The Last Mile

The first half of the film is slow, talky, and one-act-play-ish. The only good part-- and pretty much the film's only real attempt to build character --is Daniel L. Haynes' fine performance as Number Two. He also has the best line, where with a smiling but sardonic edge, he doubts he'll meet his death-house fellows on the other side, because white people probably won't let a black man share Hell with them.

The movie finally picks up at the midpoint as it suddenly becomes more of a thriller, and the tension ratchets up and up for the remainder of the film's brief runtime. So don't let the Generic Serious Depression-Era Play feel of the first half put you off, because it transforms into a much more rewarding experience.

Even though this was made early on and attempts to be an indictment of capital punishment, it is not very effective. To start with, each of the death row inmates is sympathetic. Now, that's OK for a time, but if we never get to know much about them and their psyches, it just doesn't work. Of course, we have our hero who is unjustly convicted and within minutes of his execution when a jailbreak begins. The whole thing is talky until the explosion. There are some really brutal, merciless killings when the prisoners are in control. It just shows we all want to live. The guards are really the bad guys here because they lord it over the poor inmates. Their crimes really aren't revealed. They are a contrast to Tom Hanks in "The Green Mile" where one can be a horror on earth, but, after all, you are facing the final curtain. Anyway, this just doesn't work. It's stagy and simplistic.

Kindly, sympathetic, upstanding convicts who are on Death Row for no good reason that we ever learn (except that we know Dick Walters has been wrongfully convicted)are put to death by prison guards who vary from indifferent to mean, while the Warden agonizes over what good capital punishment does and the meaning of it all -- until an attempted prison break turns him into the most bloodthirsty of all.

The one-set stage play is opened up a little bit by scenes showing the crime for which Walters has been convicted and the discovery of the criminals who really committed the crime. Good performances are turned in by Preston Forster as Killer Mears, the one prisoner who shows a mean streak that may have landed him on Death Row; and by Daniel L. Haynes, who had starred in Hallelujah three years earlier, as the token black singing prisoner.

Anti-death penalties dramas haven't become more balanced or less simplistic; if anything, the thumb on the scale is even heavier in The Green Mile's recounting of the execution of angelic Michael Clarke Duncan. But today more realistic depictions of prison life and prisoners abound in cable television documentaries, and the misplaced sentimentality of The Last Mile toward its misunderstood convicts isn't easily swallowed. It does, however, have Killer Mears' bravado line at the end of the prison break: "I think I'll go get a little air."

"The Last Mile" is an interesting melodrama set on death row. While it is not entirely credible, and is often heavy-handed, the characters are memorable, and there is a lot of tense action.

The story begins with Richard Walters (Howard Phillips) being condemned to death for a murder that he claims not to have committed. He is sent to death row, and not long after he gets acquainted with the other inmates, a riot breaks out, led by the brutal killer Mears. Walters gets enmeshed in violent events even as his friends on the outside are frantically trying to gather evidence of his innocence. Most of the developments lack believability, and are rather obviously forced, but the story is undeniably dramatic. Once involved, you will have to watch it to the end.

While imperfect and low-budget, this is an interesting film that will keep your attention if you start to watch it.

The Last Mile, based on a popular John Wexley play of its time (1932), features an ensemble of death row inmates. Though the film does a good deal of effective characterization, we only really get to know two of the condemned - the innocent Dick Walters (Howard Phillips) and the "Killer" Mears (Preston Foster) - his neighbor in the cell block. The rest of the characters are archetypes of one kind or another, allowing the somewhat heavy-handed theatrical script some needed economy as the film builds quite slowly to a strong climax.

Mears stages a breakout and Walters has no choice but to get caught up in it, along with all of the other inmates. The warden, who has generally been, according to the prisoners, a decent guy, doesn't see that he has any choice about how to handle the situation.

The film is oddly introduced by a written introduction that makes a case against the death penalty based, apparently, on religious morality. With the exception of the juxtaposition of Killer Mears and our innocent protagonist Mr. Walters, it is not at all clear how this bit of moralism enhances the film nor how the film supports the political viewpoint of its author.

Theatrical scripts and sets do not always translate perfectly into film. The 1932 film of this play exemplifies the problem. Most of the camera work sticks to the point of view of a play's audience and the film mostly occurs in a very stark, statically shot prison block set. This effectively places the audience in the monotony of the prison experience throughout the film's action-less first half, but the effect only serves to accentuate the story's limitations so that, by the time the plot begins to accelerate, at least some of the audience has made up its mind about what will happen, how, and why. It is, however, worth sticking around to see how it does or doesn't play out.