Starring Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell and Helen Vinson
Produced by Warner Bros.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is based on a true life story of Robert Burns, a man sentenced to labor on a chain gang and subsequently escaped. In the film, Burns has been renamed as James Allen, a World War I veteran who returns to America to find it is much harder to achieve his dreams than he might have hoped.
In truth, the beginning of the movie is not great. Allen discovers that his old factory job is waiting for him, but turns it down to become an engineer. Only he cannot find a job as an engineer. So he engages in the all time dumbest job search I've ever seen.
He goes from New Jersey to Boston (because they are hiring in New England), gets and loses a job. Then he goes to New Orleans. Nothing. Then Osh-Kosh, Wisconsin. Then St. Louis. By now he is basically a hobo. It seems to be the most unfocused, unproductive job search of all time.
There is a nicely, realized small moment when, at the end of his financial rope, Allen tries to pawn his war medal. The shop owner shows him a case filled with the same medal. Clearly, he's not the only war hero to fall on hard times.
Allen eventually meets up with another hobo who offers to find him a handout at a local diner. Only the other man tries to rob the place. The criminal is killed but James is captured and sentenced to a prison chain gang.
The movie kicks into gear here. We see how horrific the conditions are. Men working a sledgehammer all day and needing to ask permission not just to go to the bathroom, but even to wipe the sweat off their brow. Each night, the guards would judge who didn't do enough work and they'd be whipped. The film doesn't flinch from showing the brutality.
Allen escapes and changes his name to the unimaginative Alan James. But he's never free. His landlady becomes his girlfriend and blackmails him into marriage when she discovers his history. He has to hide his face every time he crosses paths with a policeman.
Ultimately, he becomes a highly successful engineer and falls in love. He attempts to divorce his current unloving and unfaithful wife, but she follows through on her threat and it becomes a tug of war between his current home state of Illinois and Georgia where he served his time.
The film asks interesting questions about the nature of crime and punishment, but leaves the audience to reach its own conclusions. It also exposes a terrible punishment to which we once subjected fellow citizens. They built our roads and railroads, but under barbaric conditions.
As a film, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is above average. More than that though, I found myself turning to Google just to learn more about chain gangs. And any film that encourages the viewer to engage with history deserves a strong recommend.
**** out of *****
0 comments:
Post a Comment