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Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Director: Don Siegel
Cast overview: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan
Running time: 112 minutes
This is one of my favourite films for several reasons. Firstly, the setting is great - I know it goes without saying that a film about Alcatraz is always going to be set in Alcatraz but it complements the plot and adds tension and suspense tenfold. There's also a great deal of acting ability, with Eastwood turning in one of his best performances ever as high-IQ prison escapee Frank Morris, and Patrick McGoohan performing well as the malicious prison warden.
What really makes this film tick, I feel, is the sense of isolation instilled from the island location of the prison. I visited the prison myself on one of the tours when I went to San Francisco last year, and - even though it's only a mile or so out by boat - it feels as though it could be in the middle of the ocean, miles from the nearest civilisation. The claustrophobia is very real, and Siegel does a great job of conveying this.
The film is slow-paced in a sense, and I've seen that as a common criticism from reviewers, but I feel it allows the characters to develop. In a film like this, the prison itself becomes a tangible setting, but allowing the characters themselves to convey themselves to the audience is also essential. The motives and aims of Morris and the two Anglin brothers are shown to us via the build-up of drama.
The sense of authenticity and gloom is part of what makes this so effective for me, and it stands up to this day as a film I can watch many times and still derive the same pleasure as I did on my first viewing, thanks to the realistic writing and acting, and all-round entertainment levels.
Quotes
Charley Butts: I turned 35 today. Some birthday! When's your birthday?
Frank Morris: I don't know.
Charley Butts: Geez, what kind of childhood did you have?
Frank Morris: Short.
Warden: If you disobey the rules of society, they send you to prison; if you disobey the rules of the prison, they send you to US. Alcatraz is not like any other prison in the United States. Here, every inmate is confined ALONE... to an individual cell. Unlike my predecessors, Wardens Johnson and Blackwell, I don't have good conduct programs, I do not have inmate counsels. Inmates here have no say in what they do; they do as they're told. You're not permitted to have newspapers or magazines carrying news; knowledge of the outside world is, ah, what we tell you. From this day on, your world will be everything that happens in this building.
Frank Morris: Tell me, you stopped killing white people?
English: Why?
Frank Morris: Well, next time I wouldn't turn my back on ya.
Trivia
The television show, MythBusters (2003) proved that this escape worked (or was at least plausible). They recreated the entire escape right down to using the same materials to which the cons had access. They even used the same type of raincoats from which the boat was made. The makeshift raft crafted and crewed by the MythBusters team did indeed reach the shore, but at the Marin Headlands instead of Angel Island.
The dangerous escape down the prison wall and into the water was performed without stunt doubles. It was performed by Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, and Jack Thibeau, the later two were cast in the film partially due to their athletic ability. Director 'Don Siegel (I)' twice thought that he had lost his actors to the treacherous currents.
Film debut of Danny Glover, as one of the prison inmates.
Trailer
Director: Don Siegel
Cast overview: Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan
Running time: 112 minutes
This is one of my favourite films for several reasons. Firstly, the setting is great - I know it goes without saying that a film about Alcatraz is always going to be set in Alcatraz but it complements the plot and adds tension and suspense tenfold. There's also a great deal of acting ability, with Eastwood turning in one of his best performances ever as high-IQ prison escapee Frank Morris, and Patrick McGoohan performing well as the malicious prison warden.
What really makes this film tick, I feel, is the sense of isolation instilled from the island location of the prison. I visited the prison myself on one of the tours when I went to San Francisco last year, and - even though it's only a mile or so out by boat - it feels as though it could be in the middle of the ocean, miles from the nearest civilisation. The claustrophobia is very real, and Siegel does a great job of conveying this.
The film is slow-paced in a sense, and I've seen that as a common criticism from reviewers, but I feel it allows the characters to develop. In a film like this, the prison itself becomes a tangible setting, but allowing the characters themselves to convey themselves to the audience is also essential. The motives and aims of Morris and the two Anglin brothers are shown to us via the build-up of drama.
The sense of authenticity and gloom is part of what makes this so effective for me, and it stands up to this day as a film I can watch many times and still derive the same pleasure as I did on my first viewing, thanks to the realistic writing and acting, and all-round entertainment levels.
Quotes
Charley Butts: I turned 35 today. Some birthday! When's your birthday?
Frank Morris: I don't know.
Charley Butts: Geez, what kind of childhood did you have?
Frank Morris: Short.
Warden: If you disobey the rules of society, they send you to prison; if you disobey the rules of the prison, they send you to US. Alcatraz is not like any other prison in the United States. Here, every inmate is confined ALONE... to an individual cell. Unlike my predecessors, Wardens Johnson and Blackwell, I don't have good conduct programs, I do not have inmate counsels. Inmates here have no say in what they do; they do as they're told. You're not permitted to have newspapers or magazines carrying news; knowledge of the outside world is, ah, what we tell you. From this day on, your world will be everything that happens in this building.
Frank Morris: Tell me, you stopped killing white people?
English: Why?
Frank Morris: Well, next time I wouldn't turn my back on ya.
Trivia
The television show, MythBusters (2003) proved that this escape worked (or was at least plausible). They recreated the entire escape right down to using the same materials to which the cons had access. They even used the same type of raincoats from which the boat was made. The makeshift raft crafted and crewed by the MythBusters team did indeed reach the shore, but at the Marin Headlands instead of Angel Island.
The dangerous escape down the prison wall and into the water was performed without stunt doubles. It was performed by Clint Eastwood, Fred Ward, and Jack Thibeau, the later two were cast in the film partially due to their athletic ability. Director 'Don Siegel (I)' twice thought that he had lost his actors to the treacherous currents.
Film debut of Danny Glover, as one of the prison inmates.
Trailer