Last night we watched another prison drama, this time with an anti-capital punishment message. Though it was released 90 years ago, "The Last Mile"(1932) is as hard hitting and frank as any such film would be today, and maybe more. It's brutal and grim. The first half hour is spent in the confines of Death Row, where the prisoners bemoan the fate of the next one set for execution. The sound of the electric chair being tested can be heard through the wall. The new kid on the cell block is a guy who didn't do it. They all say that, of course, but we've been shown he's innocent. His cell is next to that of "Killer Mears" (Preston Foster), an unrepentant con who provokes the Death Row guard. The guard is a bully to begin with, so their fights make matters worse for everyone. We also see the tedium the men experience as they sit around waiting to die. In the movie, executions take place about every three weeks, and I assume it was that way in real life, back in the early 20th century.
The new guy has filed for a stay, and is waiting for his mother to talk to the governor. But after an inmate named "Berg" (George E. Stone) is electrocuted, Killer Mears can take no more. He strangles a guard through the bars of his cell, grabs his gun, and breaks out. Then he unlocks the other inmates. They take all the Death Row guards hostage, and an Attica-type standoff is underway. Mears threatens to kill every guard at an interval of time, unless his demands for escape are met. He wants a car and a head start of four hours, but the warden won't give in to his demands.
Preston Foster plays Mears, in a performance that looks like real life. He has no qualms about doing what he's promised (killing guards), the only question is if the warden will give in. The situation is tragic for the new guy who is innocent, because now he's implicated in the standoff. His hoped-for exoneration could go out the window. When Mears starts dumping guards' bodies out a window, the formerly anti-death penalty warden goes hard-line. He has the tower guards turn their machine guns on the cell block, and says "if that doesn't work, we'll blow the wall out with a bomb."
It's noteworthy that "The Last Mile" is a pre-Code film and was therefore not subject to MPAA restrictions. I have found, through watching pre-Code films, that the cultural attitudes of people a century ago were no different than they are today. The death penalty has always been a hot-button issue, and it must have been especially hot when they were revving up The Chair every month. At any rate, while "The Last Mile" is a powerful film, it is also depressing, especially during the first act when the inmates are philosophizing in their cells. That part of the film is staged like a play, and the emotion is raw. It's interesting to consider how our lives are somewhat shaped by Hollywood, and Hollywood was shaped by the Hayes Code. Therefore, 1932 seems like an eon ago, because it was pre-Code, but it was actually only 28 years before I was born. After the Code came a stylistic Sea Change, to the glamorous Golden Era, where movies became mythical and the stars bigger than life. But in the pre-Code era, real life was being depicted long before the "realistic" cinematic style of the 1970s.
I give "The Last Mile" Two Big Thumbs Up (and Two Huge for the performance of Preston Foster), but I only recommend it for the non-feint of heart, because of it's head-on look at the starkest of issues. The picture, because of age, is damaged, but if you're game it's worth seeing. A powerful, important film. ////
The previous night, we saw Ann Savage again, in "Jungle Flight"(1947), this time as a Nice Chick who happens to be married to a murderer. Robert Lowery co-stars as "Kelly Jordan", the pilot for an air freight company based in Florida. Jordan and his partner "Andy Melton" (Robert Kent) fly ore and equipment out of Barton MacLane's mining camp in Central America. Melton is the daredevil of the two pilots, always taking chances in the dangerous remote location because he wants to make money. The men are paying off the planes, which they bought, and Jordan has run up a gambling debt that's put them in a very deep hole. So Melton flies at night, he flies on one engine, he flies through a deadly mountain pass; anything to keep the cash coming in. But one night he's overloaded and the freight shifts in-flight. He crashes and is killed. That leaves Jordan to try and revive the company.
He's hanging at the hotel when a slinky blonde walks in. She's "Laurey Roberts" (Savage), a nightclub singer from Florida. Only that's just a front. She's not a singer but a woman on the run. Laurey is married to "Tom Hammond" (Douglas Fowley, Kim's Dad), a convict who's just been paroled. She latches on to Jordan, and asks for a seat on his next cargo flight. Anything to get away from Hammond, who she knows will try to track her down. Jordan agrees to take her : "but I'm going to a mining camp. That's no place for a nice young woman like yourself. And besides, I thought you were a singer?" "Oh, well...I don't have any shows coming up, and I could really use some money." She offers to be the cook for the camp, but her cover story is starting to unravel. Meanwhile, Tom Hammond has committed a murder since he got out of prison, but we don't know that yet. At the mining camp, MacLane accepts Laurey after some gruff MacLane-style grumbling ("Dames don't belong in mines!"). She falls in love with Jordan, but then Tom Hammond buys a pack mule to take him through the jungle. He'll stop at nothing to find her. He's armed and dangerous, but he's messing with Barton Maclane, who by now has become quite fond of Laurey's cooking.
Hammond is traced to the camp and arrested by "Police Captain Costa" (Duncan Renoldo) of La Cuesta (the fictional mining town), but he implicates Laurey in the murder, which of course she had nothing to do with. Captain Costa, taking no chances, decides to arrest Laurey as well as Hammond, but as they are being extradited to Florida, Hammond knocks Captain Costa out during the flight. Their plane crashes in the jungle and they are stranded. Kelly Jordan goes in search of the wreck to save Laurey.
There aren't as many fireworks as you might expect from such a story, especially one directed by our friend Sam Newfield, who cranked up the tension in all those hard-boiled Noirs he made with Hugh Beaumont. Maybe it's because he was working for Paramount this time instead of PRC, and perhaps they wanted to play up Ann Savage as a sweetheart (and victim), and dialed back the battling machismo. On a side note, we only recently thought it ludicrous that Savage would ever play "nice", but here she is, doing it with aplomb and once again showing her range. She wasn't named a Hollywood Legend for nothing.
But yeah, even Barton MacLane is subdued compared to usual. The only tough guy worth his usual salt is the perpetually crooked Douglas Fowley as Hammond. He always plays a nasty sort. None of this takes away from the story, however, which in the early going focuses on the pilots and their efforts to make their air freight company successful. Curt Bois, who played the pickpocket in "Casablanca" (a pivotal role in that film because he starts all of Bogart's trouble), has an amusing part here as "Pepe", a freight loader for the company who dreams of becoming a pilot himself. He provides comic relief. Newfield loves Ann Savage as much as we do, however, and has his camera on her most of the time. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Jungle Flight", which needs a restoration. The picture is soft and greyed-out. Still, it's watchable so don't miss it, it's very highly recommended. ////
That's all I know for tonight. I wish you a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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