Review of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) by Bob O — 05 Feb 2011

One of the greatest and most famous of the social imperative films of the pre-Hayes Code 1930's, I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang depicts a man's decade long battle to attain the unattainable, peace.

A truly fantastic Paul Muni plays James Allen, a returning WWI vet who gets wrongfully arrested and sentenced to ten years hard labor at an abhorrent southern work camp. There he -- and 1930's audiences -- witnessed the atrocities of the chain gang institution in the American south.

And that was the point -- to expose its cruelty and incite reform. For all its cynicism, this Mervyn Leroy classic is still an absorbing and exciting portrait of one man's hell: from combat to prison to fugitive life, and then finally to the shadowy, soul-sucked, madness that comes with a life fraught with such hardship.

Muni's tour-de-force induces not only sympathy, but anger toward the heartless miscarriages of justice that condemn Allen throughout the film. I was by turns enthralled, enlightened, heartbroken, and frustrated by his journey from start to finish.

Leroy's 1932 film is a fiery indictment of the chain gang hypocrisy that often lacks subtlety, but never power.