Hellgate

Veterinarian Sterling Hayden is wrongfully accused and found guilty of being a member of the confederacy raiders during the Civil War. He is sent to a prison in the desert under the command of Lieutenant Ward Bond.

It's a variation on Ford's THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND that spends most of its length on the prisoners' attempts to escape. Hayden is peripheral to most of the actual story, as is second-billed Joan Leslie as his wife. There's a lot of focus on Bond, who is excellent in his sadistic role; I kept wondering how close to reality it was, given his real-world involvement in the Blacklist.

Summary: An ex-confederate soldier, now a veterinarian, who has come to accept the ways of the North that have been imposed on the land, unwittingly helps a wanted criminal. Despite Hanley's efforts to accept the Yankees and their brand of modernity the local law enforcement, running on high emotion, exploit the tenuous link between the confederate and their wanted man by arresting him and sending him to a terrible place: Ward Bond's prison - and Bond has an extreme prejudice for men of the innocent man's sort.

This is an excellent film that resolves itself beautifully. Sterling Hayden, a wonderful actor who epitomises his era, turned in a great performance as the alienated and wrongly imprisoned man.

Seen today, HELLGATE is an interesting cinematic curio that ably mixes both the western and the prison genres into a rather unique whole. Although in terms of execution the film has dated somewhat, it remains watchable thanks to the strange nature of the prison itself: a canyon in the scorching desert in which the cells have been dug into a grimy cave system.

The hero of the piece is square-jawed Sterling Hayden, committed to the clink for a crime he didn't commit. The usual prison clichés are here including a particularly sadistic warden in the form of Ward Bond, but there's a greater emphasis on character than usual which makes it a pretty decent film. The direction and black and white photography could have been better but as a routine programmer this holds the attention, delivering suspense at regular intervals and building to a thrilling climax.

One of the best films to come out of the Poverty Row Lippert Pictures Studio was this hard nosed and brutal western drama Hellgate. The title is named after a prison on the New Mexico desert where Sterling Hayden is sentenced to some hard time.

A number of reviewers have already commented that the plot is taken straight from the story of Dr. Samuel Mudd. Hayden is a former Confederate soldier who has settled in a Union area of the west and just wants to forget the war. Hayden and wife Joan Leslie give some assistance to an injured man, Hayden is a veterinarian and therefore has some medical training. The man turns out to be a former Quantrill guerrilla and the locals are quick to believe Hayden has to be one also. He gets sentenced to Hellgate where he comes under the tender care of commander Ward Bond and Sergeant Major Robert J. Wilkie.

Though the plot may come from The Prisoner Of Shark Island, the jail is like the one Sessue Hayakawa ran in The Bridge On The River Kwai. It's set in a desert canyon with no water, it has to be transported in every month. The jails are underground carved right in the rock crevices. Like Hayakawa, Bond has no guards the desert does discourage most escapes. He does however have Pima Indians who can track escapees and get more for bringing them dead than alive.

If you know the story of Samuel Mudd from The Prisoner Of Shark Island you know what happens here in Hellgate. Sterling Hayden really dominates this film, especially when he vies for supremacy in his particular cell with James Arness, a pretty hard case himself. This is one of Hayden's best acted roles and ought to command some of the same attention given to The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing.

Don't miss this one if it is broadcast, especially for fans of Sterling Hayden.

The Moves4Men channel on British TV is providing me with some excellent films that I wouldn't otherwise have seen (as well as some recordings which I delete within ten minutes of starting to view). "Hellgate" is one of the grittiest Westerns I've seen, especially considering that it was released in 1952, when the rigours portrayed on screen were usually somewhat muted.

The characters sweat copiously, their clothes are filthy and they show evidence of having no access to razors - in contrast to too many action films where the actors remain remarkably clean and well-shaven.

One reviewer here has referred to Ward Bond being "inexpressive", but he certainly looked thuggish to me, and Robert Wilke was as malevolent as ever. Perhaps Joan Leslie was a tad too pretty? The way the film ended was a bit anti-climatic and I would have liked to see a bit more soul-searching going on before the concluding decision was made.

I'm very glad to have watched this film.