Review #603: 'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' (1932)

Based on Robert Elliot Burns' autobiographical novel I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, Mervyn LeRoy's powerful drama follows war veteran James Allen (Paul Muni) who starts life as a drifter to pursue his dream of engineering. Out of work and broke, he is tempted into a free burger at a diner by a fellow drifter, only to be caught up in a robbery, to which he is forced into participation. He is arrested, and sentenced to ten years on the Georgia chain gang, where he and his fellow jailbirds are routinely mistreated and occasionally flogged. He manages to escape, and after a short spell as a fugitive, manages to work his way up in an construction firm. Years later, having established himself as a prominent member of society, he is finally tracked down. Unwilling to turn him over state lines, his new city Chicago becomes embroiled in a battle of custody with Georgia, who want to return him to the chain gang for the remainder of his sentence.

Not merely a generic prison movie, I am a Fugitive... finds its power rooted in it's condemnation of the American justice system. It is claimed that Burns' experiences and eventual exposure of the barbaric nature of the chain gang led to its cancellation. These men work bare-backed in the blazing sun, hammering rocks and train lines and whatever else there is to strike, eating gruel unfit for an animal in between. These are hardened criminals (apart from Allen, who is certainly innocent, but whether Burns truly was is another question), so do they deserve a harsh punishment? Of course. Do they deserve to have their human rights taken away from them and to be treated like dogs? Certainly not. But it goes deeper than that, and, anchored by Muni's terrific performance, questions how a person can ever prove themselves fit for society. Allen becomes a pillar of his community, surely an indication of rehabilitation? And is the way to help a person get to this stage to beat them down at every turn, diminishing all sense of hope?

This being pre-Hays Code, LeRoy is allowed to take the movie to places you wouldn't stand a chance of seeing just a few years later. Allen enjoys the comfort of a prostitute, looking up and down her body with an animalistic look in his eyes, adding depth to a complex character, taking his arc from squeaky-clean optimist to flawed, damaged human being. Special mention must go to cinematographer Sol Polito, who captures the sweaty claustrophobia of the chain gang, as well as framing a rather savage flogging scene with Expressionist flair, giant shadows creeping up the walls. I also ask you to try and avoid squirming during the scene in which Allen has his shackles purposefully dented for his escape, the mallet crashing down on his ankle repeatedly. 81 years after its release, Fugitive still packs a considerable punch, highlighting a heavily flawed justice system that hasn't really learned from its mistakes (see the incredible Paradise Lost (1996-2011) documentaries for proof).


Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #590: 'The Bad Seed' (1956)

Hollywood had dealt with the precocious little girl before with the likes of insipid movie starlet Shirley Temple. But by the mid-1950's the sweetness and innocence of the diminutive lassies with pigtails and pretty summer dresses had been tarnished by the advent of youth movements, and particularly the media attention of juvenile delinquency. The parental fear of something sinister brewing within their own little treasure is addressed in The Bad Seed, and the horror archetype of the creepy, evil child was thrust onto cinema goers, a tool of the uncanny and frightening monstrosity that still finds an audience in modern cinema (Insidious (2010) or Mama (2013) for example).

But compared to the more direct horror of our modern child-monsters, Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack), the titular 'bad seed' of this narrative, presents herself as a wholly innocent girl, clinging onto parents and adults, subtly manipulating them with a pristine veneer, but hiding churlish glee. In early scenes Rhoda's doting landlady, Monica (Evelyn Varden), notices that whilst Rhoda's contemporaries wear the fashionable styles of the times (jeans and t-shirt), she still wears the attire of idealism - it seems, even in the '50's this vision of childhood is a lost image of Victoriana. But this is a petulant child, one of those girls who could 'scream and scream' until she gets what she wants (I've encountered a few adult "girls" who have the same temperament - encounters that are largely unpleasant).

After losing a gold medal award at her school, Rhoda and her school friends go out for a picnic, and, off-camera, she pesters the little boy who had rightfully won the award. At home her mother, Christine (Nancy Kelly), holding conversation largely about the hot topic of the time, psychoanalysis - a preoccupation that is thinly thread throughout the film, - hears on the radio of the news that a child at the school picnic has drowned becomes fraught with anguish. But on arrival home, the precocious Rhoda walks in stating that the incident was "fun". This detachment from the event concerns Christine, but as time goes by, the mother begins to suspect that Rhoda is not an innocent in this death, and begins to unravel her daughters manipulative nature, believing eventually that Rhoda is a murderer.

Aside from the heavy Freudian psycho-babble presented by the intellectuals that surround the Penmark family (the father, Col. Kenneth (William Hopper) is absent during Christine's mental collapse, away as he is for work), the film also portrays another social issue that still is topical today, the question of nature and nurture on the subject of child-rearing. As mother casts doubt upon the validity of her child's innocence, and begins to see the manipulative make-up of the girl, the issue of her own hereditary and parentage comes into question. This highlights rather naively, that there would be no way that a child raised in a stable home could commit any kind a atrocity, and that this behavioural trait is strictly for the lower classes. But this is a minor quibble.

