I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang was billed as a tragedy, but what it really is is a travesty, a travesty of justice. The way this film depicts the penal system in the southern United States is a damning testimonial to a broken system designed to rehabilitate yet does nothing more than break men down until they either limp out at the end of their sentences or die before they even reach that end. This film was based on the book I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! written by Robert Elliott Burns about his time on a chain gang in Georgia during the 1920s, and the details found within are sickening.
While this is still a pre-code film, the studios were already starting to self-censor their pictures, and that almost kept Warner Bros. from making it. The story department voted against adapting the book because they felt the strong elements and vivid points in the plot wouldn’t make it past the censorship board, especially the violence. There was also concern that it would cause an uproar in the Deep South. Ultimately, Jack L. Warner and Darryl F. Zanuck overrode the story department and approved the project to go into production anyway.
The script was considered too dark and morbid, absent even one moment of relief. Such a tone ensures that audiences will not come out of this film feeling uplifted and enlightened but depressed and upset. The fear, then, is that bad word-of-mouth would sink the film, financially. There is no happy-ever-after to be found in this story, only a man who is unjustly on the run from the law and may never be able to settle down and enjoy the life he so rightfully deserves. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, such a concept is downright demoralizing and antithetical to our way of thinking, yet it is like this for so many people. There are elements in this film that are reminiscent of Jean Valjean’s plight in Les Misérables. There are also elements that would be later incorporated into The Shawshank Redemption.
The story follows James Allen (Paul Muni), a returning soldier from World War I, returning having earned a medal for bravery. He has been set up by his mother and brother with a tedious office clerk job, but the war has left him restless, and he wants to enter the construction industry and become an engineer. He leaves work but discovers that unskilled labor is plentiful, and it is hard to find a job, causing him to sink into poverty. One day in an unnamed southern state, Allen visits a diner with an acquaintance who ends up forcing Allen to participate, at gunpoint, in a robbery. The man is shot, and Allen is quickly apprehended and sentenced to hard labor on a chain gang.
Conditions at the labor prison are brutal. The work is hard, and the guards are even harder. After one man dies from exhaustion, Allen makes up his mind to escape. He eventually finds a way out and flees to the north, where he uses his training and work ethic to quickly rise up in an important construction position. But all is not well. The landlady he is renting a room from, Marie (Glenda Farrell), finds out that he is an escaped convict and uses that information to blackmail him into marrying her. She then proceeds to waste a lot of his money and make his life miserable. He has also met Helen (Helen Vinson), a younger woman, and has fallen in love with her. Eventually, Marie betrays him and turns him in. The state of Illinois won’t extradite him to the south because he has become a valuable citizen to the community, but the southern authorities won’t let it drop at that.
This is a brutal film, especially considering the times in which it was made. It’s no surprise people were leery of getting attached to the project. It has a very negative view of the southern prison system. We see prisoners being beaten brutally, worked to death, and fed a steady diet of bad food. They are required to walk around with heavy chains on at all times, chains that chafe at their ankles all day long. They’re not even allowed to wipe the sweat off their brows without asking permission first. This might come across as a bit over-the-top, but in the moment, it just feels pathetic, especially when right about this time is when we see the man collapse from exhaustion and receive no assistance. Later, we will see him being wheeled out of the prison in a pine box.
As an actor, Paul Muni always seems to deliver. Here, unlike his portrayals of Émile Zola, Louis Pasteur, or even Wang from The Good Earth, he is not hiding behind a lot of elaborate makeup or prosthetics. Instead, he has to rely on his talents as an artist wholly. The results are more subtle but no less impressive. Throughout the course of the film, we see the world-weariness building up until he is finally forced into the life that he is being accused of. His final words to Helen as he disappears into the night, never to see her again, are haunting. She offers him money, which he refuses. Then she pleads: “But you must, Jim. How do you live?” His response: “I steal.” Like Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, on the outside world, he was an honest man. It took sending him to prison to make him a criminal.
Prison is supposed to be rehabilitative. The prisons here don’t do that. Instead, they beat you down and leave you in a position where the only thing you can do anymore is break the law again and end up right back in. The guards are proud of that fact. The one time we see a man get his official release, they are calling to him on his way out, saying, “See you soon.” There is no consideration of what is fair or right; they just want you behind bars. When Allen is discovered in Chicago, in order to get him back, the southern officers lie about granting him a pardon after a short time back in a southern jail. Once he agrees in order to get the law off of him for good, they rescind the agreement and string him along with the promise of a pardon eventually. That never happens. They don’t care that he is an important engineer in Chicago and an upright citizen. All they care about is that he got away from them, and they want him back. It’s a corrupt system that leaves him with no real alternative but to escape again and remain forever on the lam.
It’s no wonder the studios were afraid of riots in the South. This is not a very flattering picture of the southern states. Even leaving out the actual state being represented here doesn’t help; after all, the book was known well enough to point the finger at Georgia. It was a daring attempt to even produce this film, one that paid off in box-office receipts as well as at the awards. Today, it is not as well known, but it deserves to be seen again. It’s not a pleasant movie, but it is a powerful one and is sure to elicit some strong emotions.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Hal B. Wallis
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Paul Muni
Best Sound Recording: Nathan Levinson
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Release Date: November 10, 1932
Running Time: 93 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, and Noel Francis
Directed By: Mervyn LeRoy
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