Burt Lancaster is great in this, filling the screen with his powerful presence in the role of a convict, and Hume Cronyn is solid too, as the sadistic guard who takes pleasure in torturing inmates both physically and mentally. The film's basic position, that prisons that focus too much on punishment vs. treating inmates with dignity and respect so that they can be rehabilitated, is a good one, and voiced by a doctor over the course of an argument with the kommandant, er, chief guard with lines like these:
"You put up prisons, thick walls, and then your job is over. Finished. But is it over?" "All I know, is that when people are sick, you don't cure them by making them sicker. By your methods we send a man back to society a worse criminal than he was than when they sent him to us." "All you want is destroy instead of build. What we need here is a little more patience, and much more understanding."
Unfortunately the film is filled with issues, starting with just how heavy-handed this message is delivered, and how that's compounded with political, antifascist overtones. The inmates aren't nearly menacing enough (that blowtorch scene where they deal with a snitch notwithstanding), and there's a single African-American called Calypso who sings all his lines in silly rhymes (ugh). The main characters are all given flashback stories in the attempt to humanize them, but they don't really work, generally involving stories where women are involved or are to blame for their misfortunes. The situation for Lancaster's character is a little different; he's in love with a young woman (Ann Blyth) in a wheelchair, stricken with cancer, who doesn't know he's in jail, which is about as cloying as you can get. I suppose these flashbacks are also in there in the attempt to liven up what is a very simple plot and to add a female presence, but they just break up the narrative flow and elongate the film unnecessarily.
Meanwhile, Cronyn's character listens to Wagner, is borderline effeminate, and seems like he's only tough because of his position, taking advantage of it to beat an inmate with a rubber hose. The Nazi coding couldn't be plainer. The doctor warns him that he has his position out of "Not cleverness. Not imagination. Just force. Brute force. Congratulations! Force does make leaders. But you forget one thing - it also destroys them." Not a bad concept, but so clumsily executed. And of course, this little world where morality is inverted was flying into the face of the Production Code, which limited the degrees of freedom director Jules Dassin had in ending it. As a result we also get some requisite dialogue inserted at the end, no doubt to get the film passed, that has all the artistry of a sledgehammer. This is one that could have been so, so much better.
"You put up prisons, thick walls, and then your job is over. Finished. But is it over?" "All I know, is that when people are sick, you don't cure them by making them sicker. By your methods we send a man back to society a worse criminal than he was than when they sent him to us." "All you want is destroy instead of build. What we need here is a little more patience, and much more understanding."
Unfortunately the film is filled with issues, starting with just how heavy-handed this message is delivered, and how that's compounded with political, antifascist overtones. The inmates aren't nearly menacing enough (that blowtorch scene where they deal with a snitch notwithstanding), and there's a single African-American called Calypso who sings all his lines in silly rhymes (ugh). The main characters are all given flashback stories in the attempt to humanize them, but they don't really work, generally involving stories where women are involved or are to blame for their misfortunes. The situation for Lancaster's character is a little different; he's in love with a young woman (Ann Blyth) in a wheelchair, stricken with cancer, who doesn't know he's in jail, which is about as cloying as you can get. I suppose these flashbacks are also in there in the attempt to liven up what is a very simple plot and to add a female presence, but they just break up the narrative flow and elongate the film unnecessarily.
Meanwhile, Cronyn's character listens to Wagner, is borderline effeminate, and seems like he's only tough because of his position, taking advantage of it to beat an inmate with a rubber hose. The Nazi coding couldn't be plainer. The doctor warns him that he has his position out of "Not cleverness. Not imagination. Just force. Brute force. Congratulations! Force does make leaders. But you forget one thing - it also destroys them." Not a bad concept, but so clumsily executed. And of course, this little world where morality is inverted was flying into the face of the Production Code, which limited the degrees of freedom director Jules Dassin had in ending it. As a result we also get some requisite dialogue inserted at the end, no doubt to get the film passed, that has all the artistry of a sledgehammer. This is one that could have been so, so much better.