341 - Riot in Cell Block 11, United States, 1954. Dir. Don Siegel.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

341 - Riot in Cell Block 11, United States, 1954.  Dir. Don Siegel.

O LORD God of my salvation, I cried day and night before thee.  Let my prayer come before thee.  Incline thine ear unto my cry, for my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws nigh unto the grave.  I am counted with them that go down into the pit.  I am as a man that hath no strength, free among the dead like the slain that lie in the grave whom thou rememberest no more.  Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. - Psalm 88:1-6

That is how one of the Folsom Prison inmates prays the night before the riot.

This is how his cellmates respond:

Dummy up, will ya!

Knock it off!

Somebody slug that creep.

Don Siegel worked on nearly thirty films in five years.  Great films.  He worked as an Assistant Director, Second Unit Director, Montage Director, and in Special Effects.  Here are some of them:  Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), The Roaring Twenties (1939), Brother Orchid (1940), All This and Heaven Too (1940), They Drive By Night (1940), Knute Rockne All American (1940), Meet John Doe (1941), Sergeant York (1941), Blues in the Night (1941), They Died with Their Boots On (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Across the Pacific (1942), Now, Voyager (1942), Gentleman Jim (1942), Casablanca (1942), Mission to Moscow (1943), Action in the North Atlantic (1943), Background to Danger (1943), Passage to Marseille (1944), The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944), To Have and Have Not (1944).  You may recognize the hand prints of Warner Bros. in these titles.

What a way to cut your teeth.

You will remember from our blogs on November 23 and 24 that independent producer Mark Hellenger had wanted Siegel to direct the 1946 feature The Killers but could not afford to borrow him from Warner Bros., so he got Robert Siodmak (which worked out wonderfully for the film), and that Siegel came back and made his version of The Killers in 1964.

Siegel is most known for his work with Clint Eastwood in the 1970s, but he began directing features as early as 1946.  Now in 1954 he is on his eighth feature.

Here we are at Folsom Prison.

And real prisoners are acting as extras.  Who better to let riot?

In 1951 producer Walter Wanger twice shot his wife Joan Bennett's agent, Jennings Lang, of the Sam Jaffe Agency.  Wanger hit Lang in the thigh and in the groin.  Lang recovered.  Wanger spent four months in a prison farm in Castaic.  Lang continued to represent Bennett for eleven more years.  Wanger and Bennett stayed married for fourteen more years.  Apparently, they all went back to business as usual.

Walter Wanger, who produced films from the early 1920s to the early 1960s, got out of prison and made this prison film.  Apparently, he did not prefer the prison conditions and wanted to educate the public on the matter.

And educate this film does.

In fact, one might expect it not to be shown in a movie theater but in a high school auditorium.

Rather than selling popcorn, they sell chicken nuggets, potato rounds, sweet peas, applesauce, a breadstck, and a half-pint milk carton.  In a divided tray.

For all the didacticism this movie presents, the actors might as well turn and face the camera and speak directly to us.

With charts and graphs.  (95% of them will be released.  65% of them will break the law again.)

And a chalkboard.

Hey, viewer!  The prison conditions in America are awful!  And it's your fault!  Call your Congressman!  Call your Senator!  Tell them to spend more money!  Tell them to rebuild Cell Block 11!  Stop using leg irons and chains!  Give us more room to breathe!  More light to see!  Remove the crazy people from among us!  And teach us a trade so that we will be useful to society when we get out!

Have you taken good notes?

There will be a quiz at the end of the film.

To see if you have been paying attention.

To see if you have learned your lesson.

Walter Wanger must have really hated his experience in jail.  He wants you to get the message.

And he is willing to beat you over the head with it if necessary.

Here is the lecture:

Riot in Cell Block 11.  And 4.  And 5.

11 started it.  4 and 5 joined in.

Monroe the screw is walking his beat in the cell.  A screw is a nickname for a guard.  Prisoner Schuyler calls him from inside his cell.  The cells in Cell Block 11 are solitary.  There are no bars.  Just solid walls and iron doors.  Schuyler asks Monroe if he can open the door.  Schuyler will be transferred to a new cell block tomorrow, and he wants to give something to one of his cellmates, Gator.  Monroe is amenable.  He opens the door.  Schuyler hits him on the head and knocks him out cold.  Then he drags him into the cell and locks him in.  He takes his keys and lets out the other prisoners.  First Carnie and Dunn, who help him knock out a couple more guards.  Then they get one more and open all the doors.  The prisoners riot.  They come out of their cells and throw all of their belongings out onto the floor, tearing up the place.

Dunn becomes the leader.  He is the smart one.  He demands to see the Warden.  They will start killing guards if they do not get their way.  Warden Reynolds, who agrees with their predicament and has been making speeches to the Legislature for the past nine years--appealing for more money and manpower and better conditions--comes to the yard to see him.  He instructs all of the guards not to shoot.

Dunn wants the Press.

The Press comes.  He gets his picture taken.  He states that they will be making their demands.

Crazy Mike Carnie is the big brute.  He wants a fight.  He takes the opportunity to throw a knife at Commissioner Haskell.  Played by Frank Faylen.  Haskell is the film's jerk.  The one who supervises the Warden and blames the Warden for being weak, for not using greater force  Money and manpower and better conditions will not work.  Brutality will.  Haskell does not die but is treated and returns with his arm in a sling.  And a chip on his shoulder.

After Cell Blocks 4 and 5 riot, Cell Block 11 takes in their guards, and they increase their hostage count from four to nine.  They use the hostages for leverage to demand what they want.

There is a prisoner named The Colonel, who is up for parole soon, and he wants no part of this fight.  He was a leader in the military.  He retains a sense of honor.  But he agrees to write up the demands for Dunn to present to the Warden.  The Colonel does not believe in the riot but he does agree with the demands, so he helps the rioters.

When Dunn and the Warden meet again, with the Press present and an assistant to the Governor, Dunn presents their demands.  He will wait until he sees it printed tomorrow in the morning paper.  When the paper arrives he next morning, the prisons celebrate.  The frontpage headline reads, "Prisoners Win!" and "Victory for Crime!'

Write that down.  You will need it for the quiz.

Dunn demands that the Governor sign the list of demands before he will release the hostages.

Meanwhile, Haskell takes over Warden Reynold's position and orders his men to blow a hole in Cell Block 11 using dynamite.

Ah, that Haskell.  Always the jokester.

The men are onto him, so they take the guards and tie them to a pipe on the inside of the wall that is being rigged with dynamite.

The Colonel tries to stop him, so they tie him up too.

By now Crazy Mike Carnie has mutinied against Dunn.  The crazies have taken over the asylum. 

Crazy Mike Carnie is played by Leo Gordon, who really spent five years in San Quentin, and who then spent forty years as a film and television actor. 

Meanwhile, Schuyler, who started the riot, is played by Dabbs Greer.  You know him as the kind-hearted Reverend Robert Alden on 76 episodes of Little House on the Prairie, starting twenty years after this film.  Twenty-five years after that, Greer returned to prison by playing Old Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile (1999).  He was a prolific character actor who worked in film and television for fifty years.

In the end, the prisoners get what they want, until they do not.   And the whole thing becomes an exercise in futility at the taxpayers' expense.

As the Warden announces his resignation, he explains to Dunn, "This time the public will listen to my side of it.  And they're your only hope.  They're the only ones who can help."

Got it?

Okay, now.  Clear your desks.  Get your pencils ready.  You have fifty minutes to take your exam.

Ready?

Begin.