Hellgate (1952)

Memorable, crazy movie

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The Moves4Men channel on British TV is providing me with some excellent films that I wouldn't otherwise have seen (as well as some recordings which I delete within ten minutes of starting to view). "Hellgate" is one of the grittiest Westerns I've seen, especially considering that it was released in 1952, when the rigours portrayed on screen were usually somewhat muted.The characters sweat copiously, their clothes are filthy and they show evidence of having no access to razors - in contrast to too many action films where the actors remain remarkably clean and well-shaven.One reviewer here has referred to Ward Bond being "inexpressive", but he certainly looked thuggish to me, and Robert Wilke was as malevolent as ever. Perhaps Joan Leslie was a tad too pretty? The way the film ended was a bit anti-climatic and I would have liked to see a bit more soul-searching going on before the concluding decision was made.I'm very glad to have watched this film.

Hellgate is directed by Charles Marquis Warren who also co-writes the screenplay with John C. Champion, the latter of which also produces. Andrew V. McLaglen is the assistant director. It stars Sterling Hayden, Ward Bond, Joan Leslie, James Arness, Peter Coe, John Pickard and Robert Wilkie. Music is scored by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by Ernest W. Miller."It is not for us to decide at this date that the man, Gilman Hanley, was the victim of a nations unintentional injustice. Rather, it is our duty to see that the fate that befell him can never again befall any man". Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice, U.S, Supreme Court.Lets cut to the chase, there was no Hellgate Prison, no Romara Desert and no Gilman Hanley. The film is set in New Mexico but filmed in California. And, as the few reviews about it will attest to, this is ultimately The Prisoner of Shark Island remade as a Western. But what a treat for Western fans it is.Doorway of the Damned! The Curse of Convicts! The Shame of America!Sweaty, moody and full of testosterone, Hellgate is also compact and firmly dealing in the innocent good guy suffering at the hands of a pathetic justice system. Hayden is our good doctor Hanley, well veterinarian actually, who administers basic first aid to a Guerilla outlaw and gets sent to America's Devil's Island. The prison is out in the desert, surrounded by a rock formation and the cells are underground lock ups in the caves. Punishment for misbehaving is slow whipping or a stint in the baking oven! Even if the convicts get out of the rock valley, there's Pima Indians waiting to hunt them down and secure a bounty for their heads.Hanley is in trouble, sadistic Lt. Tod Voorhees (Bond of course) doesn't much care for him, as he tells him, "You'll find I have a special regard for Guerillas", not only that but he is in a shared cell with some right characters, including Redfield (Arness), one tough mother who doesn't much care for another guy taking up the monthly water ration. What will follow is machismo moments, fights, torture, battle of wills, death and escape attempts, while anyone who has seen Prisoner of Shark Island will know that disease enters the fray and gives us a finale of punch the air satisfaction.Not all the acting is first grade stuff, though Hayden is perfect for this role, and the abruptness of the key Typhus infection turnaround for the finale kind of feels like a cheat after having endured some quality claustrophobia for the previous 75 minutes. But this is still a tight and taut production, an unquenchable thirst of moody black and white 50s cinema. Which for anyone else like me who loves Westerns and anything prison based, is manna from heaven. 8/10

