in prison in order to get the goods on a drug syndicate,” says the blurb. Well, yes he does. For the first 3 minutes and 42 seconds… then, no more. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 30th, 2012 at 4:44 pm. Updated on September 30th, 2012 at 4:44 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. Read the rest of this entry »
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.
Just how many mad scientists did Boris Karloff play? In films released in 1939-40 alone, he was in The Man They Could Not Hang (1939), Black Friday (1940), The Man with Nine Lives (1940) and The Ape (1940). And this one. One suspects that screenwriters were getting a little low on new ideas. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 16th, 2012 at 6:01 pm. Updated on September 16th, 2012 at 6:01 pm.
Part escape thriller, part coming-of-age story, part religious fable. This is, unsurprisingly, a story about a ceremony, full of pomp and ritual and tradition and heavy symbolism. It’s about an execution.
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Posted on September 4th, 2012 at 9:12 pm. Updated on September 4th, 2012 at 9:38 pm.