Le otto celle della morte

The movie may be a cheap-jack production, but it also has a number of graphic touches including Rooney's absolutely riveting performance. With its single set, ugly b&w photography, and no-name cast (except for Rooney), I can't imagine the film played more than a few remote drive-in's farthest from town. Nonetheless, the 80-minutes pushes the bounds of 50's movie-making in several notable ways.

For example, catch how much emotional fear the doomed men—whether guards or cons— show when facing death. It's really unusual for that period to risk agitating audiences with realistic fears of death. But this one does. Also, the ricocheting bullets had me ducking under my chair— a really well done special effect. Actually, this cheapo comes closer to Sam Peckinpah's raw depiction of violence than about any film I've seen from that time—bullets actually raise blood, and despite their pleading people do get shot point blank. I'm guessing the producers got away with this because Hollywood didn't much care what a few necking teenagers might use for background.

It's an ugly movie in more ways than one—not a single woman in sight!-- just a bunch of ugly guys. At the same time, the first half too often drags before picking up with the slam-bang second half. Then too, have you ever seen a more barren or squeakier clean cell block, likely a reflection of the story's stage origins. Anyway, it's Rooney at his most intense. And despite the movie's really brutal nature, there are more moments of genuine honesty than in most A-productions of the period. But it's not one you want to see if you're feeling down.

Man I didn't know what I was in for when I sat down to watch this brutal little gem. This portrait of a doomed attempted prison break from a death row cell block hits very hard, and it left me shaking my head in stunned silence.

I'm not surprised to learn from other reviews here that this story began its life as a stage play; most of the action takes place on one set, it features an ensemble cast with multiple meaty roles, and the first half of the film works at a deliberate pace with longer takes and scenes than are conventionally cinematic. It walks a thin line, how to get across the agonizing boredom of being in such a lockup, without becoming boring itself? The answer is to spread dialog around, and to give a lot of weight to mundane events, magnifying tensions and emotions. It gives the excellent cast a lot of room to create, if not exactly sympathy, at least an understanding of where the characters are coming from.

The second half (or maybe final third) of the movie is an altogether different animal, as the ticking timebomb of Mickey Rooney's John Mears explodes into violent retribution. Mears is a complicated character, an atheist and maybe a nihilist, but he cares deeply about his fellow death row inmates. Rooney's performance is AMAZING and dominates this section of the film. Also excellent are Clifford David as the youngest man on the row, next scheduled to be executed, and Frank Overton as Father O'Connors, the priest who gives the condemned men their last rites. His character shows tremendous courage as events spiral into bloodshed; he has a lot more backbone than the guards, who for the most part are sniveling, cowardly, sadistic creeps.

And as others have noted, the jazz score is outstanding, dynamic, punchy, and powerful. It maybe calls attention to itself a little too much, but it's wildly effective in underlining and slapping exclamation points on events throughout the film.

In short, terrific.

I have seen this movie many times. At least a Dozen. But unfortunatly not recently. However, Etched in my memory never to leave me is a scene in which Mickey Rooney, -"Killer Mears" knows that he is to be executed and it's getting close to the moment of truth, He dances, and cries, and laughs, he vacillates from hesteria to euphoria and runs the gambit of ever emotion. Never have I seen such a brilliant performance by any actor living or dead, past or present. It was then I know for sure that Mickey Rooney, yes, "Andy Hardy" was and is a actor of great genius. However I kept it, my opinion to myself for years thinking, surely I must be alone in this viewpoint. About 15 years or so after I saw this film for the last time on television, I chanced to read the old Q & A section of the Los Angeles Times. The question was posed to Lawrence Olivier, and the question was: "Mr. Olivier You are considered one of the greatest actors of all time, whom then do YOU consider to be among the greatest actors?" His answer was, "Peter Finch and Mickey Rooney" I was stunned, but not surprised. I immediatly flashed back to his "Killer Mears" And I felt very good for having seen this great ability in him, and now having my view supported by another whos work I admired.. Later of course there was "Bill" and many other great moments with Mikey Rooney. This film, "The Last Mile" should be seen by all acting students. I Frankly cannot remember a great deal about the film after all these years but Mr. Rooney in it, will never leave me. If anyone out there remembers this film the same as I do? I would be interested in hearing from you. For this picture etched in my heart alone I gave it a 10 just on the face of his performance.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Mickey Rooney's the whole show in this movie but that wouldn't be far from the mark. This extremely violent 1959 remake of a 1932 film based on a Broadway play by John Wexley is directed in slam-bang style by Howard Koch, who does such a fine job it could just as easily be Don Siegel or Phil Karlson behind the camera. For fans of the prison genre this is a must see. It has it all.

The plot is basic stuff about doomed men in the big house, how they're treated by the guards, what motivates them, how the prison system works, as Hollywood sees it anyway. In style the film's similar to many period gangster films of its time. Rooney had already played Baby Face Nelson a couple of years earlier. He's in fine form here as a desperate inmate determined to break free. And he takes a lot of people with him in the stunning last half-hour of the film, in which the bullets are flying left and right.

Rooney's performance was so persuasive, he seemed so in tune with his character's mood swings (I don't know how else to put it) that I was practically rooting for him to make it in the end. The supporting cast is filled with some fine actors, ranging from veterans Frank Conroy and Leon Janney, up and comer Michael Constantine, the always distinguished Frank Overton, plus ex-cowboy star Donald "Red" Barry. The Last Miles must have seemed somewhat retro in its day,--prison pictures weren't common around the time it was made-and it plays well now, is curiously viscerally satisfying, and a good example of Hollywood trying to recapture some of the glory of Depression era films, and doing a damn good job of it, too.

Saw this movie when it came out in 1959, left a lasting impression. Great group of actors. A little short timewise but a great movie all the same. Have only seen once since then and that was some time ago. Hopefully they'll put it out on DVD if they haven't already.