Circumstances Change, But Paul Muni Doesn't in I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang

Raising social consciousness is commonly cited as the motivation behind crafting a classic film such as 1932's I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. The theme of freedom is prominent throughout the film. Paul Muni's brilliant portrayal of a down-on-his-luck wanderer named James Allen consistently discusses man's desire to be free.

The Freedom Theme

Allen becomes a drifter because he wants to be free of his dull home life. Drafted into the army only to be discharged to face the monotony of a factory job, Allen makes his way across the country only to lose his freedom again after being falsely convicted of a crime and ending up serving his sentence on a brutal chain gang.

Escaping from the chain gang offers a brief respite of freedom and a new lease on life. And then he is trapped in a loveless marriage. Upon freeing himself from the union, he finds himself back on the chain gang.

Freedom, it seems, only comes and goes.

Or is, as the title self-aware computer of the sci-fi classic Colossus: The Forbin Project assesses, "Freedom is an illusion."

For James Allen, freedom is fleeting to the point it barely exists. Likely, for him, it never exists. He reinvents himself numerous times to achieve a level of personal and outright physical freedom. He changes jobs, changes his lot in life through a prison escape, changes his identity, and so on.

Freedom never arrives for James Allen because, although circumstances change, Allen never really changes. He is the symbolic ball and chain, which is tied to a literal ball and chain.

Chained to Unchanging Circumstances

Was James Allen predestined to be a prisoner both literally and figuratively? Based on his life, as seen in the film, this good, moral, virtuous man never changes. He remains the same individual from scene to scene, and he suffers greatly no matter what backdrop he is placed on.

James Allen's life on the outside of the chain gang mimics what life was like on the inside. And no, the notion of freedom is an illusion. There is a sameness to things. Allen tries to make changes in his life. Looking for a new job is less melodramatic than an escape from prison.

The ultimate sameness is James Allen himself.

*****

Check Out My Collection of Essays on Amazon Kindle!

*****

Allen simply cannot catch the proverbial break. No matter what circumstances the man finds himself in, things never work out well for him. The narrative of I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang consistently features ever-changing backdrops.

This is why life is so difficult for the man. He cannot fit well into any of the new lives he places himself or lands.

In a tragic sense of irony, James Allen finally does change in the film's final minutes - he loses his morality and virtue, allowing him to better fit into the backdrop of a fugitive.

A Bit of Marketing Magic Could Have Helped 1977's Sorcerer

The box office failure of 1977's Sorcerer is consistently blamed on being released around the same time as Star Wars.

True. The gritty and realistic documentary-like thriller did come out the same month as the mega sci-fi hit.

So what?

The film should have done better, much better. The $21 million budget (more than what Star Wars cost!) would make Sorcerer a likely money loser. $50 million or so would be needed to break even. Earning $25 would lead to a loss. The losses obviously would be less than the case with $5 million in U.S. theaters, which the picture earned.

The failure is stunning considering Sorcerer was directed by William Friedkin, riding high with The French Connection and The Exorcist. Star Roy Scheider was coming off the success of JAWS.

Marketing -- poor marketing -- probably was the culprit that did Sorcerer in. The film received mediocre reviews, which definitely didn't help. Better marketing connecting the film to Friedkin and Scheider's other successes probably would have lent a box office assist.

The trouble with marketing Sorcerer is you need to stress that the movie is not about magic and fantasy. Yeah, the genre-jumbled title really worked against this 1970s classic. 

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY COLLECTION OF ESSAYS ON KINDLE/KINDLE UNLIMITED:

Universal Monsters & Neurotics: Creatures of the Night and Their Hang-Ups by Anthony M. Caro.

Read the Kindle Vella Sci-Fi Serial: Why is Cal Drawing Stick Figures at 3 AM in the 23rd Century?

Edward G. Robinson: The Small Man Playing It Big In Key Largo

"This rain should cool things off, but it don't."

So says Edward G. Robinson in Key Largo.

Things don't cool off in Key Largo. They heat up.

The war hero returns from the battle only to discover a new fight at home. This plot convention has been used in a number of exploitation action movies, although it was arguably done best in the 1948 Humphrey Bogart/Edward G. Robinson classic.

A lot more is going on in the film that simply setting up a fight between Bogart's Frank McCloud, a war veteran, and Robinson's Johnny Rocco, a vicious gangster. Trapped in the microcosm of a hotel during a hurricane, the war hero, the innocent family, and the gangster crew, the motivations behind Rocco's evil are slowly revealed.

As the drama plays out in the hotel, we learn Rocco is a man who is driven by his own twisted ambitions and greed. The greed is not rooted in procuring huge amounts of material things, but to quell a harsh personality disorder and an inferiority complex. Bogart's character is able to battle the villain by slowly getting under his skin.

"He knows what he wants....He wants more...don't you Rocco?"

When asked if he will ever have enough, Rocco responds:

"Well, I never have....."

Bogart's McCloud reveals what he wants more than anything. "A world in which there is no place for Johnny Rocco." Ironically, when first given the chance to kill Rocco, McCloud throws a gun away not wanting to lower himself to the level of the gangster.

