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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Oct 6, 2018 16:32:30 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) Nice to see "Dog pound" get a shout out. Cripe what a bleak film. But had to keep watching. Dog Pound, remake of Scum. Not a bad Americanisation I have to say > Enola Vale - A Place To Grow And Learn. Dog Pound is directed by Kim Chapiron who also co-writes the screenplay with Jeremie Delon. It stars Adam Butcher, Shane Kippel, Mateo Morales, Taylor Poulin, Dewshane Williams, Lawrence Bayne and Trent McMullen. Young offenders Butch (Butcher), Angel (Morales) & Davis (Kippel) are sent to the Enola Vale correctional facility and find that bullying, drugs and abuse are the order of the day. To clear things up, since there seems to be a lot of confusion on internet forums, Dog Pound is to all intents and purposes a remake of Alan Clarke's seminal British Borstal shocker, Scum (1977/79). It's the same plotting, much of the same characters are recycled and all of the big scenes from Scum are recreated as well. Only difference is is that Chapiron has shifted the story to North America, to a fictional correctional facility in Montana. It's basically done what the Farrelly Brothers did with Fever Pitch. What should be noted is that Chapiron hasn't hid from this fact, he didn't make the movie thinking nobody would notice, he actively acknowledged his worship of Clarke's film, making Dog Pound very much the ultimate American homage. Claims of it being a rip-off etc are way off the mark, it's a remake and nobody has denied this. Much like the original British version, Dog Pound is brutal, upsetting and has a loud booming voice. The director follows Clarke's template by keeping it grimy and raw, and by shooting it in semi-documentary style and using rookie actors and real life ex-offenders in the cast, Chapiron has gone, and gotten, gritty realism. He's also added a couple of his own neat touches to the narrative. The pressure the guards are under is scrutinised, how it affects home life, and there's a deft line about AIDS in the story, how people react to sufferers of the disease. The recreation of a young offenders facility is well researched, with laid bare dormitories and depressing corridors, while the cast, particularly a terrific coiled spring Butcher, can't be faulted for excellent serving up of the material to hand. Minor problems do exist, familiarity of genre is always an issue, and here for anyone who has seen either of the Scum movies, there is no surprise factor, it does feel a little old hat. This even though Chapiron appears to be making the comment that problems inside juvenile facilities haven't ceased since the 70s. The Angel character is badly under written in the context of him being one of the central characters, a big misstep since he forms a crucial plot development, whilst the use of music is also a very bad idea. These irritants stop the film from being up with the best of the genre, but it's still a potent firecracker of a picture. Very well made and still it has something to say, in that the cycle of violence continues inside, that juvenile institutions are still questionable tools for rehab, problems are there and Dog Pound ferociously makes its point. 7.5/10
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Post by london777 on Oct 6, 2018 18:36:57 GMT
Dog Pound, remake of Scum. Not a bad Americanisation I have to say ... etc I appreciate you taking the trouble to write such a thoughtful and detailed review of a lesser-known film.
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Post by vegalyra on Oct 6, 2018 20:34:08 GMT
One that's often forgotten from Jimmy Stewart's repertoire, Carbine Williams. Loosely based on a true story. Imagine an inmate developing a new firearm for the US Army in prison nowadays.
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Post by london777 on Oct 7, 2018 2:31:56 GMT
Prison (1987) dir: Rene Harlin is one of Irwin Yablans' notorious low-budget horror movies. Only notable for Viggo Mortensen's first leading role and as Harlin's directorial debut in the US. The story of a wrongly executed man who returns to haunt the prison.
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Post by london777 on Oct 25, 2018 2:45:41 GMT
In 1949 Richard Todd, having followed up his distinguished WWII service with important stage roles, leaped into films with a string of leading roles. (No apprenticeship as a supporting actor for him). The first of them was in For Them That Trespass (1949), where he assumes a weird and variable Scottish accent. He goes to prison for a murder he did not commit (though he deserved it anyway for murdering the English language). Directed by Cavalcanti, it is a bit of a mess because of the unclear motivations of the main characters. Script is by J Lee Thompson (later to become a top director) with additional dialog by William Douglas-Home, a Tory but a tireless advocate of prison reform. (Todd must have worked hard on his Scottish accent, for later the same year he had a massive hit with the weepie "The Hasty Heart" playing a Scot opposite Ronald Reagan and Patricia Neal).
