L'ora tragica

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.

Relentlessly Grim Prison-Pic from a Play by John Wexley who also Wrote the Script. It's of the "Reform" Type with its Critical Eye on "Death Row" and Specifically the "Death Penalty".

The First Half is the most Dated and Tough to get Through Today with its Heavy Melodramatics, Over Acting, and Exaggerated Mental Anguish Displays. There's some Bite to the Dialog but the Performances Suffer from Stagy Emoting and Projection.

But the Second-Half Kicks in and the Movie becomes Engaging, Suspenseful, Violent, and even more Poignant. Some of the Imagery, while Confined by a Low-Budget and its Stage Play Roots, still manages to be very Atmospheric and Gloomy.

It's an Artifact of its Era for sure, but that makes it Relevant as a Time Capsule of both Cinema and Social Concerns. It can be Powerful at times and is Definitely Worth a Watch.

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."

Prison films have been a staple of film since the early years. "Up the River" (1930) with Hmphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy and "Manslaughter" (1930) with Frederich March and Claudette Colbert were some early ones. "The Big House" (1930) was the first of the prison films to capture an audience, and as such, it is the archetype for almost every prison movie to follow, apart from the "chain gang" films that have their origins in Paul Muni's excellent 1932 "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang." The Big House was so popular that Laurel and Hardy produced a spoof called "Pardon Us" in 1931. It was their first feature film. That same year "The Criminal Code" (1931) with Walter Huston and Boris Karloff came out.

Interest in prison spawned the Broadway play "The Last Mile" from which this film came. The play launched the careers of Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable. The same year this film came out we also had "20,000 years in Sing Sing" (1932)

Other prisons films from the 1930s include "I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932), "The Mayor of Hell" (1933), "Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936), "San Quentin" (1937), "Devil's Island" (1939) and " Each Dawn I Die" (1939).

Among all the films of this genre, "The Last Mile" has the least production values, probably due to its origins as a play. It also has the least star power, with Preston Foster (1900-70) playing the lead role as the psychopathic killed. This was Foster's first big break and only his fifth film. I remember him best from the TV series "Waterfront" (1954-5) and "Northwest Mounted Police" (1940).

Also present is Paul Fix (1901-83) who is best remembered as the Marshall from "The Rifleman" (1958-63) and who was one of the busiest actors on TV.

The director is Sam Bischoff (1890-1975) who got his start working in the "Poverty Row" studios. He moved to Warners where he specialized in crime films ("The Roaring Twenties", "The Phenix City Story", "Angels with Dirty Faces").

The film is preachy and heavy handed. It reflects some negative attitudes about capital punishment, caused by an increase in capital punishment beginning in the 1920s where criminality was considered genetic and the eugenics movement was strong. In the 1930s capital punishment reached its peak, averaging 167 per year, and the methods included electricity and gas.

It's hard to recommend the film. "The Big House" is far superior.