*** (out of ****)
Starring Clint Eastwood, Patrick McGoohan, Fred Ward, Larry Hankin, Roberts Blossom, Jack Thibeau, and Paul Benjamin
Directed by Don Seigel & written by Richard Tuggle from the novel by J. Campbell Bruce
1979
112 min R
In the great pantheon of prison escape movies, “Escape from Alcatraz” ranks somewhere behind “The Great Escape,” “Papillon,” and “The Shawshank Redemption.” But it answers the big question that we come to the movie asking: how did they do it? To this end, “Escape from Alcatraz” gets in, gets out, and does it thing quickly and efficiently. We are given sharp, if broad characters, clear motivations, and then all our questions are answered. Both director Don Siegel’s (“Dirty Harry,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”) and star Clint Eastwood are focused and uncluttered, and the result is an effective, engrossing film.
The prison warden is played by Patrick McGoohan, who, ironically, was the title character of the endlessly trippy ‘60s television show “The Prisoner.” “We do not make model citizens,” he tells Eastwood upon his arrival. “But we do make model prisoners.” The warden is, as standard for prison movies, mad, a barely-contained cauldron of contempt who is only able to stifle his disgust for the inmates long enough to get out a few clipped monosyllables. His strong hand has turned Alcatraz into a place not of violence or overt cruelty, but a place of soul-crushing boredom and monotony. Every prisoner is dressed like the next, every day is the same as the next, every meal is the same as the next, and every headcount goes the same as its predecessor. Seigel’s Alcatraz is shiny and clean; there are no dirty dishes, dripping faucets, torn clothing, or inadequate facilities. There are no shaky handheld shots, only one perfectly framed set of straight lines after another, as if even the movie screen is another set of bars.
The plan hatched by Eastwood and three other inmates (Fred Ward, Larry Hankin, and Jack Thibeau) I will leave for the movie to unravel. I will say it involves fake heads, endless nights of scraping at salt-soaked rock walls with nail clippers, and life preservers sewn from raincoats. Eastwood is threatened by a beefy rapist who uses violence mostly to kill time, and he is comforted by an older inmate named English. English is the movie’s Magic Negro, the wise old black character who advises the white hero, and if the part is something of a stereotype, then actor Paul Benjamin can at least be credited for making it convincing. On the wall of the prison courtyard dominated by black inmates, he sits the highest, and he regards this honor with an understated, self-pitying irony.
“Escape from Alcatraz” is based on a real-life incident in the late 1960s. A friend of mine who has watched many, many specials about it on cable—and anything on cable must be true—tells me that Siegel’s film sticks mostly to the facts. More than any other genre, prison movies remind us that art isn’t always about convincing people to follow your point of view. Many times the movies are about that peculiar pleasure we get from embracing two opposing viewpoints at the same time; in the case of prison movies, it’s that strange, simultaneous desire to see bad men put in jail, and then admire them when they break out.
Finished May 18, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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