Sick Product of a Sick System

How sad is this?

Absolutely the worst movie.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Directed by Anatole Litvak, John Garfield plays Tommy Gordon, a small time hood who is working his way to the top against the wishes of his girlfriend Kay Manners, played by Ann Sheridan. When he forgets it's his bad luck night (Saturday) and pulls a job anyway, naturally he gets caught.Since Gordon's lawyer (Jerome Cowan) has always been able to get him off easily in the past, he's a pretty cocky guy. However, this time he gets sent to Sing Sing, the "castle", and it takes some isolation treatment by the warden, played by Pat O'Brien, to get him to conform enough to be released into the prison population.Kay visits him in prison and says she's working with his lawyer to get him out. Gordon doesn't trust his lawyer, thinking he's making a play for Kay, and tells her to stay away from him. Gordon soon befriends a couple of cons played by Burgess Meredith, the smart guy, and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, a dumb lug and they all hatch a plan to escape.On the night of the escape, Gordon realizes it's Saturday night and refuses to leave his cell. Good thing too because, the warden was tipped off and, Meredith is killed in the attempt, while Williams is sentenced to die because a guard was killed. When the warden realizes that Gordon didn't try to escape, he begins to trust him.Later, Gordon is summoned by the warden and told that Kay has been in an auto accident and isn't expected to live. If Gordon will promise to come back, the warden will let him go to see her. He promises to return even if it means the chair. As he's leaving the warden's office, he notices that it's Saturday but goes on anyway.On his way to see Kay, Gordon picks up a tail from a policeman who can't believe what he's seeing. When Gordon gets to the bedridden Kay, he learns that his lawyer was indeed moving in on her and was the cause of her injuries. He takes her gun and starts to leave to settle the matter when Kay convinces him not to and to give her the gun. About that time, the lawyer shows up and the two men start fighting. When the lawyer appears to get the upper hand, Kay shoots him. The policemen hears the shot and tries to force Kay's apartment door. Gordon flees with the gun and the lawyers money.Gordon hooks up with his old gang and arranges for safe passage out of town on a boat. However, upon reading the headlines and seeing that the warden will lose his position for letting him go, he decides to return. Kay insists she shot the lawyer but nobody believes her and Gordon is sentenced to die.The ending of the film is very good, with Williams having to face his fate before Garfield, John Litel as the prison chaplain, and a couple of more scenes with Sheridan and O'Brien as Gordon faces his fate.FYI, noted character actor Henry O'Neill plays a district attorney in the film.

A young John Garfield leaves his girl friend, Ann Sheridan, and is sent to Sing Sing, assured by his lawyer, Jerome Cowan, that he'll be gotten out shortly. Unfortunately, Jerome Cowan, whatever else he may be, is a lawyer and has his own agenda. The cocky Garfield makes light of his tribulations in the slams while Cowan pursues Sheridan.Garfield begins to get smart under the tutelage of the tough but fair warden, Pat O'Brien. (John Litel is the priest in this one.) He behaves himself. And when the warden receives a telegram informing Garfield that his girl may not live through the night, O'Brien gives him a brief parole to visit her.Things go wrong. While visiting Sheridan at the hospital, Garfield runs into Cowan, whose treachery is now revealed. Sheridan shoots and kills Cowan to save Garfield from being beaten to death. Garfield escapes and is blamed for the death. (I forget where that gun came from.) But he mans up and turns himself in anyway. He shouldn't have.It's an odd, play-like movie, with good performances, inexpensive sets, one location shot of the exterior of Grand Central Station in New York, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams doing his best to act, Sheridan looking good, and eliciting myriad unspoken questions about capital punishment. It's so terribly irreversible.But the climax is unusual. Here is Garfield, a protagonist, not a bad guy, loving and in his own way honorable, yet he marches off with a smile, a wisecrack, and a cigarette to the electric chair. I kept waiting for the last-minute phone call from the governor. But no. All that fades in after his retreating figure is "The End."

Tommy Gordon, a criminal seen at the start of the story, is a suave man. He is well regarded in the best places in the Manhattan of the era, where his presence is well regarded. Unfortunately, his luck runs out when he is found guilty of the robbery, he masterminded. His beautiful girlfriend, Kay, is devastated. It is hard to believe with all of Tommy's connections, he could land in Sing Sing, one of the toughest prisons in the country.The idea that he will have to give up his clothes in exchange for the prison garb, does not go well with Tommy. He does not endear himself to the guards, or Walter Long, the warden. After realizing his influence and good standing in the criminal world will not let him get anywhere, he decides to join the system in getting himself sent to the shoe factory. There he meets Steve Rockport, another con, preparing an escape. Fortunately for Tommy, the plan goes wrong for his friend, but he remains in his cell, when he could have tried to escape as well.Warden Long begins to take another look at Gordon, for he thinks he is toeing the line. When Kay, his lover has a terrible accident, Tommy appeals to Long to let him go to her. Long, who has a good heart, makes a deal with Tommy and allow him to go for a short time to Kay. Trouble follows him in the shape of his former pal Ed Crowley coming to see Kay and there is a scuffle among them. Kay, trying to protect Tommy shoots Ed. The police, summoned to the apartment, takes Tommy back to Sing Sing. Later on, he is found guilty of murder in the first degree and condemned to the electric chair.Directed by Anatole Litvak, this is another remake of Lewis Lawes' "Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing". The film is a good adaptation, but it has a fatal flaw: we do not believe for a moment the warden, any warden, would have allowed Tommy to leave the prison on his own word. Add to that the fact that such a high security place offered no possibility of escape in any form, although we are sure, must have been tried. John Garfield makes a wonderful Tommy Gordon full of bravado. This actor was always a welcome presence in any of the films in which appeared. He was charismatic, distilling a positive aura into anything he played. Pat O'Brien is Warden Long, the man who believe in Tommy, perhaps naively. Ann Sheridan casts a sophisticated aura on her Kay, the woman that loved Gordon. Burgess Meredith was Steve Rockport, the con man who wanted to escape. Jerome Cowan, one of the busiest character actors of the era is seen as Crowley.

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.