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Post by london777 on Oct 27, 2018 16:34:23 GMT
Petrolino's current thread om Sylvia Sidney reminded me of this one, most of which set in a woman's prison: Ladies of the Big House (1931) dir: Marion Gering
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Oct 28, 2018 13:04:05 GMT
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Oct 28, 2018 13:09:36 GMT
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Post by london777 on Oct 29, 2018 23:28:58 GMT
Paul Sloane had written and directed movies since the end of WWI. His penultimate effort was The Sun Sets at Dawn (1950) an anti-capital punishment effort set in the boondocks. An innocent man will be the first to be executed by the state's newly-acquired electric chair (if they can get the darned thing to work). A talky poverty row effort. The best scenes are when the assembled hacks (who include Noir stalwarts like Percy Helton, King Donovan and Charles Arnt) reminisce about past events but these are outweighed by the mawkish scenes with the priest and the girlfriend.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Nov 28, 2018 9:06:44 GMT
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Post by london777 on Nov 30, 2018 4:51:15 GMT
Fury (1936) As well as Fury (1936), there is The Sound of Fury (1950) directed by the polymath Cy Endfield and co-written by him with Jo Pagano from the latter's novel. It is based on the same real-life kidnapping and murder in San Jose, and is at least as good a movie. So effective, in fact, that it was banned in the States, becoming Endfield's last film made there. The USA did not want him so we kindly Brits took him in, and he made a couple of good films in the UK: Zulu (1964) and Hell Drivers (1957), along with lesser items. In between jobs I minded a friend's village store which rented VHS tapes among its offerings. Endfield came in but I did not know who the hell he was in those days and rather offended him. Me, offending someone! Hard to imagine, I know.
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Post by london777 on Nov 30, 2018 22:53:15 GMT
In between jobs I minded a friend's village store which rented VHS tapes among its offerings. Endfield came in but I did not know who the hell he was in those days and rather offended him. Me, offending someone! Hard to imagine, I know. Thanks for the intro and the great story about the VHS store. For some reason I confused him with James Clavell, who is also a writer and director but otherwise totally different. I prattled on about King Rat and Shogun while he got more exasperated. I do that sort of thing a lot these days, but that was nearly forty years ago, so no excuse. Best comment of the year on this board. Deserves its own thread!
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Post by london777 on Dec 3, 2018 2:30:15 GMT
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 ... It was a showcase role for Diana Dors (the "British Marilyn Monroe") and proved she could actually act ... Only two years previously, J. Lee Thompson had directed and co-written with his wife, Joan Henry, another movie about women's prisons: The Weak and the Wicked (1954), released in the USA with the more titillating title, "The Young and Willing". Diana Dors co-starred in this alongside Glynis Johns: Glynis Johns had form. She had previously done time as a fifteen-year-old in Prison Without Bars (1938) directed by the innovative Irish director Brian Desmond Hurst. He had already had two films banned for quite different reasons. That must be quite unusual. Can you think of any other instances? ( The Tell-Tale Heart (1934), a version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous story was banned for being too horrific. Ourselves Alone (1936) was banned for being too sympathetic to the I.R.A.) Prison Without Bars (1938), an untypical movie for Alexander Korda to produce, was an instant remake of Prison Sans Barreaux (1938) directed by the Russian director Léonide Moguy. French actress Corinne Luchaire, who spoke fluent English, played the lead in both versions. Luchaire was a sad case. She was the daughter of pro-Nazi press baron Jean Luchaire who was shot by firing squad for his collaborationist efforts during the occupation. She herself was ostracized and stripped of civil rights, dying of tuberculosis in abject poverty at the age of 29.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Dec 5, 2018 5:51:32 GMT
Big House, U.S.A. (1955) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0047879/reference
I'm gonna kidnap a kidnapper for the money he kidnapped for.
Big House, U.S.A. is directed by Howard W. Koch and written by John C. Higgins, George George and George Slavin. It stars Broderick Crawford, Ralph Meeker, Reed Hadley, William Talman, Lon Chaney Jr., Charles Bronson and Felicia Farr. Music is by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by Gordon Avil.
A Kidnap, A Ransom and A Prison Break = Powder Keg.
Out of Bel-Air Productions, Big House, U.S.A. is a relentlessly tough and gritty picture. Beginning with the kidnapping of a young boy from a country camp, Howard Koch's film has no intentions of making you feel good about things. Deaths do occur and we feel the impact wholesale, tactics and actions perpetrated by the bad guys in the play punch the gut, while the finale, if somewhat expected in the scheme of good versus bad classic movies, still leaves a chill that is hard to shake off.
