CONNECTION TO PREVIOUS ENTRY: Howard Duff
SOURCE: Personal Collection, Criterion Blu ray
STARRING: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford
CO-STARS: Yvonne DeCarlo, Ann Blyth, Ella Raines, Howard Duff
DIRECTOR: Jules Dassin
STUDIO: Universal
SUMMARY: At the beginning of the film, inmate Joe Collins (Lancaster) is being escorted from solitary confinement back to his regular prison cell with his fellow inmates. He is very upset and angry about the circumstances leading to him being placed in solitary. It would seem that a fellow inmate ratted him out for being in possession of a weapon. To his cellmates, Soldier (Duff), Gallagher (Bickford), and Lister (Whit Bissell) he vows revenge on the stool pigeon, as well as his plans for escaping the prison. Adding to the drama at the prison is Captain Munsey (Cronyn), the sadistic supervisor who is gunning for the Warden’s job. The warden is already under fire for a perceived lack of discipline at the prison. To show his ability to discipline, Munsey purposely creates situations and then manipulates the inmates into snitching. He then disciplines the inmate who was snitched on. It would seem that Joe was a recent victim of that tactic, which is what led to his solitary confinement. Munsey is warned by the oft-drunk prison doctor that his tactics are going to boil over at some point, and when it happens, it won’t be pretty. The scenes of the prison drama are broken up by three short vignettes, showcasing the female partners (DeCarlo, Blyth, and Raines) in three of the inmates’ lives and the circumstances leading to their incarceration.
FAVORITE PART(S):
1) The ending when the situation finally boils over and Munsey is ill-prepared. He is so vile, the audience roots for the prisoners to give him the comeuppance that he deserves.
2) It was a rather violent scene, but the scene towards the beginning of the film where one of the stool pigeons is dealt with in a rather gruesome way.
3) The pin-up in the cell that served as a stand-in for the female love interest in each man’s life. Each man could look at the pin-up photo and imagine it was their girlfriend/wife.
4) How completely horrible Munsey is. I do love a good villain.
BEST QUOTE(S):
DR. WALTERS (to Munsey): That’s why you’d never resign from this prison. Where else would you find so many helpless flies to stick pins into?
DR. WALTERS: Nobody escapes. Nobody ever really escapes.
GALLAGHER: The gates only open three times. When you come in, when you’ve served your time, or when you’re dead!
MUNSEY: I’m a realist. I don’t believe in coincidence. Especially when it happens more than once.
GALLAGHER: It’ll only make things tougher for everybody else.
JOE: I don’t care about everybody else.
GALLAGHER: That’s cemetery talk.
JOE: Why not, we’re buried, a’int we? Only thing is, we a’int dead!
MUNSEY: Just remember there’s no reward for bringing ’em back alive. Not in this jungle.