Review of Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) by Sherry L — 20 Oct 2009
Beautiful and tender movie about an excentric convict who developes a genuine interest for birds during his time in isolation.
Burt Lancaster plays the role of Robert Stroud, the real life inmate with an intense love for his mother (played by the wonderful Thelma Ritter) who fought for him through thich and thin to prevent her son to be hanged.
She gets to meet the presidents wife and gives a letter to her for the president himself to plead him to save her son, which succeds. His sentence gets changed to a life sentence, in isolation.
So one day a little bird falls into the prison yard which Robert takes into his hands and decides to take care of, just as such for the time to go faster as he cares about birds. He feeds it with cockroaches and learn the little sparrow some tricks which impresses everyone in Alcatraz. Stroud's sparrow starts a new trend among the inmates; havning canaries. Eventually Stroud get's to keep several of the other inmate's canaries and he starts to read medecine books about birds and as the time goes by he gets a really skilled bird doctor.
In the other part of the movie he marries a woman who had been engaged into his matter for a long time, against Stroud's mother's will and therefor she lets him down and speaks out to the press that she doesn't care about him anylonger. I liked the first part very much (first it felt like a typical 90% movie) but don't think that the other part could match up the first part with all critism against the prison system.
Some people critizise this movie for making a hero out of a real life douchbag, but I don't think that the film maker's purpose is to fool us, but rather to make a good story. Those people should question themselves why they like the movie Bonnie and Clyde as well, in that case. Most people with brains knows anyway that if it's based on a true story, that doesn't mean that very much of it could be fiction. Anyway, this is a movie I recommend. Perhaps a little tiny bit too long, though.
This review of Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) was written by Sherry L on 20 Oct 2009.
Birdman of Alcatraz has generally received very positive reviews.
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