Split into two halves, we first observe the kidnap and ransom part of the story, then for the second part we enter prison where we become cell mates with five tough muthas. Crawford, Chaney, Meeker, Bronson and Talman, it's a roll call of macho nastiness unfurled by character actors worthy of the Big House surroundings. The locations play a big part in the pervading sense of doom that hangs over proceedings, Cascabel Island Prison (really McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary) is every bit as grim as you would expect it to be, and the stunning vistas of Royal Gorge in Colorado proves to be a foreboding backdrop for much of the picture.
Although it sadly lacks chiaroscuro photography, something which would have been perfect for this movie and elevated it to the standard of Brute Force and Riot in Cell Block 11, Avil's photography still has the requisite starkness about it. While Dunlap scores it with escalating menace. Not all the performances are top draw, more so on the good guy side of the fence, and some characters such as Chaney's Alamo Smith don't get nearly enough lines to spit, but this is still one bad boy of an experience and recommended to fans of old black and white crims and coppers movies. 8/10
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Dec 5, 2018 12:14:27 GMT
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Post by london777 on Dec 5, 2018 14:30:34 GMT
I generally do not like westerns, so it is surprising that I forgot to mention one that I really do like. Although thinking about it, the reason for that may be that it is a prison comedy/drama which happens to be set in the Old West, rather than a real western: There Was a Crooked Man... (1970) dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It stars Kirk Douglas, one of my favorite actors, with Henry Fonda, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Lee Grant and a strong supporting cast. The studio cut the movie from 165 minutes to 126 minutes for release and it was not a commercial success. The wonderful Lee Grant's major role was hacked down to a couple of minutes, over which I grieve. Comic nude scenes were among the footage cut. Two of the prisoners are shown to be a gay couple, quite daring for its date. I think studio interference may have lost us a masterpiece.
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Post by pimpinainteasy on Dec 6, 2018 4:35:07 GMT
pimpinainteasy Thanks for these great titles. As I said before, I'm sadly behind in my viewing of Indian and southeast Asian films. You are inspiring me to do better, and it's clear that I'm missing a lot. These stories look really intriguing, and have have excellent imdb ratings, too. Thanks again for helping educate me. no problem. it would be hard finding these films with subtitles.
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Dec 8, 2018 8:21:12 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... Very good film, helps that I'm a big Baker fan of course.
Knick, Knack, Paddy Whack!
The Criminal (AKA: The Concrete Jungle) is directed by Joseph Losey and written by Alun Owen. It stars Stanley Baker, Sam Wanamaker, Margrit Saad, Patrick Magee, Grégoire Aslan, Rupert Davies and Laurence Naismith. Music is by John Dankworth and cinematography by Robert Krasker.
Johnny Bannion (Baker) is an ex-con who's taken part in the robbery of a racetrack but is caught and sent back to prison; but not before he has time to bury the cash from the gig. Back in prison Johnny is keeping the cards close to his chest but finds there are big crime forces wanting a piece of his action. With plans afoot to "twist" his arm, and his girlfriend kidnapped, Johnny knows something is going to have to give...
All my sadness and all my joy, comes from loving a thieving boy.
Once tagged as being "The toughest picture ever made in Britain", The Criminal obviously seems tame by today's increasingly over the top standards. Yet it still packs quite a punch and shows the very best of Messrs Losey, Baker and Krasker.
In some ways it's a strange film, the pace is purposely slow and the narrative is bolstered by bouts of hang wringing tension, where periods of calm come laced with a grim oppressive atmosphere, but there's often electricity bristling in the air when Bannion (Baker is magnetic and brilliant as he apparently models the character on Albert Dimes) is holding court. Even when on the outside and feeling the love of a good woman, Bannion exudes a loner like danger, he's tough but being a hard bastard can't break him free from the shackles of his life. We know it and you sense that he himself knows it, and it gives the film an exciting edge not befitting the downbeat tone of the story. Characters here have not been delivered from happy land, you will struggle to find someone here who isn't nasty of heart, bad in the head or simply foolish. Inside this concrete jungle it's a multi cultural hive of emotional disintegration, and at the core stirring the honey pot is one Johnny Bannion. The film makers here are all about pessimism, self-destruction and the battle against the system and the underworld, right up to (and including) a finale fit to grace the best noirs of the 40s.
