Prison Break (film)

Prison Break

Movie poster
Directed by Arthur Lubin
Produced by Trem Carr
Screenplay by Dorothy Davenport
Norton S. Parker
Starring Barton MacLane
Glenda Farrell
Music by Hayes Pagel
Frank Sanucci
Cinematography Harry Neumann
Edited by Jack Ogilvie
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • July 12, 1938 (1938-07-12)
Running time
 72 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Prison Break is a 1938 American crime-drama film directed by Arthur Lubin, starring Barton MacLane and Glenda Farrell.[1][2] The film was based on the story "Walls of San Quentin" by Norton S. Parker. It was released by Universal Pictures on July 12, 1938. A fisherman confesses to a murder he didn't commit to protect a friend. Determined to keep out of trouble in prison, but another convict makes things difficult for him.

Plot

Joaquin Shannon (Barton MacLane) a fisherman takes the blame for a crime to protect his brother-in-law Joe Fenderson (Edward Pawley) who died from injuries from a mugging. He is sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime. Joaquin asks Joe's sister and his girlfriend Jean Fenderson (Glenda Farrell) to wait for him, expecting to be paroled in one year for good behavior. However, in prison, he battles with Red Kincaid (Ward Bond). Joaquin's repeat altercation with red causes him to fail his parole examination and his prison sentences are lengthened. Later, when Joaquin helps to stop a prison break which was led by Red, he is immediately released from prison.

Joaquin reunites with Jean. However, because of his criminal record and prison sentence, he is shunned and dismissed by employers. In a bar, he meets Soapy (Paul Hurst) a fellow ex-convict. Soapy convinces Joaquin to smuggle someone out of the country, who is actually Red and has escaped from prison. When Red and Soapy show up at the boat, they force Joaquin to navigate the boat. A dying Soapy who was shot by the police, tells Joaquin that Red killed Jean's brother. After finding out the truth, Joaquin fights Red to the death.

Cast

Production

Glenda Farrell and Barton MacLane became popular co-starring in the Warner Bros.' Torchy Blane film series. The movie, Prison Break, were supposed to be the first film in a four picture deal and dual contract with Farrell and MacLane. However, they made no other films at the Universal Pictures again with each other. The movie's working titles were "State Prison", "Prison Walls" and "Walls of San Quentin".[3]

Reception

Frank S. Nugent of The New York Times writes: "Unlike most of our modestly-budgeted melodramas dealing with the parole system, "Prison Break" (at the Rialto) omits the jubilant finale in which the boss-racketeer controlling the parole board is exposed and the warden-in-cahoots is sent further up the river. In point of stricter fact, Universal's little treatise has omitted both the racketeer and the corrupt warden, and adheres throughout to its pessimistic view of parole. Although we hesitate to damn a film producer, in these cautious days, with the epithet "crusader," we really distrust Universal of having expressed an opinion. Is there a picket in the audience? The trouble with prisons, the picture says, is that they're full of such unpleasant people. When you take an honest, non-criminal soul like Barton MacLane's tuna fisherman, Joaquin Shannon, and pen him up with hardened offenders of the Red Kincaid type you are either going to have him turn criminal himself or get a bad name with the keepers for punching Mr. Bond in the jaw. Then there are a few notorious inconsistencies about parole itself: the denial of the right to marry, which deprives Mr. MacLane of the benefits of Glenda Farrell's society; and the stern rule about letting even a paroled tuna fisherman go beyond the jurisdictional 12-mile limit. Mr. MacLane really exercises more restraint than we would expect any one of so Irish a face to show, but he does lose his temper at last, just before the scriptwriters relent and decide to clear up the mystery of the murdered Joe Fenderson. By that time you probably will be as confused about it as we were — not knowing whether to relax and take it as just another moderately good Class B melodrama, or to muster your indignation over the seemingly iniquitous parole system. In either case, it's not a bad show at all."[4]

Home media

Prison Break was released on DVD in May 14, 2007.

References

  1. ↑ "Prison Break (1938)". British Film Institute. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Prison Break (1938)". All Movie. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Prison Break". American Film Institute: Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  4. ↑ NUGENT, FRANK S. (July 13, 1938). "THE SCREEN; Universal's 'Prison Break' at the Rialto Points Out a Few Inconsistencies in the Parole System". The New York Times. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
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