Unchained

I saw the movie on the "big screen" as a boy, in a small town theater somewhere in New Mexico, I think. My family was on vacation at the time. My recollection is that the movie was uninteresting (to a 15 year old). I would love to see it again now, just to experience the difference that 50 years of living (my own) makes to the viewers perspective. Something about the movie must have stuck with me (and thousands of other folks), because the haunting theme song, Unchained Melody, became an inseparable component of both my adolescent and adult years.

You can review more info on the movie, and the authors of its indelible theme song on these web pages:

http://www.martin.mesanetworks.net/unchained/unchained.html

Long before Whoopi and Swayze, even before the Righteous Brothers, came this dandy little low budget tale of the men's prison at Chino, California. The drama centers on the division of one man's soul...part of him wants to continue his criminal ways, and attempt escape, while the other half wants to get home to his wife and family. Former sports great Hirsch turns in a surprising inspired performance, and Hale and Morris prove up to their respective tasks. And of course, the haunting "Unchained Melody" is enough to make you want to watch it over and over.

It's been a very long time since I've seen this film and I would love to revisit it. My uncle played "Garrity" and since he is now deceased, it would mean a lot to me to experience it again as well as possibly own a copy of it. Each time I hear "Unchained Melody" I think of uncle Johhny and his beautiful voice. For some reason I have been drawn to prison films ever since this one, and I consider this one of the best!

This film is far more famous for its musical entry "Unchained Melody" than for anything else about the film. Crazylegs Hirsch does not drop the ball as the lead and the rest of the cast is interesting when they are not sprouting hackneyed jailhouse phrases. I was impressed with the Chino prison system. The film is watchable, but not riviting.

Unchained Melody was not written by William Stirrat who was an impostor of and NOT Hy Zaret and had nothing to do with writing Unchained Melody. This is apparently a blatant hoax and has been discredited. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stirrat

Hy Zaret was/is Hy Zaret. Stirrat was an electrical engineer who became an impostor of HY Zaret. Stirrat filed a lot of copyright claims but didn't get around to filing one for "Unchained Melody" until 1982--27 years after the 1955 film "Unchained" and "Unchained Melody" hit the Billboard and Cashbox Charts and 26 years after "Unchained" had been nominated for an Oscar for Best Music, Original Song for "Unchained Melody"!

Stirrat talked to a reporter of a local newspaper who wrote a maudlin story about him and how he had written the lyrics to "Unchained Melody" back in 1936 when he was sixteen and smitten with a girl. (The absurdity that co-writer Alex North who would have been 26 then would have collaborated with a 16 year old high school student did not seem to occur to the reporter.) Apparently the reporter and newspaper did no checking of the claim but in 2003 just printed it as fact. "News Transcript" December 3, 2003. It was repeated again in Stirrat's obituary the following year and since then has been republished all over the internet (including IMDb's mini biography of Hy Zaret!) and is one of the most prevalent internet hoaxes.

This author attempted to submit a corrected biography to IMDb but it has gotten nowhere.

If anyone other than the real Zaret/North arguably deserve credit for contributing to this song it might be Phil Spector and Bobby Hatfield, producer and lead singer respectively of the 1965 Philles Righteous Brothers release.