Prisons sans chaînes

No real stars and no budget makes a B movie. In this case an excellent B movie. The script is solid and confronts a real issue (though I don't believe the "over the fence" element). Maybe not stars but good actors like John Quaylen, Barbara Hale, Chester Morris, Jerry Paris, Johnny Johnston and the lead, Elroy Hirsh. Most people are interested in the movie because of the famous song. It is performed by Todd Duncan who also gives the movie's strongest performance. But I am certain most people except for true opera and theatre lovers know that Todd Duncan was the 1935 original lead in the stage production of "Porgy and Bess."

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.

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.

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

The plot details are a little hazy to me, because I saw this movie in my early teens. But I do recall that I was tremendously moved by it and have always looked for it on small screen. So far, I have not seen it, but that doesn't mean it was not available.

At the time I saw the film, I was so impressed with the thought of a relatively low security, more humane prison. I was very young and it was the first time I saw anything that made me think of convicts as human beings.

Even though I do like the music, ironically at the time I thought it had unsatisfying lyrics (Unchained Melody, that is).

I don't think a film impressed me so much again until I saw Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier in The Defiant Ones. These films illustrate much more powerfully than any documentary what the human spirit can conquer.