McCloud later makes the revelation that fighting Rocco is not his battle. He has no desire to put his life on the line to stop the gangster or get in the thug's way. McCloud has nothing but searing contempt for the gangster, but he isn't going to risk  - and likely lose - his life trying to stop Rocco.

Or will he? Perhaps McCloud simply does not want to give Rocco the satisfaction of seeing him as a "big deal". Rocco is a driven man, but he is driven by a desire for status. Criminal endeavors allow this sense of status, undeserved as it may be.

A world without people like Johnny Rocco would not be like anything found in the history of human civilization. There are always going to be petty people whose insecurities form the basis of their antisocial behavior. And Rocco's antisocial tendencies are all on display in the dramatics playing out in the hotel.

Within the microcosm of what takes place in a Key Largo, a small man like Johnny Rocco gives great insight into sociological (and sociopathic) problems in the world outside the hotel's doors.

Nice Screenplay Character Touches in Night Moves (1975)

Budding screenwriters have a tendency to throw a lot of unnecessary things into a script. The idea at work is the more elements added to the screenplay, the more profound the plot, characters, and themes will be. Maybe that works now and then, but the common result is usually a muddled one. Too much tossed into a script has a tendency to create a massive mess.

One of the best film noirs of the 1970s is Arthur Penn's classic Night Moves. The 1975 feature was a vehicle for Gene Hackman. Like The Conversation (1974) and Prime Cut (1972), Night Moves did not reap massive ticket sales at the box office despite being an outstanding feature.

A lot could be written about Night Moves. In keeping with the theme of this particular entry, we can focus on simplicity in the outstanding screenplay.

Gene Hackman's character is not down and out financially, but spiritually. Greater days are behind him.

When JFK died, Moseby reveals he was in the middle of his stellar NFL career. When Robert died, he was staking out the home of an adulterer trying to get pictures for a divorce case. Gene Hackman plays Harry Moseby, a former professional NFL star who now works as a private investigator. The character is mired in sadness of glory lost. In one brief scene that takes place in the darkness of night, Leslie Warren's character Paula asks him where he was when the Kennedy brothers were shot.


In only three years, Moseby went from a superstar to a pathetic sad sack. No one feels more ashamed about the fall from glory than Moseby. Hackman gets the pain of his character across brilliantly. Screenwriter Alan Sharp deserves a lot of praise for coming up with this brilliant script point.

Gangster Film Classics and 1970's Crime Cinema: Prime Cut with Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman

Prime Cut (1972) is one of those great 1970's crime film masterpieces that went from an original theatrical run then onto prime time, UHF, and cable TV reruns without a tremendous amount of fanfare. Starring Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, the film features the big-screen debut of Sissy Spacek before she was would go onto major fame with Carrie (1975). While hardly one of the biggest hits of the early 1970s, the film has achieved a minor cult following and is held in high regard by classic film critics and scholars.

During its initial release, the film garnered its share of scorn for several salacious, envelope-pushing scenes.

In 1972, the MPAA rating system had been around for a few years, and R-Rated films crossed boundaries of previously verboten permissiveness in American films. Prime Cut's levels of violence and mature themes were still shocking for its day. Even though dozens upon dozens of films produced between 1970 and 1972 were far more violent and explicit, how Prime Cut presents its shocking scenes leaves viewers with lingering impressions.

While Prime Cut's subject matter and violence were unsettling for audiences being exposed to new trends in the cinema, the material draws a lot of its inspiration from pulp novels of prior generations. The salacious material in these many novels comes to life in a cinema classic directly brilliantly by Michael Ritchie.

Classic Gangster Film Plot - "Get Me The Money"

To say Prime Cut reveals a stunningly original plot wouldn't be honest. The plot is one cinema fans have seen time and time again. Someone owes the mob money. In this film, a bad guy (Gene Hackman) who decides he no longer has to follow the drumbeat of the mob owes $500,000 and won't pay. He defaults on the debt even though the narcotics and forced prostitution business generates millions. Tough guy Nick Devlin (played by Lee Marvin) leads a crew to recover the half-a-million. The job isn't easy. Previous tough-guy enforcers were killed trying to recover the loot and turned into sausage for their troubles. Literally turned into sausage.

The setting and backdrop are the weird hooks that sets this classic crime film apart from others. The film takes place in the shadow of a slaughterhouse/meatpacking company.

Prime Cut Embraces The Gritty Underworld of Middle America

Audiences first meet Devlin in Chicago, a town swallowed up by the brutality of the underworld. The assignment he takes sends him to Kansas City and the heartland. The beauty of Middle America is contrasted against the gritty, overcrowded feel of Chicago. Ritchie employs a brilliant editing/cinematography trick while capturing Devlin's long car drive (six hours, the character notes) to Kansas City. A series of European cinema-style close-ups, fades, jump cuts, and surreal images set a specific stylistic tone that is eliminated once Devlin arrives in Middle American farms' more pristine and natural land.

