When Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels was first released, the US Government’s Office of Censorship, not wishing to hand any propagandist advantage to its World War II enemies, declined to approve it for international release on the basis of its “long sequence showing life in a prison chain gang which is most objectionable because of the brutality and inhumanity with which the prisoners are treated.” That ‘long sequence’ runs to just 12 minutes, and in terms of depictions of chain gangs, is well down the brutality scale. What’s more, it’s quite possible that more damaging to the high moral ground occupied by the US was Sturges’ satirical treatment of the Hollywood culture. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 13th, 2010 at 8:50 pm. Updated on October 13th, 2010 at 8:55 pm.
Pittsburgh, 1901; splendidly cold and bleak. Two brothers are on Death Row for 90 robberies in 90 days, including one crucial one in which a grocer was shot and killed. One brother, Jack Biddle (Matthew Modine), is almost certainly innocent of the murder; his brother Ed (Mel Gibson), might be as well. They are bad boys but charismatic enough, apparently, to make women swoon and jealous men doubly intent on seeing them hang. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 12th, 2010 at 2:14 pm. Updated on October 12th, 2010 at 2:14 pm.
With much of Europe at war, what was clearly needed from Hollywood was an escapist prison drama; an attractive, wrongly accused heroine opposed by an even more beautiful top dog, and a reformist Superintendent with a strong belief in the inherent goodness of the women under her control. It’s a close cousin to 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932, and its variants), with the honor system coming through unscathed after a very big test. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on October 3rd, 2010 at 7:28 pm. Updated on March 9th, 2016 at 7:37 pm.
There are quite a number of prison films where a prisoner falls in love with the Warden’s daughter. There are not so many where the prisoner falls in love with the Warden’s wife – other than this one and Mrs. Soffel (1984). And, no doubt, a number of others that you will tell me about. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 26th, 2010 at 6:12 pm. Updated on October 12th, 2010 at 2:20 pm.
The Bowery Boys made 48 movies, apparently, at a rate of 4 or 5 offerings a year in their heyday. This was their 19th. Maybe the formula was getting a bit tired, or maybe this was a mere blip and the other 47 are full of noirish, humour-tinged drama or straight-out effervescent wit. Whatever the problem, the word ‘lame’ was invented just for films such as this. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on September 24th, 2010 at 8:38 pm. Updated on June 17th, 2020 at 4:07 pm.
On 30 December 1947 twelve prisoners escaped from the Colorado State Prison in Cañon City. Now, some prisons might be embarrassed that their security systems were so comprehensively overwhelmed and defeated. Not this one. By 30 June 1948 this film was showing in the cinemas, celebrating the event, with the prison’s Warden, Roy Best, even taking a starring role, playing himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 28th, 2010 at 11:57 pm. Updated on August 30th, 2010 at 10:43 pm.
An HIV-AIDS diagnosis. A prison sentence. These men are lumbered with both, held doubly captive. Doubly reviled. Life sentences, and not much of a life at that. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 24th, 2010 at 10:52 pm. Updated on August 25th, 2010 at 6:43 am.
The final credits contain the normal disclaimer about the events depicted being fictitious and not representing any actual persons, living or dead. Really, in a story about a young man who takes on the job of executioner at the jail in which his brother is on Death Row, and who falls in love with (and then impregnates) his brother’s ex-girlfriend who is also on Death Row, it’s a bit unnecessary. One would hope. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 19th, 2010 at 10:25 pm. Updated on August 19th, 2010 at 10:25 pm.
It’s a different time. The film’s opening sequence shows a trustee prisoner in a prison car collecting a young girl from a bus stop in the middle of the night. He takes her to the home of the Cragmoor State Prison Warden, where he and his wife console her. It transpires that she is the girlfriend of a young man awaiting execution for the murder of a gangsterish politician. Fair enough; I’m sure lots of Wardens put their prisons’ and their own resources at the disposal of Death Row inmates’ families. No blurred boundaries there that I can see. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 7th, 2010 at 6:40 pm. Updated on August 7th, 2010 at 6:40 pm.
When people talk about prison movies or the prison movie genre, I don’t think they have this film in mind. It’s a film about a political prisoner being sustained through four years of harsh imprisonment by her Christian faith, and how the strength of that faith changed others. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on August 2nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm. Updated on August 24th, 2010 at 8:16 pm.