O Homem de Alcatraz

I've always loved this film. It's moving, emotional, stirring, and poetic. It's even capable of generating great empathy with a man who we'd all prefer not to marry our daughters. Stroud, portrayed by Lancaster, is slowly pulled from a life of solitude, misery, hatred and violence by his love of birds. He becomes someone we can identify with, to care about, to wish he was free.

But...and I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but Hollywood doesn't always get it right. Yeah, really. The movie is fiction from start to finish. Tom Gaddis' book was wonderful I actually bought a copy at the Alcatraz gift shop years ago and read it eagerly. I believed I had the true story of Stroud. And believed it for years. Until I read 'Birdman: The Many Faces of Robert Stroud' by Jolene Babyak. What a change. When I confirmed the book's accounts from other sources. I was stunned that we'd been so duped by the book and movie.

So there's a lot more to Stroud than Lancaster's gentle giant. He was a vicious psychopath who had killed twice, and wanted to kill more. He wasn't in solitary because of some misprint in his execution order. He was kept in solitary because he was too dangerous to keep with the regular prison population. He was also a savage homosexual rapist who wrote child pornography and had absolutely no regrets about it. When he was up for parole, he openly stated he wanted to get out before he was too old, because 'there were some people who needed killing.' His birdwork, too, was a fabrication. it's been proved now that most of Stroud's writings were plagiarized from other bird books, and even his remedies were nearly as dangerous as they were healing. He got lucky on some, that's all. No reputable bird breeder uses his remedies today. Stroud was alive when the movie was made. He'd smuggled bits and pieces of his 'autobiography,' heavily slanted in his favor, to Tom Gaddis, his own little gullible ghostwriter. And then it hit the big screen. The story generated piles of mail pleading for Stroud's release. He must have smiled at that, if he knew. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons knew what it was doing keeping Stroud in captivity. He was dangerous and would have probably killed even as an old man. He died the day before JFK was shot. I have an old San Jose Mercury News, from November 23, 1963 which on the fhird page has a small article entitled: "Autopsy Performed on Birdman Stroud.' His death in Springfield would have been front-page news but for the JFK Assassination. Actually, a tiny blurb is all he deserved. Have I seen the movie since I read the truth? Sure, but now I watch it for the acting, the cinematography, the drama, not the fiction. It is a great movie, and even Academy Award material. Frankenheimer's direction is superb, with a wonderful score and high accuracy in what life in prison was like in the early half of the last century. Lancaster, Malden, Brand, even a young Telly Savalas did a masterful job. The only thing I'd add is I wonder what the producers who decided to tell this story in such a favorable light, including the writers would have thought if Stroud had been paroled, and then started killing again. I wonder.

For the film, I give it an 8/10. For a work of fiction, a 10/10.

What a beautiful film portrayal. Though this movie is slow-paced it is worth the effort to get involved viewing it. Lancaster and Malden are perfect antagonists on screen. The tenderness and gentleness shown to the birds by the inmates in the prison contrasts not only the harsh prison environment accompanied by the violent existence of everyday life but also the inner characters' of the prisoners' themselves whose tough exteriors mask the gentle love that surfaces when the birds are introduced into Robert Stroud's cell. Telly Savalas is in his element when this coarse and tough brute is elevated to tender emotions he thought did not exist in himself anymore after spending most of his life behind prison walls. This film has had a direct impact on my life as Robert Stroud's book on Bird diseases and their treatments have cured my own flock from ailments from time to time and I am so grateful for his brilliant common sense approach to disease and medicine. This is a brilliant film that I thoroughly enjoy each time I watch it. John Frankenheimer - where are you when we need you?

GOOD NEWS: This is a riveting film start-to-finish, which is hard to do considering it runs over two hours. Burt Lancaster, one of the better actors, perhaps, of all time, gives a tremendous and very memorable performance. It's a cliché but this IS one story you will not forget!

Director John Frrankenheimer also is one of the best ever. Check out his resume, if you question that last statement. He has some masterful camera shots in here. In addition to the talents of the director and main actor, you have Karl Malden,Thelma Ritter, Telly Savalas and Edmond O'Brien - no slouches they - in solid supporting roles. The DVD also helps highlight the wonderful black-and-white photography.

Most prison stories are bleak and depressing. This one is not. Oh, it has some melodrama and a few tough scenes which include prison violence, but generally it is a fascinating character study....and, even for those of you who are not bird lovers, full of interesting information about our feathered friends. How they trained the birds to do some things in here also is amazing.

BAD NEWS: What a disappointment to do some research about the real "birdman," Robert Stroud. It turns out, as other reviewers have noted, the man was a sleaze-bag. No sense going into details since some of them are simply revolting. For those who simply want to remember this as a great movie and a great performance by Lancaster, do yourself a favor and leave it at that. In this case, ignorance IS bliss!

BURT LANCASTER seldom had a role that he connected with more than his portrait of an embittered man who must spend his life in prison after murdering a prison guard. His muted performance of this stoic man is under close scrutiny by the camera as he gradually redeems himself through a chance encounter with a fallen sparrow.

Everyone in the cast is superb--Karl Malden as a hard-nosed warden, Telly Savalas as a fellow prisoner, Betty Field as the widow who becomes close to Stroud through a mutual interest, and particularly Thelma Ritter as an over possessive mother. The refusal of a prison guard to permit Lancaster to see his mother is the catalyst that sends Stroud into solitary when the guard is fatally stabbed.

The scene where Stroud breaks down and actually apologizes to a prison guard (Neville Brand) is one of the most powerful moments in the film with Brand speaking up to the defiant prisoner who treats the guards with contempt.

All of the scenes showing Stroud taking care of his birds are startlingly realistic. Through brilliant black and white photography and a compelling script--and under the superior direction of John Frankenheimer--the film will move you to tears on more than one occasion and provides a vast range of emotions for the viewer. Burt Lancaster's finest achievement as an actor.

Interesting to note that only Burt Lancaster and Thelma Ritter were nominated for Oscars. Karl Malden and Neville Brand also deserved Oscar nominations--as did the film.

I've just seen this film on TV, it being several years since I saw it last. What a fine job Burt Lancaster makes of portraying Robert Stroud, a two-times murderer who finds inner peace when he nurses a young sparrow back to health in his prison cell. More birds follow, and in time he becomes an authority on bird pathology and develops several cures for diseases which were thought untreatable.

The quiet dignity that Lancaster gives to the part may or may not have been a genuine part of the real Robert Stroud but it is deeply moving, and the Director's careful treatment of the relationship he has with his long-term warder who grows old alongside him is one part of the film which can bring a lump to the throat.

Of course the film carries the message that not all prisoners should be treated with brutal disdain and could be seen as just another left-wing handwringer from a period when this kind of thing was popular among movie-makers, but it is certainly a top-notch example.