I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' is a powerful dramatic adventure film which takes a bravely critical look at the harsh penal practices common in the prison system of the southern states of America, particularly Georgia, just after WW1. It was made in 1932, directed by Mervyn Leroy and stars Paul Muni and Glenda Farrell, two of Warner Brothers' leading actors of the 1930's.

The movie received three Academy Award nominations without winning any: Best Picture, Best Actor for Paul Muni and Best Sound, Recording for Sound Director, Nathan Levinson. In 1991, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. The movie's screenplay is based on an autobiographical collection of writings by Robert E. Burns, who himself escaped from a chain gang and became a successful magazine editor.

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Plot

'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' vividly depicts an innocent man, James Allen, played by Paul Muni, who is framed for the $5 robbery at a hamburger stand and is sentenced to ten years' hard labor in the Deep South of America. In order to seel justice and to clear his name he escapes from the brutality of the prison and begins a new life, changing his name to Allen James. He prospers in his new life and becomes a man of influence and importance. The State, though, has a long memory and when he is betrayed, he is imprisoned again. He escapes again, and is condemned to life as a broken, criminalised fugitive.

Production

In 1932 when the movie was made, Mervyn Roy was able to tell the story of cruelty and brutality in an honest and realistic way as the censors were yet to begin enforcing the Production Code. The movie has a strong and unmissable social commentary and Warner Brothers took a risk in bringing it out during the Great Depression when the country seemed more inclined to light entertainment.

The film's story is a surprisingly faithful account of the real life tragedy of Robert E. Burns. Burns had been sentenced to hard labor on a Georgia chain gang after a minor grocery store robbery in 1922. He escaped, was re-arrested and escaped again, in 1930. He evaded capture and became a tax official in New Jersey. He serialised his story in 'True Detective Mag' in early 1931, whilst still living in hiding. He then published it as a novel in March of the following year.

Daryll Zanuck, then Warner's head of production purchased an option on the movie rights for $12,500 from Burns's brother. He also hired Robert Burns, still a genuine fugitive, as consultant, although paying him only travelling expenses. Burns visited Hollywood under an assumed name, then returned to New Jersey where, almost a month after the film was released, he was arrested. This time the governor of New Jersey refused to extradite him, citing the cruel circumstances of his incarceration.

The movie is arguably the finest of the series of hard-hitting social-protest dramas in which Warner Brothers specialized during the 1930's and the reputation of socially conscious director Mervyn LeRoy, who also directed 'Little Caesar' and the lynching movie 'They Won't Forget', is identified perhaps more with this film than with any other. He certainly does not hold back in his very personal expression of social outrage. The film is devoid of the melodrama seen in many films of this era, and instead tells its story in very realistic terms. Rock splitting, sadistic guards, escapes, (including the seminal pursuit by baying bloodhounds through a swamp), solitary confinement - the vocabulary of the Hollywood prison genre was laid down here.

The movie is worth seeing just to appreciate how often it has been referenced or copied by other films such as 'Blackmail' in 1939 with Edward G. Robinson, 'The Defiant Ones' in 1958 with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier, and most recently in the Coens' 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

The movie is inevitably dated to modern eyes but still powerfully disturbing down to the famously haunting and heartbreaking last line. As Muni's fugitive Jim slips away into the night, his lover plaintively calls out "How do you live?" From the darkness comes the whisper, "I steal." Tragically, he has come to realise that he has to be a criminal in order to survive.

Impact

'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' did have an impact on the real world of prison reform. Lawmakers had to re-think the bleak treatment meted out to chain gang inmates as well as considering if such punishment was justified. Warner Bros. were sued, unsuccessfully, by the warden portrayed in the film, J. Harold Hardy, for "vicious, untrue and false attacks".

Eventually, the brutal chain gang system was successfully reformed and had been outlawed by 1937. In 1945 Robert Burns made the brave decision to return to Georgia where the Georgia Pardon and Parole Board commuted his sentence to time already served and restored his civil rights. They could not officially give a full pardon as he had previously pleaded guilty to the robbery.