I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Does  anyone remember an actor named Paul Muni? 

He was the first Scarface before Al Pacino turned him into a cigar chewing cocaine snorting over the top twitching liable to blow at any moment Cuban drug lord back in 1983.

To put it simply Paul Muni is one of the most talented actors ever to come out of stage and become a leading man in Hollywood, at one point he was even able to choose the parts he was offered and that was unheard of at the time when most actors even before the golden age were manufactured by the studios. His role on the film "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" is one of the most powerful and uncompromising performances you will ever see, I thought it was a big step from playing a gangster in his previous film which preceded it a year earlier. 

The story starts with a soldier named James Allen (Muni), coming home from the war he was restless and anxious to start a new life, he left his job that was waiting for him at the factory and chose to follow his dream as an engineer and made a promise to his mother that he will make something of himself. Unfortunately times were rough and he settled from one odd job to another until he became a drifter, landing on one town he became an unfortunate accomplice on a robbery gone wrong on a local diner. Even though innocent, Allen was sentenced to 10 years hard labour for a crime that he did not commit. Being a part of the chain gang and learning the harsh treatment inside, he was able to make friends with the convicts including Bomber (Edward Ellis) who helps him escape.

With hard work and determination he was able to start a new life in Illinois and became wealthy becoming a part of the booming construction business, unfortunately his landlady whom he was obviously sleeping with was able to learn that he was a convict by one of the letters that was sent and blackmails him. 

In my understanding this film not only examines the social injustice and the treatment of prisoners of that time but also it's effect on a person, we see many things that are wrong on the film particularly how unfair and deceptive the ruling government on each state can be. Allen eventually agrees to return to prison for 90 days because he was promised parole for the good he has done in the state of Illinois but it was all a ploy by the Southern state (which he criticized publicly for the treatment of prisoners) that housed him to make sure he serves his full sentence. Twice his appeal for parole was denied and you can see the anguish and despair that Muni shows on screen, the director Mervyn Leroy wanted the audience to see the hard life of a convict inside a jail. A jail can either make or break a person, one example is the convict shown in the earlier scene of the film who was too weak to even lift his hammer. The prison guards threatened to whip him senseless but he just "did not care" anymore. After a few scenes it was shown the convict did not make it, he was now inside a coffin being shipped out to town to be buried. What was also shown is the treatment of African Americans at that time,  majority of the prisoners were black which numbers over the hundreds while there were only a handful white prisoners. 

Robert Burns was the real life person whom Allen was based, a convict who "made good" after escaping from the chain gang. This film and Burn's autobiography helped in the abolition of the Chain Gang system in the South, this also in turn helped Burns get pardoned for the remainder of his sentence. It's really surprising when in real life the man who was based it from was able to get a good ending but it was not the same for the main character of the film. In the last moments we see Allen visit his long suffering love Helen (Helen Vinson), below this page is the conversation and one of the most electrifying closing quotes on film. Allen walks away in the dark and we never knew what happened next.

Helen: Jim, why haven't you come before?
Jim: I couldn't, I was afraid to.
Helen: But you could have written. It's been almost a year since you escaped.
Jim: But I haven't escaped. They're still after me. They'll always be after me. I've had jobs but I can't keep them. Something happens. Someone turns up. I hide in rooms all day and travel by night. No friends. No rest. No peace.
…
Helen: How do you live?
James Allen: I steal.

Grade: A