Since I am always ready to poke fun at the people who shop,collect and hoard unnecessary things around the house, now it is my turn to admit that occasionally I do the same. After all, this is kind of society we live in, products, products, products. So - among the books I bought but had not touched yet and CDs that I liked for a while and than forgot, there is a pile of DVDs I have ordered via US web site oldies.com because at the time it seemed like a great idea - movies are great but for some strange reason once I got them, I put them aside and continued with collecting other things. And believe you me, I still have some of these DVDs a years later without actually ever watching them so last evening I finally got my head around one of these movies.
"I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932) turns out to be one of the best movies of that era and its a darn classic. Set in stone. Not only its well made for this early times (with human touch Frank Capra would be proud of), immensely popular at the time of release and very important in changing public opinion about prison circumstances but its kind of grandfather of all prison movies. One of those old black & white movies that still have power to glue you to a screen.
Paul Muni was nominated for Academy Award for this role and he should have probably got it for his portrait of ordinary, decent man swept away in circumstances. He is truly perfect for this role, with his sensitive face and honest eyes, basically a good guy who upon returning home from war with his medals finds himself restless and changed - he rejects murderous routine and stability of his previous factory job and wants to get out and "find himself" (very modern notion for 1930s!) ending in really heroic but ultimately depressing and dangerous situations. Trough the movie, again and again he is rising up just to be brutally crushed down and its impossible not to root for him since he is really the only nice, positive character around. Circumstances in his prison are not so much different from some later Nazi camps and its all shown with a very strong, effective cinematography (audiences must have been shocked) - hence the real circumstances of story behind this script raised public uproar and the real guy who was inspiration for Paul Muni character (Robert Elliot Burns) eventually got pardoned.
Its amazing when you realize almost everything in the movie actually happened - this is not just some fluffy Hollywood melodrama but re-creation of Burn's true life.
Thanks to this movie chain gangs had been outlawed in Georgia.
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