Losey and Krasker ensure the prison sequences are stifling, the walls close in, the bars and netting are unsettling and close ups of the odd ball assortment of crims and warders strike an incarcerated chord, visually it's an impressive piece of noirish film. But it's not just about shadows and filtered light, the director has skills aplenty with his camera. A kaleidoscope shot has a delightfully off kilter kink to it, while his overhead filming and pull away crane usage for the frosty cold finale is as memorable as it is skillful in selection. Musically the pic begins and ends with the soulful warbling of Cleo Laine, the tune is a Prison Ballad (Thieving Boy), and it's tonally perfect, while Dankworth and his orchestra provide jazz shards that thrust in and out of the story like knowing accomplices to fate unfolding. Set design is superb, especially for the recreation of a Victorian prison which is impressive and makes it easy to not lament an actual prison location used, while the supporting actors are very strong, particularly Magee (Zulu) who excels doing sneaky menace as Warder Barrows.
Flaws? Not any if you don't actually expect the toughest film made in Britain back in the day (though it was banned in some countries!). I do wonder why Baker had to be an Irish character and not just be Welsh and therefore do his natural Welsh accent? And if we are are being over critical we could suggest there are some prison stereotypes that even by 1960 were looking frayed around the edges. But ultimately this is tough stuff, a gritty and moody piece of cinema with class on either side of the camera. 8/10
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Post by hitchcockthelegend on Dec 8, 2018 8:38:00 GMT
Prison Shadows (1936) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0028140/reference
Carandiru (2003) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0293007/reference
Convict 99 (1938) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0031178/reference
Someone's made a dreadful bloomer.
Convict 99 is directed by Marcel Varnel and collectively written by Jack Davis Jr, Marriott Edgar, Val Guest, Ralph Smart and Cyril Campion. It stars Will Hay, Moore Marriott, Graham Moffatt, Googie Withers, Peter Gawthorne, Basil Radford and Dennis Wyndham.
Dismissed from his position as headmaster at St. Michael's School, Dr. Benjamin Twist (Hay) applies for a job at another school. Inadvertently going into the wrong interview room, Twist finds himself offered the job because the interviewers think he is a John Benjamin, a tough Australian who has applied for the Warder's job at Blakedown Prison in Devon! Twist in charge of a prison? One that houses some of the toughest criminals in Britain! Oh no...
After the monster success of Oh, Mr. Porter! a few months previously, it was always going to be hard for Will Hay's next film to compete. And so it proved. While Convict 99 falls some way below the standard set by "Porter", some of the harsh reviews back on the film's release were misjudged. The prison setting seemed to bother many; more so the picture of prison life painted, with a few critics bizarrely thinking it was a satire on prison reform!
Convict 99 is a standard Will Hay/Gainsborough Pictures romp, it milks the mistaken identity theme for all its worth and slots in a few very funny set-pieces along the way. Re: Twist breaking rocks and losing his sledgehammer, the betting shenanigans and the break out of prison and break into the bank. The famed trio of Hay, Marriott and Moffatt don't get much time to interact together, which is disappointing, in fact Moffatt is under used, but Marriott's Jerry the Mole is a wonderful character and the wise old Marriott perks things up when the film begins to sag. Good character actors Gawthorne, Radford and Wyndham ensure the material doesn't fall flat, while Withers holds her end up well in a male dominated screenplay. 7/10
Andersonville (1996) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0115097/reference
And what do you call this little piece of heaven?
The American Civil War, and Union soldiers are imprisoned at Andersonville, a crude stockade establishment presided over by the inept and cruel Captain Henry Wirz. It would prove to be a another dark and soul destroying chapter from the war.
Lets get it out there right away, Andersonville was not the only hell hole prison operating during the American Civil War. Information from both sides of the coin is available on line for those wishing to explore further. That said, Andersonville is a story that deserved and is needed to be told, and this John Frankenheimer directed two - parter brings it vividly into the viewers' lives.
In filmic substance terms it has all the standard POW movie cliche's. We follow a group of prisoners and a group of "convict bullies", with those in authority observing menacingly and proving desperately carefree as to the conditions of the prison and of humane traits in general.
But as formulaic as it ultimately is, there's a determination by the makers to keep the characterisations real and viable, and they achieve this in spades. Pic is also boosted by superb period detail, costuming is grade "A", while the production and art design for the prison is harrowingly effective.
Frankenheimer's tracking shots brings home the enormity of the misery, while Gary Chang's score is thankfully never bombastic. Cast are a mixed bag - to be expected in such a large ensemble piece - and you can't help but yearn for more of William H. Macy.
Yet even though 30 minutes could easily have been shaved off of the run time, Andersonville is a production that should stay with you. The coda serving to remind us that that should be the case. 7/10
The Last Castle (2001) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0272020/reference
Unity is powerful, even if it's just for a flag.
