I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Mervyn LeRoy

Writers:

Robert E. Burns (writer)
Howard J. Green (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

19 November 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir

Tagline:

Six sticks of dynamite that blasted his way to freedom... and awoke America's conscience!

Plot:

Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.

Plot Keywords:

Chain Gang | Prison | Tradesman | Social Issues | Barefoot

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 2 wins

Cast

Paul Muni	...	James Allen
Glenda Farrell	...	Marie Woods
Helen Vinson	...	Helen
Noel Francis	...	Linda
Preston Foster	...	Pete
Allen Jenkins	...	Convict Barney Sykes
Berton Churchill	...	The Judge
Edward Ellis	...	Convict Bomber Wells
David Landau	...	The Warden
Hale Hamilton	...	Reverend Robert Allen
Sally Blane	...	Alice
Louise Carter	...	Mother Allen
Willard Robertson	...	Prison Board Chairman
Robert McWade	...	Attorney F.E. Ramsey
Robert Warwick	...	Fuller

Also Known As:

I Am a Fugitive
I Am a Fugitive from the Chain Gang

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Vitaphone

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate number not assigned at release) | Australia:PG | Norway:16 (1933) | Finland:K-16 (1946) | Finland:(Banned) (1933)

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Atlanta, Georgia - Monday, October 10, 1939: Action bought by Vivian Stanley, a member of the Prison Commission of the State of Georgia, against Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., Vitagraph, Inc. and local exhibitors, Wilby and Holden, was won by the defendants when a verdict was rendered in the latter's favor in the Superior Court of Fulton County here. Plaintiff brought the suits trial of which commenced some three weeks ago, for $100,000 charging libel because of the content of the (1932)Warner feature, "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang."

Goofs:

Continuity: After James Allen's second escape from the chain gang, the last newspaper article shown onscreen states that he escaped "A little more than a year ago...". In the (final) scene that follows, Helen says to him, "It's been almost a year since you escaped."

Quotes:

Pete: I'm hungry. What would you say to a hamburger?
James Allen: What would I say to a hamburger? Boy. I'd take Mr. Hamburger by the hand and say, "Pal, I haven't seen you for a long, long time."

Movie Connections:

Featured in Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

The Darktown Strutters' Ball

Gutsy, and hard to forget

It took some courage to make this movie, and Warner Brothers was up to it. This is one of four such productions on the early 1930s that dealt with crime naturalistically. But the others -- "Public Enemy," "Little Caesar," and "Scarface" -- although investing the protagonists with recognizably human traits like jealousy or male bonding -- were nevertheless on the side of the state. Okay, he might love his Mamma, but he's still a menace to society. They all died violently in the end. Here, on the other hand, is a story in which the protagonist is completely innocent, guilty of nothing more than wanting to strike out on his own and accomplish something constructive after having been through hell in the army in World War I.

The state -- Georgia -- convicts him in error. He was forced into participating in the crime by a stranger, although to be sure he acted guilty enough. And, what with the real James Allen acting as consultant, and the film being based on his autobiographical book, who can really tell how unwilling a participant he was?

Still, the point of the movie is that even if were guilty of robbery, the punishment imposed by the state, the conditions at the chain gang, were inhuman. Let's say many sensible people would consider it "cruel and unusual." So Allen escapes the first time, just as Cool Hand Luke did. According to the movie he rises to prominence as a self-taught engineer, although, again, the point would remain the same even if he never rose above the station of busboy. Coerced into marriage by a domineering, greedy, and self-indulgent wife (whose autobiographical novel should have been a companion piece to Allen's), he finds himself falling for a "nice girl".

But his past catches up with him. His wife betrays him out of spite. The governor of Illinois is understandably reluctant to extradite a prominent citizen who has shown how socially valuable he is, but the representatives of Georgia insist on a symbolic retribution. Return to Georgia voluntarily, says the soothing, expensive Georgian. There'll be only a token service of, say, 90 days in a cushy job, then you'll be pardoned. Alas, he's thrown into an even more horrific penal servitude and his hearing is suspended indefinitely. So he pulls Cool Hand Luke's Excape Number Two, right down to the admiring companion who jumps aboard the truck with him.

This time there is no going back, at least not according to the movie. The final shot is heartbreaking. I don't know how much of this story can be believed insofar as Allen's character is concerned. Suppose you were to write an autobiography. Might you not come out looking a little better than you actually are? Oh, that God the giftie gie' us/ to see ourselves as others see us. But I believe the chain gang sequences allright. If Allen is fibbing about that, he's still done a good job of convincing me that these conditions were real. I've worked with Corrections Officers and while they might be tough and contemptuous towards inmates, they treated them fairly. But I can believe things were quite different in 1925 in Georgia. The South has an interesting way of dealing with deviance. Southerners tend to be polite, compassionate, and helpful. They go out of their way to be friendly -- until you break an important rule. Then you forfeit any claim to humane treatment. (You want to be executed? Murder somebody in Texas or Florida.)

In the course of the 1960s, the state became as much of an enemy as the criminal himself -- maybe moreso. But this movie was released in 1932, a time at which it still took guts to depict a social system so thoroughly corrupt and sadistict.

Catch this one, if you can.