Chain Gang (1950)

Crappy film

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The first must-see film of the year.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The chain gang was a great topic for classic-era US cinema -- think "I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang", "Sullivan's Travels", "The Defiant Ones", "Cool Hand Luke". But there seems to have been no genre that Sam Katzman couldn't make listless and un-fun. And this is a prime lesson in how to make a lousy movie out of material with so much potential.The plot starts out OK. A crusading reporter sets out to prove that the states chain gangs are a scandal and a racket, and doesn't let the fact he's dating the head racketeer's daughter get in the way of his daring investigations. Indeed, the writers of the movie actually find a new angle -- the reporter gets a job as a guard in one of the camps, and actually, at one point, whips an inmate to keep up the disguise. But, even early on, we know we're in trouble -- because the acting is flat, the cinematography TV-like, and the characters behave without a lick of sense. Later, the stupid developments pile up -- my favorite being that the newspaper starts running the expose, along with pictures taken with his OSS style camera/cigarette lighter BEFORE our hero quits his job as guard.Dumb plotting, monotone acting and uninspired camera-work are hardly unusual in the B-film. What makes this one (and many other Katzman films) stand out is how joyless an enterprise this is. Nobody in these movies shows a bit of inspiration, or even a deliriously wacko Ed Wood moment. Nor, frankly, in a movie featuring prisoner floggings, extensive government corruption, and attempted murder by government officials is there even really much outrage. The movie is all very assembly line, proudly worse than average, but certain of earning back its negative cost.

***SPOILERS*** Hard hitting 1950's B movie that exposes to the movie going public the horrors of chain gangs in America that's hasn't been as effective on the silver screen since the 1932 Paul Muni classic "Fugitive from a Chain Gang". What's so shocking about this film is that after almost 18 years after the Muni's film was released chain gangs were still in operation mostly in the south where the helpless prisoners were treated worse then beasts of burden in places as far off as Inner Mongolia and Communist China!After a numbers of incidents at the local Cloverdale prison where three prisoners were killed newspaper man Cliff Roberts, Douglas Kennedy, asks his editor at the "Standard" newspaper Pop O'Donnell, Harry Cheshire, to go undercover at Cloverdale as a prison guard to find out just what's going on there. Taking the name of Jack Granger Roberts gets a job at Cloverdale and in no time at all sees that it's being used by it's owner who keeps his ownership of the place secret from the public, John McKelvey, Thurston Hall, who's the owner of the rival newspaper the "Chronicle". McKelvey uses Cloverdale as a slave camp providing labor for his construction business.Granger or better yet Roberts gets the goods on what McKelvey is up to with a hidden camera he has in his cigarette lighter exposing the horrors that the men in the camp's chain gang are subjected to! There's also Roberts girlfriend Rita McKelvey, Margorie Lord, who just happened to be John McLelvey's step daughter who works for his newspaper. Rita in finding out what a rat her step-father is quits her cushy job there and join the "Standard" just to both stick to pop, McKelvey not O'Donnell, but also help Robert get the goods on him and his sleazy operation that a blight to both the community and the newspaper business!Roberts gives himself away in how he treats the prisoners, with kindness, that has his boss Captain Duncan, Emory Parnell, suspect that there's something very seriously wrong with him! In that he acts like a human being not like a Nazi or Soviet prison guard towards those he's in charge of! It's when one of McKelvey's underlings the foreman of the Cloverdale prison work detail the cigarette mooching Harry Cleaver, William Tanner, spots a photo of Roberts and Rita at McKelvey's mansion, paid for by the slave labor at Coverdale, Roberts or Granger's cover is blown!***SPOILERS***Breaking away from his captors Capt. Duncan and his boys the brutal prison guards Roberts together with escaped prisoner Roy Snead, William Phillips, make it to Mrs. Brggs', Dorothy Vaughan, house where she helps Roberts recover from the gunshot wound he suffered in his escape attempt. She also gets in touch with Colverdale prison mistakingly thinking that Roberts is a guard there not a fugitive! Running for his life a second time from Duncan & Co. Roberts finally makes it home and breaks the big story about the chain gang and the men, like John McKelvey, behind it who end up in a far better place, a state prison, then those poor and helpless souls whom they exploited for their own selfish and financial interests!

Director Lew Landers churned out quickie programmers like sausages, many of them almost instantly forgettable, but this isn't one of them. It's a solid little epic about a reporter going undercover as a guard to expose the brutality and corruption of the chain-gang system. Stalwart Douglas Kennedy--usually a stolid second-lead or heavy--does a good job as the reporter, veteran character actor Emory Parnell as the corrupt head guard has a bigger part then he usually does and makes the most of it and little-known character actor William Phillips does a very good turn as hardened chain-gang convict Snead. This picture has a bit more bite to it than the usual Landers epic, it's tighter (somewhat reminiscent of Phil Karlson's work, but just somewhat) and faster-paced than connoisseurs of Landers' work are used to. Thurston Hall as the main heavy and William Tannen as his front man are also quite good, although Marjorie Lord drags things down a bit as Kennedy's girlfriend. Altogether, though, it's actually a pretty good little picture, and definitely one of Landers' better efforts.

Leading man Douglas Kennedy's uncanny resemblance to tough guy Robert Ryan almost makes up for the lack of star names in this watchable B-movie. Kennedy is convincing as a crusading reporter who goes under cover as a chain-gang guard to expose the brutality of the penal system. Brandishing his high-tech (for the time) camera disguised as a cigarette lighter, he tries to conceal his bleeding heart liberal credentials secret from his oafish colleagues as he posts a series of shocking exposes.The film's brief running time doesn't give director Lew Landers much of a chance to explore nuances of character or theme. But it's not giving anything away to say that the real villains here aren't the guys in the striped suits.If you're a fan of this particular sub-genre of prison movies, you'll want to check out the infinitely superior Paul Muni vehicle, I Am a Fugitive From A Chain Gang.