Sterling Hayden is a peaceable ex Confederate and family man in 1867 Kansas, during a kind of Jesse James milieu when some former soldiers had formed bandit gangs and become a nuisance. He's a veterinarian and, in his good-natured way, he treats James Anderson, who shows up at his doorstep with a damaged rib. Anderson who, along with Bill McKinney, practically had a lock on the stereotypical chain gang boss and people of that ilk, is actually the leader of one of the roving bandit gangs.Hayden, of course, being a peaceable and polite horse doctor, knows nothing of this. He makes sure that mares foal properly, if that's the word. He's just trying to get along. But the U. S. Army believes otherwise. Due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, Hayden is convicted of being a bandit and an ex guerrilla, the kind of no-goodnik who would burn down the house of a Yankee with the women and children still inside.That, in any case, is what Ward Bond thinks. Bond is the head of the prison to which Hayden is sent. The prison camp is in a broiling hot canyon surrounded by convincingly arid desert. The Army guards at the camp are aided by Pima Indians who are paid to bring in the bodies of prisoners who try to escape. These particular Pima may be as rough as they say, but generally the Pima, like their Papago neighbors, were among the first to be acculturated and settle down to a horticultural life around the Colorado River.I rather like the production design -- the dozen or so tents of the soldiers, the wooden shack that is Bond's headquarters, and the interior of the caves and the mines where the prisoners work. Corridors are carved out of obviously fake rock, reminding a view of a Boris Karloff movie, but they're atmospheric.The movie has all the requisite moments of penal unpleasantness -- the surly guards, the cruel whipping of the prisoner who misbehaves, the chipping of the escape tunnel, the hot box in the sunshine, the shackles and humiliation. We've seen it all before, in prison movies more carefully structured than this one. I will mention "Cool Hand Luke" and "I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang" in passing, but they had bigger budgets and A-list stars. And "the oven" in "The Bridge On The River Kwai" is in a class by itself.The problem -- the thing that makes this less gripping than it has a right to be -- lies in three elements. First, Charles Marquis Warren was a hack director. He makes errors that you and I wouldn't make. Too many pointless close ups of men looking at one another while nothing is happening, just for example. He's dull. Another is that the film seems hastily written. We never see the men at work. The typhus epidemic is handled perfunctorily. The disease is spread by a microorganism found in the feces of human lice (yuk) and has nothing to do with water. And neither Sterling Hayden nor Ward Bond put much effort into their performances. Hayden -- okay, he never cared for acting anyway. But I can't remember a single movie in which Ward Bond was so slow and inexpressive, not from his earliest work nor from his last period, including "Rio Bravo." The result of all this is a Western that's mediocre at best, an inexpensive rerun of "The Prisoner of Shark Island," and a movie that is entirely without poetry.

"The Prisoner of Shark Island" was a wonderful film starring Warner Baxter. Not only was it very interesting, but it was the real life account of the incarceration and subsequent commutation of Dr. Samuel Mudd's sentence as a result of his exemplary conduct in the prison in saving lives during an epidemic."Hellgate" begins with a quote from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that makes it appear as if this film is a true story. I could find no information on the internet about the character 'Gil Hanley', but the longer I watched this movie the more I realized that it was a remake of this earlier film with the names and a few details changed. There are just too many similarities between the two tails for them to be anything other than a remake.The film begins just after the US Civil War with some ex-Confederate soldiers stopping by Hanley's ranch. He has no idea who they are nor does he know they are wanted men. He just knows one of them is badly hurt and so he helps them. The next day, Union soldiers arrive and ask Hanley questions about his activities. He willingly admits helping a man the night before but says he had no knowledge of doing anything to aid a criminal--he was just doing a humanitarian act. But, because Hanley was also an ex-Confederate in a region dominated by Yankees, he's quickly charged and convicted of being a member of the gang that is wanted by the authorities. However, there really was no direct evidence--just a lot of hatred towards the South and Hanley was railroaded. Soon, Hanley is sent to a hellhole prison in the middle of the desert. In the case of Mudd, he was sent to a barren island in the Tortugas--desolate islands off the Florida Keys. In both cases, the places are brutal and life is all but impossible. Eventually, though, when an epidemic breaks out, Hanley is instrumental in saving the prison where they are now without water (because it was contaminated).The acting is very tough and gritty. The film just exudes manliness with the super-rugged Sterling Hayden in the lead and supported by James Arness and Ward Bond--three of the very toughest men in their day. Bond was an ex-football player, Hayden's war record is phenomenal and Arness was severely wounded at Anzio. Both Arness and Hayden are 6'5" or taller and bigger than the average ox! Together, this film is just so gosh darn rugged and tough that it's tough to beat on this account!! And, if it had only been an original story, I would have scored it a bit higher, as on occasion I love a film like this...one where John Wayne himself would have been overwhelmed by the cast's testosterone level!! Well worth seeing, but I strongly recommend you also see the Warner Baxter film--it's one of the best seldom seen films of the 1930s.