Blackwell's Island

It's 1932 and the government is trying to restart the economy. 'Bull' Bransom is a mob boss running protection racket on the Manhattan waterfront. His men blow up a boat after the captain refused to pay. Reporter Tim Haydon (John Garfield) has been writing articles calling him out. Haydon goes to the hospital to interview the captain and becomes taken with nurse Mary 'Sunny' Walsh.

I really like the start or even the first half. I like the prankster gangster. He's a different kind of gangster and a very effective one. His pranks really keeps me off-balance in a good way. As for John Garfield, he's a great actor with real charisma and presents a great possible foil against Bull. As the story keeps going, there is a miscalibration somewhere along the way. Being off-balance early on with Bull, one eventually finds one's balance and he's not as threatening as one expects. He should track down Haydon down a back alley and beat him to a pulp. With Haydon in the same prison, he should have the guy beaten to an inch of his life. That brings me to Haydon. Garfield is too cool. He's too gangster. He plays it too casual. His character should be in fear for most of the movie. I still really love the first part. When Haydon is brought into Bull's office, the movie started to drift in a wrong direction.

This was my first John Garfield film, and it has him in the first of many tough-guy roles, this time as journalist Tim Haydon, who's out to bring down city mob 'Bull' Bransom. I found it a rather enjoyable movie, and it's not too exhaustingly long, lasting only 75 minutes. John Garfield also puts in a stellar performance - his dialogue delivery and everything is spot-on, but the screenplay lets the actors down. Watched today, it seems more like a run-of-the-mill prison/gangster film, and a little dated, but if you haven't seen a lot of Warner Brothers or John Garfield films, this is an okay time-pass film. Now I'm off to watch some more of his other (supposedly better) films!

It will not be on anyone's Top Ten list, nor should it be. It's not a great movie.

But it's certainly a good one, and downright exciting at the end.

It also falls into one of the categories of movies that Hollywood really doesn't make anymore, at least in the same way.

Are some of our prisons as corrupt as this one? It wouldn't surprise me, though the corruption is probably not as visible as in this movie.

What makes this movie work for me is John Garfield's energy and determination. Once he gets himself arrested and sent to prison, things really start to take off.

No, the end is not surprising. You know that his character is unlikely to be killed. He is likely to break the story he went after and break the criminal's hold over the prison. But the way he did it held me.

You could do worse than to watch this movie.

Blackwell's Island (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Interesting if not totally successful Warner film that mixes their gangster pictures with their prison films of the time. A gangster gets sent to prison but he's having an easier time calling the shots there so a reporter (John Garfield) enters to try and see what's going on. There's a strange mixture of laughs and thrills in this picture that comes off pretty strange. The gangster in the picture is played for nothing but laughs and this includes him constantly playing pranks on people. The film's screemplay is pretty weak and doesn't offer too much that we haven't seen in countless other Warner dramas. The one big bonus is the terrific performance by Garfield.

It is a Warner Bros feature, fast paced, action packed, starring John Garfield, but that's all. Not my favourite with him. It is too light hearted for my taste. Warner Brothers gave us many of this kind. It is typical of this period, no one can deny, but I got rapidly tired of it. Not a comedy crime, but not so far. William McGann the director was a prolific onee but he obviously lacked ambition, just an effective chain film maker, the perfect yes man. I won't watch it again, and forget it rapidly. John Garfield deserved a bit more than this film, he deserved to have a more powerful character, more poignant, gripping. That's my own opinion.