Castle on the Hudson

This is a silly,cliche-ridden prison movie that is nevertheless entertaining and interesting. An almost-unrecognizable (young!) Burgess Meredith plays a good part here in this film as a fellow-inmate of the star inmate/gangster played by John Garfield.

As far as the actual storyline goes,it's all just a bit too much to believe,in fact some of it is downright ridiculous to put it gently.

However,this is a beautifully-made black and white film that is interesting from start to finish. The film/print quality was crystal-clear,the action scenes are pretty wild and suspenseful. Overall,I liked it.

Except for some opening scenes that show the crime that John Garfield is sent to prison for, Castle on the Hudson is a virtual word for word remake of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing.

But it's better cast. John Garfield does far better here than Spencer Tracy did in the original. In fact this was the second remake that Garfield did that improved on the original. He was also better in They Made Me a Criminal than Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in The Life of Jimmy Dolan.

Also a big improvement is Burgess Meredith over Lyle Talbot as the stir crazy convict whose escape attempt is a flop.

Still though there is that nutty premise of warden Pat O'Brien giving a one day furlough to Garfield where he gets in trouble. Same as the original film, it just doesn't ring true.

Or should I say any more true.

John Garfield steps into the shoes of, most obviously Spencer Tracy (it is, after all, a remake of the earlier "20000 Years in Sing Sing") and also Cagney (in "Angels With Dirty Faces") in Anatole Litvak's prison drama, even finding himself pitted against Tracy's old mate and Cagney's "Angels" co-star Pat O'Brien.

Garfield is the upwardly mobile mobster who finally takes a fall, winding up in the notorious Osining or Sing Sing penitentiary under the tough but fair governorship of O'Brien. Garfield is initially defiant but it's amazing what three months in solitary confinement and worrying about the girl you left behind, in this case, Ann Sheridan can do to even the toughest of tough guys and soon the one-time rebel is starting to play ball with the law, to use Dylan's phrase.

When he learns that Sheridan is critically ill after a close encounter with his supposedly supportive but in truth, backstabbing lawyer, Garfield's good behaviour inside sees him allowed out by the benevolent governor on an own-recognisance overnight furlough (whoever heard of such a thing for such a dangerous criminal!), to visit his ailing girl, but rats!, this falls on a Saturday which as we've already been made well aware, is Jinx-day for Johnny.

Sure enough, it all goes wrong when Garfield visits Sheridan in hospital and accidentally encounters his two-timing lawyer and there's also the little matter of the governor, who stands to lose his job if Garfield doesn't do the honourable thing and turn himself back in, leaving the stage clear for a climactic Rocky Sullivan-type dilemma for our hero.

Litvak keeps the action moving briskly and there's good synergy among the three leads, enmeshing Garfield's typically hot-wired demeanour, O'Brien's paternal concern and Sheridan's blind devotion. A young Burgess Meredith also makes a good impression as a would-be escapee.

As usual, Litvak inserts a montage or three into the action, but overall this short but sharp early-noir thriller built around the charismatic Garfield is well worth tracking down.

Remake of the 1933 prison drama with Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis, and I haven't seen that one in so long that I can't compare them. But on its own, this is a solid in-the-slammer melodrama, with John Garfield, always sympathetic no matter what he played, getting us to care about Tommy Gordan (the closing credits misspell it Gordon, but it's been Gordan in all the headline sequences), a ruthless crook with an inflated sense of self. When sent literally up the river, and the film gets the Sing Sing location right and has some helpful stock footage, he trusts his lawyer Jerome Cowan to get him out quickly, and he shouldn't. He has a faithful girlfriend in Ann Sheridan, who looks wonderful and was a heck of an actress as well, but here she mainly has to wrinkle her forehead and cry a lot. Gordan engineers a breakout with smart crook Burgess Meredith and stupid crook Guinn Williams, but thinks the better of it, and tough-but-fair warden Pat O'Brien begins to see him in a new light. Then some more plot complications and Tommy getting convicted of another crime he didn't commit, and a somber finale that isn't lightened up by the bombastic Warners music accompanying the fadeout. Nothing unfamiliar here, and a couple of plot points that are tough to buy, but it's mostly smacking good entertainment, and a reminder of what the screen lost when Garfield prematurely left us.

John Garfield provides the power as a gung-ho gangster who struggles to accept his time at Sing Sing in this prison reform drama. A faithful remake of 20,000 Years At Sing Sing that leans more to its 30s gangster roots than to the nascent style of film noir. Though the plot itself is harsh, the film lacks subtlety, portrays the prison staff as noble stewards bent on rehabilitation, and aims for sentimentality over action.