The visual irony draws a contrast between life in metropolitan Chicago and life in the rural outskirts of Kansas City. The film may be poking fun at John Boorman's Michelangelo Antonioni-inspired gangster film Point Blank (1967). The film also starred Lee Marvin and is considered a crime cinema classic. The over-the-top editing and cinematography in that film contributed to its failure with audiences. In Prime Cut, the artistic style of the previous gangster film is abandoned once Devlin arrives in Middle America. Things become a lot simpler but no less dangerous. The danger increases.

(Please read my analysis of Point Blank at Hubpages)

The other irony is hard to miss. Hidden behind the beauty and family-oriented nature of the idyllic farmland is a horrible criminal enterprise. The enterprise thrives because no one thinks of looking closely for one here. Or perhaps people turn a blind eye to evil.

Regardless of what irony exists - technologically and thematically - the character of Devlin has to deal with raw evil.

Lee Marvin - A Thug, A Hitman, and a Conscience

The character of Nick Devlin is an uncompromising and brutish hitman and thug enforcer. Lee Marvin plays the character in a dualistic manner. Against other thugs, Devlin has no qualms about being brutally violent. He tortures people to send a message, and he has no problems killing various henchmen. Yet, he feels a sense of sadness for Poppy (Spacek), and the other girls he discovers are being sold into slavery. For Devlin, there is a line he absolutely won't cross.

Business is business, and Devlin's business is handling jobs for the mob. Perhaps he justifies his violent tendencies because they are directed towards other killers or people who know the risks of getting involved in criminal life.

Devlin directs genuine pity towards Poppy and the other girls who are victims of the human trafficking ring. He cannot turn his eyes away from the horror and tries to put an end to it. Interestingly, the other men of his crew seem to understand his attitude. In the scene where Violet is abused, one of Devlin's henchmen can be seen showing an expression of sadness and disgust.

Long, drawn-out dialogue does not need to be written for the Devlin character to explain his moral convictions. Nor are endless flashbacks or extensive backstories required either. The film picks up with Devlin being contacted for the job after the last enforcer assigned was murdered.

Devlin sees his role of enforcer as a job. It is business. He deals with people involved in the business. The nature of his business does pull people into a dark world, sometimes, by mere circumstance. Poppy had nothing to do with the criminal underworld. She became its unwilling slave. Devlin realizes she is an innocent civilian and part of a world Devlin contributed to creating in his own way.

Devlin wants to help because he feels guilt.

Gene Hackman Goes Rogue

"You like guts?" Devlin asks upon walking up to a dining Mary Ann at the slave auction. Mary Ann is eating fried cow innards. He may have guts on a plate, but he has no real "guts." He is the worst kind of bullying coward and a brilliant movie "heavy."

The presence of Gene Hackman as the brutal, misogynistic villain is curious, to say the least. Or, perhaps, not. In 1970, he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Award for I Never Sang For My Father and followed up with a turn as a vicious misogynistic villain in the ultra-violent western The Hunting Party (1970). 1971 saw Hackman establish himself as a worldwide superstar after winning a Best Actor Academy Award for his legendary role of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. Hackman would follow Prime Cut with a much more grandiose role in the all-star, big-budget disaster extravaganza, The Poseidon Adventure. This is not to suggest Prime Cut is a bad film - it is an outstanding, underrated gangster film. Again, Prime Cut is an extremely violent and dark film, albeit ending on an upbeat note of hope.

And yes, Hackman's villain is dubbed Mary Ann. The feminine name is the name of his meatpacking business, so "Mary Ann" is a nickname of sorts. The name ironically plays opposite the vicious masculinity of a man involved in the human trafficking of young girls. Cuckolded by Devlin, who had an affair with his wife, Mary Ann directs his inner rage towards all women while continually trying to buy the affections of his unfaithful wife. Mary Ann is hardly a caring matriarch to these young women. Instead, he personifies male-centric violence towards women. The name also plays - in 1970's cinema-style - to the homoerotic subtext between Mary Ann and his "brother," the not-so-subtly nicknamed Weenie. 

The irony of the Mary Ann character extends to his dark vision of the American experience. Mary Ann looks down on Devlin because his Irish ancestors came to America after Mary Ann's. Mary Ann grows tired of Devlin's condescending attitude. Devlin does not exactly think fondly of drug dealing and human trafficking. Mary Ann's response is he understands America better than Devlin. America "wants" drugs and prostitution. Mary Ann is better in touch with society than Devlin and has a moral and cultural high ground to dismiss the hitman's low opinion.

Mary Ann may create the image of being a respectable person thanks to funding a local fair. The image is just that - an image. Underneath it all, Mary Ann is and always will be lowlife.

Onward to the Forgotten Film Library

Prime Cut is one of those films fans of classic movies and 1970's cinema note as an excellent, gritty Hollywood film. The film, sadly, is a mostly forgotten footnote in movie history. Prime Cut is cycled into cable TV schedules, as is the case with many minor cult films. Turner Classic Movies runs repeats every so often. Hopefully, each time the film does air, it will reach a new and appreciative audience.