Blackwell's Island (1939)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Must See Movie...

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

***SPOILERS*** Hard hitting writing and take no BS investigative reporter Tim Haydon, John Garfield, who's been a torn in the butt of New York City Mob Boss Bull Bransom, Stanley Fields, gets himself arrested to end up in the notorious Blackwell's Island on the East River for slugging Manhattan District Attorney Hampel, William B. Davidson. That's after Bransom was sent there for an assault and battery against NYPD cop Terry Walsh, Dick Parcell, after his men tried to murder hospitalized boat captain Pedersen, Wade Boteler, that officer Welsh tried to prevent. Pedersen who refused to pay protection money to the Bransom Mob was later murdered, together with Oficer Welsh, by them after his testimony sent Bransom for a six month "vacation" to Blackwell's Isand.Hayden as an inmate at Blackwell's Island is actually working undercover for the NYC D.A's office in order to expose the corruption that's going on there that Bransom is wholly responsible for. Yet at the same time befriends Bransom in order to get on his good side as well as get the goods on him and his paid off stooge Warden Stuart "Stu" Granger, Granville Bates. It's later when Bransom gets wind of what Hayden is really up to he sets him up to be shot trying to escape from the island. A plan that backfires on him and ends up sending Bransom up the river in Sing Sing Prison on murder extortion as well as racketeering charges for the next 99 years!John Garfield who would have celebrated his 100 birthday yesterday March 4, 2013, he didn't lived long enough to celebrate his 40th, in one of his first tough guy roles that he soon was to became famous for is very convincing as reporter Tim Hayden who goes all out to take down big time mobster Bull Bransom as an act of both justice as well as revenge for his goons murdering his girlfriend Sunny Welsh,Rosemary Lane, brother Officer Terry Welsh and does it John Garfield style. He also has help from the new straight as an arrow and incorruptible Correction Commissioner Thomas MacNair,Victor Jory, who ends up not only putting Boss Bransom away for good but his stooge of a warden "Stu" Granger and his entire paid off,by Mob Boss Bransom, prison crew as well.

About four years before Warner Brothers made the film Blackwell's Island, the reform LaGuardia administration made a well publicized raid on Blackwell's Island prison and exposed systemic corruption within the correctional facility. It was a high point of Fiorello LaGuardia's first term as mayor of New York. LaGuardia's Corrections Commissioner Austin McCormack is fictionalized here in the character that Victor Jory plays.What could have been a good film based on modern headlines of the times got turned into a B movie that should have been rated lower. It was certainly a low point in the career of John Garfield who plays your typical crusading newspaperman that Thirties era films loved. The villain if you could call him that is Stanley Fields and it's from him that Leo Gorcey and the rest of the Bowery Boys learned their impeccable diction and grammar. He's a blithering idiot who loves practical jokes like exploding cigars and squirting carnations. He's such a china shop bull that the politicians upstairs would like him to just cool it for a while. When he doesn't he gets six months in the Blackwell's Island prison until after the election.Not that prison cramps Fields's style in the least. He turns Blackwell's Island into Club Med for he and a few select cronies, throwing out the patients from the prison hospital and setting up his own posh suite. Garfield gets involved professionally when he writes some expose articles and it gets personal when Fields and henchmen on their own private work release program kill honest patrolman Dick Purcell who also happens to be the brother of Rosemary Lane who is Garfield's girlfriend. Garfield gets himself thrown into Blackwell's Island where he can get the lowdown.When Dutch Schultz got out of control, Lucky Luciano had him hit with the connivance of Tammany Hall politicians, simple as that. I watched this film in utter amazement that the powers that be actually kowtowed to Fields. As for the prison scenes, even the wise guys from Goodfellas didn't live it up half as well as Fields and his pals. Those guys based on some real characters knew the limits they could push things in the joint. Stanley Fields was a poor man's Wallace Beery and Beery and Fields could be both sinister and oafish, but never in the same movie. What could have been a nice drama based on a true incident was turned into a mess that couldn't make it's mind up whether it was comedy or drama. The film was a low point in the career of John Garfield during his Warner Brothers contract years. I'm not sure if Garfield did anything worse than Blackwell's Island, but I haven't seen all his films.

Blackwell's Island (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Interesting if not totally successful Warner film that mixes their gangster pictures with their prison films of the time. A gangster gets sent to prison but he's having an easier time calling the shots there so a reporter (John Garfield) enters to try and see what's going on. There's a strange mixture of laughs and thrills in this picture that comes off pretty strange. The gangster in the picture is played for nothing but laughs and this includes him constantly playing pranks on people. The film's screemplay is pretty weak and doesn't offer too much that we haven't seen in countless other Warner dramas. The one big bonus is the terrific performance by Garfield.

This is one of those movies which are jammed packed with actors who's names we don't recall but who's faces are very familiar because they appear in so many of these great B movies. About the only well known actors are John Garfield and Victor Jory. This film is about a New York protection racket boss, played by Stanley Fields as somewhat menacing yet also a comic figure. He and two of his henchmen get sent to a local prison on a Hudson River island, where they end-up taking control and have the warden and his staff do their bidding. Garfield plays a crusading crime reporter who arranges to become a prisoner on the island so as to get the goods on the mob. It's great fun with lots of action, laughs, and good solid performances by all parties. You won't take this picture very serious but you will have a lot of fun while watching it.