The film came to the screen through novel written by Willaim March (who died the same year of publication, 1954), then through the stage production written by Maxwell Anderson, to the screenplay written by John Lee Mahin and directed by veteran director Mervyn LeRoy. It is brilliantly cast, and particular attention should go to McCormack's performance. As a girl who presents innocence, but has the ability to snap and commit murder, she brings those juxtapositions with bravado and skill. It is also a quite frightening performance. It was a low budget film that garnered four academy award nominations, and introduced the concept in horror cinema that the monster is not always the uncanny icons such as the wolf man, but that the monstrous lives within humans. This, four years before that horror trope began its enduring mark on cinema with Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). You may never look at an innocent little child in quite the same way again.


Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, Henry Jones, Eileen Heckart, William Hopper
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy

Review #460: 'Little Caesar' (1931)

"Mother of mercy. Is this the end of Rico?" The final words of Rico "Little " Casaer (Edward G. Robinson), a small-time criminal who moves to the city, along with his buddy Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). There they join Sam Vettori's gang. After Rico guns down the police commissioner during a robbery, his reputation grows, and he rises in the ranks, creating a monstrous ego. But with the rise of power and fortune comes betrayal, deceit, and the inevitable demise.

After the wall street crash of 1929, it was inescapable that the gangster film would become a huge box-office success. After all, these were men that took what they wanted, and lived in luxurious homes, and adorned with expensive jewellery. But with the glamorisation of crime, comes the moral paradox - and even here, in a film almost eighty years old, the message that a representation of good and evil is never that clear, and the concept is filled with grey areas. In the great depression, people instinctively mistrusted authority. After all, they were as corrupt as the gangsters that paid them.

With an electrifying performance by Robinson, he spits the snappy dialogue out as if he "were" the charismatic street criminal. He sneers at the camera, and is utterly magnetic. As Rico's relationship with Joe splinters, - Joe begins a love affair with the delectable Olga Stassoff (Glenda Farrel) - it soon turns nasty. But, soon the reality of the situation catches up to Rico, and, probable to a Hollywood movie, morality becomes its climax. Essential early talkie genre cinema. "Yeah! sho get-it watched. See!"


Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glenda Farrell, William Collier Jr.
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy

Review #4: 'Gold Diggers of 1933' (1933)

This masterpiece from 1933 is one of the best examples I've seen of early Hollywood exploitation, although by today's standards if you didn't already know it was controversial at the time you probably wouldn't notice. With the introduction of the talkies in the late 1920's, Hollywood seemed unable to control various movies using subtle innuendos, and actresses displaying a bit more skin than they should until the Hays Code came into full force in 1934, which enforced the boundaries as to what was deemed acceptable on screen. Gangsters profited from crime, women displayed their legs, and in the case of Gold Diggers Of 1933, women used their sexuality to conquer men and gain what they wanted.

Set during the Depression, it follows a quartet of stage dancers after their show is stopped due to the creative director failing to pay the bills. Things look on the up when the girls are asked to return for a brand new show, which would tackle the effects of the Depression on the common man and the state of the country. The enthusiastic director Barney (Ned Sparks) overhears the girls' neighbour Brad (Dick Powell) crooning a tune playing his piano, and invites him to play more tunes and eventually write the score for the upcoming musical. Barney also needs a lot of money to fund, something that Brad is happy to pay in case, much to the girls' suspicion.

It comes across as a film with two halves - the first focusing on the development of the musical, the relationship between Brad and dancer Polly (Ruby Keeler), and the confusion surrounding the shady Brad's situation. The second seeing fellow dancers Carol (Joan Blondell) and Trixie's (Aline MacMahon) attempts to squeeze as much cash as possible out of Barney's upper-class brother Lawrence (a brilliant Warren William) and bumbling Peabody (Guy Kibbee). The first is a masterclass of beautiful stage numbers, fantastic songs, and good old-fashioned escapism. The second is where the film hits full stride, providing laugh out loud situations and some verbal comedy that wouldn't look out place today, as the girls flirt with and tease the old men as we cheer them on. It's the kind of thing that Sex And The City wishes it could pull off when it isn't being so materialistic and soulless.

When you think it's over it pulls off one last masterstroke in the highly effective 'Remember My Forgotten Man' musical number, as Joan Blondell sings about how her man fought for her country and now begs for food and resorts to picking up discarded cigarette butts, as bloody soldiers march through the street. It's a beautiful moment and really sums up the era. It offers an insight into the whole Pre-Code Hollywood movement, where people would go to the cinema to escape their everyday struggles to see an actress like Blondell revealing a bit more leg than she should, or a Pre-Code veteran such as Warren William sneer his way through some juicy lines and villainous roles. It gave the general public that little something extra to get excited about.

This is a film that has everything, and if you can track it down I would urge you to see it. It's a fascinating time capsule, and even has a very early role for Ginger Rogers as the flirty Fay. It has also been entered into the National Film Registry for preservation by the Library of Congress. A must-see.


Directed by: Mervyn LeRoy
Starring: Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Dick Powell, Ruby Keeler, Ginger Rogers
Country: USA

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie