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Post by koskiewicz on Apr 26, 2018 16:53:11 GMT
The Last Mile w/Mickey Rooney
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 26, 2018 17:11:17 GMT
Penitentiary
The Onion Field
Short Eyes
Jackson County Jail
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Joe Kidd
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Post by manfromplanetx on Apr 26, 2018 21:23:36 GMT
The Criminal (1960) Joseph Losey. Blacklisted in America during the Red Scare , the American-born director was forced to relocate to England. It’s not surprising that Losey developed a friendship with actor Stanley Baker, a working-class Welshman and committed socialist he shared many of the director’s political views. Losey said he was handed a ready-made script for The Criminal "It was a concoction of all the prison films Hollywood ever made," he said. "Both Stanley Baker and I refused to work until they let us write our own script." Which is what they did, beginning by doing extensive research on the British prison system and the criminal underworld that it houses. They visited penitentiaries, recording interviews with inmates and guards “screws”, which allowed them to study convict slang, absorb the prisoner speaking habits and learn more about the prisoner backgrounds. Baker himself was known to associate with British gangsters and he based his role on a past friendship with the infamous criminal enforcer, Albert Dimes. Baker delivers one of the best and his own favourite performances of his career as Johnny Bannion, a hoodlum caught in a cycle of crime. He tries to escape the prison system only to discover that the outside world isn’t much different. Bannion seems to find comfort in the predictability found behind his prison walls. As an inmate kingpin he brutally runs a territorial wing , as a free man, he is less confident, more reserved and easily compromised. Losey brings us deep into the violent & erratic the stark and threatening environment of 19th century British cellblocks. Having your back up against the wall, to feel trapped, bullied, oppressed, gripped by despair, an experience Joseph Losey was undoubtedly all too familiar with, inspiring his writing for this excellent compelling tale. Depicting a harsh and violent portrayal of prison life The Criminal film was banned in several countries...
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Post by london777 on Apr 27, 2018 2:58:17 GMT
Turn the Key Softly (1953, dir: Jack Lee) opens in a women's prison. Stars Joan Collins long before her Dynasty days. Scum (1979, dir: Alan Clarke) is set in a borstal (young offenders' prison). A rehash of a 1977 TV movie which was so controversial that it was banned. Made a star of a young Ray Winston. Boys in Brown (1949, dir: Montgomery Tully) was also set in a borstal, but a more conventional movie acceptable to the establishment. Early leading roles for Dirk Bogarde and Richard Attenborough. Although Tully has 62 directing credits, don't feel bad if you have never heard of him. Nor had I, and I am a Brit. Looking down the list this is the only title that rings a bell. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962, dir: Tony Richardson) was set in a reform school, a less draconian establishment than a borstal, but no holiday camp. Yield to the Night (1956) was directed by J Lee Thompson, who made some very good movies such as Ice Cold in Alex (1958), Woman in a Dressing Gown (1957) and the original version of Cape Fear (1962). It was based on a book by his wife, Joan Henry, who had been a jailbird herself. By chance, the film appeared shortly after the Ruth Ellis case, which was a cause celebre, Ellis being the last female to be executed in the UK. The movie helped to inspire the ultimately successful movement against capital punishment. It was a showcase role for Diana Dors (the "British Marilyn Monroe") and proved she could actually act, alongside her other assets. It opens and closes in prison, and her story is told in flashbacks.
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 27, 2018 3:02:21 GMT
Kiss of the Spider Woman
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Post by london777 on Apr 27, 2018 16:06:51 GMT
Doh! I forgot a great one in my own DVD collection, six inches from my nose as I type: Un prophète (2009, dir: Jaacques Audiard) is the story of a young Arab sent to prison in France and how he uses nationalistic and religious ties to claw his way up the criminal ladder. It's excellent and deeply moral.
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Post by teleadm on Apr 27, 2018 16:15:46 GMT
Interesting thread, but I have nothing to add, expect that I agree about Un condamné à mort s'est échappé , A Man Escaped (1956) and The Criminal 1960 (that I myself wrote recently about on the last seen thread), maybe not well known but both are certainly worth searching out, as mentioned by manfromplanetx . On the other hand: Pardon Us 1931
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Post by bravomailer on Apr 27, 2018 16:19:07 GMT
Prestige (1931) takes place, in part, in an Indochinese penal colony.
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Post by manfromplanetx on Apr 27, 2018 21:52:49 GMT
Szegénylegények , The Round-Up (1966) Miklós Jancsó Taking place entirely in a 19th century Hungarian prison camp, the dehumanised inmates are weary, mistrustful beings, the remnants of a libertarian uprising which had been brutally supressed many years before. The Round-Up prison stockade stands as a menacing protrusion on an otherwise featureless flat Hungarian Plain. The prison gates swing open and closed, revealing the unbearable claustrophobia, the misery of prison internment. In stark contrast, open they reveal the great expanse of the plains where freedom tantalizingly beckons but is depressingly unattainable. The prison guards begin to interrogate some of the prisoners with the aim of finding the leader of a guerrilla group to whom many of the prisoners were affiliated before their capture. One of the men becomes an informant to the guards but soon loses the trust of his fellow detainees... The blurred historical context creates a sense of timelessness which allows director Jancsó to explore the idea that oppression and the subsequent violence containing it is not typical of any particular place or time but an endemic universal trait of humanity which sadly persists to the present day. It is a provocative, and haunting tale of moral decay and human cruelty. With an austere, minimalist setting and sparse dialogue The Round-Up won Jancsó much national and international acclaim & attention upon its release in 1966, today the film is widely considered a masterwork of classic world cinema.
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Post by london777 on Apr 30, 2018 3:36:12 GMT
I forgot a great one in my own DVD collection ... ... and another: The Widow of Saint-Pierre La veuve de Saint-Pierre (2000 dir: Patrice Leconte) Set in the early 19th century. Neel kills someone when drunk. He is sentenced to death but has to wait for a guillotine to be imported from another French colony, which takes many months. At first he is locked up but, having given his word to the humane and progressive military commandant, is later allowed to roam the island, and makes himself extremely useful to, and popular with, the islanders. A good, rather than great, movie (based on actual events) but Juliette Binoche (the widow) and Daniel Auteuil (the commandant) are always worth watching while Neel is played by Emir Kusturica, the distinguished Serbian director.
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Post by Aj_June on Apr 30, 2018 9:00:08 GMT
Adding: BRUTE FORCE CANON CITY RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 INSIDE THE WALLS OF FOLSOM PRISON CAGED UNCHAINED I am glad to see Caged get a mention. it is a really good movie and pretty horrifying but real picture of what really went inside the prisons in 40s-50s. Also believe it was a high quality movie on female prisons. Later this genre got hijacked by b-grade sexploitation movies.
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bess1971s
Sophomore
@bess1971s
Posts: 399
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Post by bess1971s on Apr 30, 2018 16:25:18 GMT
Adding: BRUTE FORCE CANON CITY RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 INSIDE THE WALLS OF FOLSOM PRISON CAGED UNCHAINED I am glad to see Caged get a mention. it is a really good movie and pretty horrifying but real picture of what really went inside the prisons in 40s-50s. Also believe it was a high quality movie on female prisons. Later this genre got hijacked by b-grade sexploitation movies. ITA about Caged. I've been watching this one ever since I was a kid and it never fails to amuse me and horrify me at the same time. I cheered when evil Matron Harper got what was coming to her.
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Post by Aj_June on Apr 30, 2018 16:34:03 GMT
I am glad to see Caged get a mention. it is a really good movie and pretty horrifying but real picture of what really went inside the prisons in 40s-50s. Also believe it was a high quality movie on female prisons. Later this genre got hijacked by b-grade sexploitation movies. ITA about Caged. I've been watching this one ever since I was a kid and it never fails to amuse me and horrify me at the same time. I cheered when evil Matron Harper got what was coming to her. Yeah, I felt the same. That's what I told to my friend - long before nurse Ratched there lived an evil matron called Evelyn Harper. In fact Ratched was a saint compared to Harper.
