La rafale de la dernière chance

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.

This is a very grim, hard hitting, even brutal film about a death row break that goes awry. It's black and white photography keeps it from being dated. Mickey Rooney is excellent as the twisted, yet strangely sympathetic lead. One of the first movies to portray the psychological desolation of death row. It is also quite poignant.

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 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.

This remake of The Last Mile has been updated nicely with a nice jazz score and the inmates and prison officials definitely fit the Fifties as opposed to the Twenties when it first appeared on Broadway. But the impact of this searing prison drama hasn't changed and Mickey Rooney stretches his considerable talent to the limit playing the lead of Killer Mears who leads the uprising of the death row inmates.

Mickey has some fast company among the people who've done this part. Spencer Tracy did it on Broadway and his performance there led to his original film contract with Fox. Clark Gable after doing some bit parts and extra work in silent films was spotted doing this in a touring company in Los Angeles which led to his MGM contract. And Preston Foster did it in the original screen version. Rooney's performance stands up to any of their's.

It's a simple plot, but the characters run deep. Before the big attempted breakout we get a character study of each of the inmates on Death Row. It takes a good actor to get himself noticed here though because the character of Killer Mears so dominates the film and the other inmates. These are men with nothing at all to lose, a lot like the inmates shown in The Green Mile. But of course they don't have a character like Mears to whip them in a frenzy when a guard slips and Mears gets the upper hand.

Being that the film is only on one set for 95% of the time, it's a small budget affair, hardly like Ben-Hur which came out the same year. Still Rooney's incredible performance should have merited Oscar consideration. He was nominated for films and performances not half as good as this.

Try to see both the Preston Foster and Mickey Rooney versions together. Too bad we can't see Spencer Tracy or Clark Gable in how they did the role. The Last Mile is timeless as long as we have capital punishment. I can see Russell Crowe doing Killer Mears easily in a 21st Century version.