Thematically the film is offering nothing new to a genre that is always in need of a big boost, and certainly there are problems in the film that bog it down to stop it rising as high as the flag that becomes so crucial to the plot, but there is still enough here to make it an above average entry into the incarceration genre.
Robert Redford is disgraced General Eugene Irwin who is sent to a maximum security military prison for ten years, here he comes up against Warden Colonel Winter who is the kind of Colonel who has never seen real war, he reads it in books and collects war time memorabilia like toys. Winter quickly tries to assert his dominance over Irwin by being evermore ruthless in punishments to anyone who looks up to Irwin. The battle of wills ensues and we are taken to the inevitable uprising as Irwin makes the prisoners proud soldiers again, they unite to depose the commander of the stockade as it were. The final third of the film is well worth the wait, the uprising is thrilling enough, which includes some fine set pieces, and the ending doesn't pander to sickly formula, but other issues weigh the film down. In a film calling for a sadistic Warden you need the actor playing him to be villain supreme, sadly James Gandolfini doesn't cut it, he's more prat villain than nasty villain, whilst his loyal force enforcers are equally none menacing. My other major gripe is having at your disposal a talent like Delroy Lindo and criminally under using him, he lights up the film for the brief screen time he gets. All the others fare OK, nothing out of the ordinary, but nothing that harms the film, Redford fits the part of the ageing and grizzled General, and Mark Ruffalo hints at the great actor he was to become in an integral role in the unfolding plot line, so all in all it's above average and enjoyable fare. 6.5/10
Stockade (1990) - www.imdb.com/title/tt0101531/reference
You're a bully, and I hate everything you stand for.
Warning: Spoilers!
Cadence (AKA: Stockade) is directed by Martin Sheen and written by Dennis Shryack. It stars Martin Sheen, Charlie Sheen and Laurence Fishburne. Music is by Georges Delerue and cinematography by Richard Leiterman.
Upon the death of his father, Pfc. Franklin Bean (C Sheen) gets drunk and assaults an MP. Sentenced to 90 days in an army stockade run by bigoted bully MSgt. Otis V. McKinney (M Sheen), Bean finds he is the only white prisoner in the facility
Better than it has any right to be visually, and rising above what looks to be scratchy themes on the page, Cadence rounds out as a more than enjoyable character study. After a poor opening suggests the picture is going to be an hour and half of Charlie Sheen over doing the brat packer persona, picture settles into its stride once Sheen Junior encounters the aggressive Sheen Senior and is thrown in clink with the Laurence (here credited is Larry) Fishburne led "Soul Patrol Brothers". True enough to say that basic formula sets in as Sheen Junior can't fit in with his new "roomies", whilst he stays firmly in his broody bubble much to the ever increasing consternation of the agitated McKinney. No way is Bean going to let McKinney break him, even as the gruff voiced warden starts to come down hard on his newly adopted brothers, this merely serves as the catalyst for some black and white unity; which if given a chance can always be powerful.
At the centre of the character hot pot is a broken water windmill that serves as a beacon of hope for the prisoners, but sure enough we know where this is going and it will form the basis of the last quarter of the story as things invariably go bad before a ray of hope springs from the narrative. It's all very predictable and obvious, but Shryack's screenplay allows the characters depth, with much detailed emotion afforded the lead protagonists. Bonus, too, is that the secondary roles don't just serve as props, they impact hard on proceedings, something all too rare in prison/institution set movies. Smart sound-tracking as well, with Harry Stewart (Sweetbread Crane) singing his own beautiful composition "End of My Journey", a song that lands in your chest and stays there for some time.
Sheen Junior has rarely been better away from Oliver Stone's guidance, no doubt spurred on by his father's presence in front of and behind the camera. However, Sheen Senior's direction is only safe and basic, while his acting is the films only real weak acting link. You have to feel that with his subsequent non directing career, Martin Sheen found it wasn't for him, certainly blending both acting and directing appears to have been a step too far for the otherwise talented actor. Fishburne is quality, while F. Murray Abraham shines in one of the smaller roles.
A drama with touches of comedy, and full of good honest intentions to offer hope and inspiration, Cadence is a very good movie. That comes on proviso, though, if one can accept it on its formulaic terms. 7/10
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Post by london777 on Dec 8, 2018 13:33:19 GMT
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) dir: Robert Hamer opens and closes with prison scenes as Louis Mazzini, Duke of Chalfont (Dennis Price) respectively awaits execution and finally is reprieved. Faultless acting by Price, while Alec Guinness plays eight roles, members of his family who Price has to eliminate in order to inherit the dukedom. Top-billed was Valerie Hobson who had a much smaller part than either.
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