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Post by outrider127 on Apr 30, 2018 16:45:56 GMT
I have an old one that nobody has mentioned yet: Each Dawn I Die(1939) with James Cagney and George Raft
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Post by Lebowskidoo 🦞 on Apr 30, 2018 17:41:20 GMT
Haven't seen these mentioned, but all were very good:
An Innocent Man (1989) Felon (2008) Animal Factory (2000) Dog Pound (2010) Life (1999) The Green Mile (1999) Starred Up (2013) The Hurricane (1999)
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spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,519
Likes: 9,318
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Post by spiderwort on Jun 9, 2018 12:42:18 GMT
Adding three I don't think have been mentioned: 20,000 years in Sing-Sing (1932), starring Spencer Tracy & Bette Davis Castle on the Hudson (1940), starring John Garfield & Ann Sheridan I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), starring Paul Muni
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Post by manfromplanetx on Jun 9, 2018 21:40:41 GMT
Kōshikei , Death By Hanging (1968) . An outstanding independent production from director Nagisa Oshima. and the the Art Theatre Guild... Acclaimed for its innovative theatrical techniques, Oshima's film delivers a complex multi faceted treatment of guilt, consciousness and justice. Opening the film we enter a prison death chamber where an execution is about to take place. Inexplicably, the man to be executed survives the hanging but loses his memory function in the process. The prison officials who witness the hanging enter into much debate on how to proceed. The law could be interpreted as forbidding execution of an individual who does not recognize their crime and its punishment... Oshima was inspired by a real life account, coupled with the published writings of the Korean prisoner known only as R and his very own personal views on the death penalty & state punishment, it is an absurd and harsh critique of the Japanese justice/prison system and the nation's endemic racism.
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Post by manfromplanetx on Jun 10, 2018 8:26:41 GMT
Another excellent Prison based film from Japan is Kita no hotaru , Fireflies in the North (1984) Hideo Gosha. A brief historical introduction opens the marvellous adventure drama, a real life background accompanied with original photos, are the foundations of this fascinating tale. The story setting is the frigid untamed wilderness of Hokkaido during the early days of the Meiji era, circa 1881 when Kiyoshi Tsukigata characterized in the film became the first warden of Kabato Prison. The Japanese government had established a European-style civil police system in 1874, and began using political prisoners as slave labour, many of the men sent to Kabato Prison came from former Samurai clans now outlawed. Rounded up from prisons across the country the prisoner workforce was critical for building infrastructure roads/railroads to open up the snowbound wilds. The prisoners suffered a terrible fate in the harsh conditions, there was a heavy death toll among them. Is it any wonder that it was here at this remote outpost that a prisoner rebellion broke out, brought on by the endless abuse & mistreatment...
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Post by Chalice_Of_Evil on Jun 10, 2018 10:27:45 GMT
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Post by manfromplanetx on Jun 26, 2018 21:37:17 GMT
Abashiri Bangaichi , Prison Walls of Abashiri (1965) Teruo Ishii. Ken Takakura stars in this excellent very exciting, action packed prison film, the first entry in a popular and long running film series. Abashiri Prison, is situated in the north of Hokkaido, and thus has an extreme natural environment. Shinichi Tachibana (Ken Takakura) is a rebellious but model prisoner with only six months remaining in his sentence. On a work truck Tachibana is handcuffed to Gonda, a hardened criminal, so when Gonda and other inmates jump to escape from the prison, he is dragged along with them into the frozen wilds... Abashiri Prison is the northernmost prison in Japan, it was opened in 1890, at this time the Meiji government sent over 1,000 political prisoners to the isolated, remote prison, and forced them to build roads linking to the developing southern region. The popularity of the film brought many tourists to the area and in the 80s the prison was upgraded, the older buildings were preserved and now contain a historical prison museum .
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