Review of Escape from Alcatraz (1979) by Kieran F — 26 Jul 2011

Leaving the Question Unanswered.

Officially, the three men drowned and no one ever successfully escaped from Alcatraz. However, there has been considerable debate since the morning it was discovered that they were missing as to whether they succeeded or not. After all, the waters of San Francisco Bay are cold and shark-infested, and no trace of the three was ever seen again, or at least none has ever come to light. Adam and Jamie tested it using only the supplies the men were known to have used, and they made it to safety. However, no fools they, they merely declared it Plausible. I personally lean toward the belief that they drowned, largely because all three were repeat offenders--that was about the easiest way to end up at Alcatraz--who were never entered into the system again. I'm aware that fingerprinting technology has come a long way since those days, not least because of computer databases, but I still believe there should have been something, and there never was.

Frank Morris (Clint Eastwood) was a career criminal, a man who supposedly committed his first crime at age thirteen, and now, he's on the Rock. A mile away from San Francisco and forever out of reach. After watching Doc (Roberts Blossom) go mad and cut off his own fingers, Morris decides to escape. He enlists the help of the Anglin brothers, Clarence (Jack Thibeau) and John (Fred Ward). He also gets help from "Charley Butts" (Larry Hankin), whose real name was Allen West. (West was still alive until about six months before the film was released.) They develop a fairly complex plan--history seems to show, as they surely would have known, that spur-of-the-moment attempts failed. Indeed, some of it was so ridiculously complicated that it shouldn't have worked it all. But, on 11 June, 1962, Morris and the Anglin brothers made their attempt. "Butts" couldn't get the ventilator grill in his cell off in time and was left behind; he is the only one of the four whose fate is known.

Director Don Siegel chose to make the film extremely quiet. There is little score. There is little or no shouting. Even the machinery in the prison is quiet. (And the subtitle option on the DVD is limited to French, which is no help to me.) This is not a Sean Connery action movie, not that I've seen the Sean Connery action movie. This isn't even Mike Myers kidding around with Anthony LaPaglia about "tour guide Vicky." This is a working prison full of "real" prisoners. They go in knowing there's nowhere for them to go, and it is said that the silence and the monotony are as much a punishment as anything else which they might suffer. And, of course, you don't cast Clint Eastwood if you want a talkative sort. I think the very silence of the film lets the idea sink in of what it would be like to be a prisoner there. I think it works to make you consider what you yourself would do if you were stuck there.

Unfortunately, because it was so quiet, I kind of missed what led to the decision to go. Was it the mistreatment of Doc? Was it when Big Hulking Prisoner Whose Name I Missed gets let out of solitary after six months and would have made a play at Morris if English (Paul Benjamin, possibly playing "Bumpy" Johnson, a Harlem racketeer believed to have helped the escape plans) hadn't stopped him? After all, English won't always be there. And the warden (Patrick McGoohan) wasn't exactly Morris's best friend, either. Yeah, prison is bad. Even though Alcatraz was in many ways better than a lot of others--it was shut down largely because it was too expensive to keep running, not least because of the prisoner to guard ratio--it was still prison. And San Francisco was always right there, taunting you. A mile away. But a lot of people stayed for their entire sentence, or anyway the whole part served there, watching the skyline of the city grow and change. I missed what drove these men into the water instead.

This is not a movie to watch if you're interested in exposition full stop. Although the movie doesn't make heroes of the men, that kind of leaves it without any heroes at all. What exactly brought any of these people to Alcatraz is kind of left out. I mean, there's a guy who claims to be Al Capone, but he can't be. He was indeed long dead by the time the events of the story took place. The movie wants us to hope they did escape, I think, but it can't give us men who would do well on the outside and still remain true to who they were in real life. I'll acknowledge that I respect their choice to stick close to the truth. No one here is wrongfully accused of anything. They aren't looking to find the person responsible for sending them to prison; at heart, they sent themselves and they know it. Which is why I can't believe the three men managed to succeed, [i]MythBusters[/i] or no. Neither law enforcement anywhere in the United States nor the Anglin family ever heard from any of the men again.