Castle on the Hudson

John Garfield provides the power as a gung-ho gangster who struggles to accept his time at Sing Sing in this prison reform drama. A faithful remake of 20,000 Years At Sing Sing that leans more to its 30s gangster roots than to the nascent style of film noir. Though the plot itself is harsh, the film lacks subtlety, portrays the prison staff as noble stewards bent on rehabilitation, and aims for sentimentality over action.

L.W. Lawes wrote the original story, which has been made over a couple times. Garfield had only been in Hollywood a couple years when he made this. Garfield and Sheridan star as Tommy and Kay, with their trials and tribulations, as Tommy is in and out of jail. Pat O'Brien is the warden, his antagonist. Grant Mitchell and Burgess Meredith are in here with minor roles. The usual prison flick capers. Escape attempts. Prisoner scuffles. Pretty well done. Volume goes up and down, but the picture quality is quite good. Must have been restored. Directed by Litvak.. he and Garfield also made "Out of the Fog" together. Sadly, Garfield croaked pretty young at 39, of heart issues. He had been caught up in the communist scare of the 1940s. For a really Great Garfield film, see "Postman Always Rings Twice". Much better all around. Postman shows on Turner and may other channels pretty often.

Remake of the 1933 prison drama with Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, and I haven't seen that one in so long that I can't compare them. But on its own, this is a solid in-the-slammer melodrama, with John Garfield, always sympathetic no matter what he played, getting us to care about Tommy Gordan (the closing credits misspell it Gordon, but it's been Gordan in all the headline sequences), a ruthless crook with an inflated sense of self. When sent literally up the river, and the film gets the Sing Sing location right and has some helpful stock footage, he trusts his lawyer Jerome Cowan to get him out quickly, and he shouldn't. He has a faithful girlfriend in Ann Sheridan, who looks wonderful and was a heck of an actress as well, but here she mainly has to wrinkle her forehead and cry a lot. Gordan engineers a breakout with smart crook Burgess Meredith and stupid crook Guinn Williams, but thinks the better of it, and tough-but-fair warden Pat O'Brien begins to see him in a new light. Then some more plot complications and Tommy getting convicted of another crime he didn't commit, and a somber finale that isn't lightened up by the bombastic Warners music accompanying the fadeout. Nothing unfamiliar here, and a couple of plot points that are tough to buy, but it's mostly smacking good entertainment, and a reminder of what the screen lost when Garfield prematurely left us.

This is a silly,cliche-ridden prison movie that is nevertheless entertaining and interesting. An almost-unrecognizable (young!) Burgess Meredith plays a good part here in this film as a fellow-inmate of the star inmate/gangster played by John Garfield.

As far as the actual storyline goes,it's all just a bit too much to believe,in fact some of it is downright ridiculous to put it gently.

However,this is a beautifully-made black and white film that is interesting from start to finish. The film/print quality was crystal-clear,the action scenes are pretty wild and suspenseful. Overall,I liked it.

Cocky gangster (Garfield) goes to prison where he gradually reforms until given a break by the prison warden (O'Brien). Then problems ensue.

Typically gritty Warner Bros. fare from the pre-war era. Garfield shows he's in the same gangster class as Cagney and Robinson. Watch him spit out dialog faster than a machine gun burst while doing a tough-guy routine. And who better to double-cross him than that slippery lounge lizard Jerome Cowan who could machine gun his own dialog as a reporter in dozens of period films.

But the real scene stealer is scrawny, athletic Burgess Meredith, a brainy con who outwits the prison head-doctor (Grant Mitchell) in the movie's best scene. He may be the least-likely looking con I've seen; still, he and Garfield make a dynamic leadership team (as long as it's not Saturday!). On the other hand, goofy Big Boy Williams strikes me as a matter of taste.

It's a compelling, if not original, plot that redeems Garfield without whitewashing him. Still, I'm not sure what his actual capital crime is when they lead him away, especially when the all-powerful Production Code insisted that justice be served on this side of the pearly gates. Nonetheless, his scenes with the warden (O'Brien) are nicely shaded gems of growing respect, while a lovely Sheridan is affecting as the luckless girlfriend.

As this gutsy little programmer shows, star-studded MGM may have had the gloss, but plebeian Warner's had the grit.