Birdman of Alcatraz (PG.)
Directed by John Frankenheimer. 1962.
Starring Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter, Neville Brand, Edmond O'Brien, Betty Field, Telly Savalas and Whit Bissell. 145 mins. Black and white. Out on Blu-ray from Eureka's Masters Of Cinema series.
Birdman of Alcatraz is a long and serious film about a sweet old man who looks after birds and has to stay in prison just because he killed a couple of people when he was young.
It has to be said it is a very fine film about a sweet old man who has to stay in prison just because he killed a couple of people. Right from the striking opening credits sequence (incredibly for a striking credit sequence from this period NOT done by Saul Bass), this is a quality production. There is some beautiful black and white photography by Burnett Guffey, the script has some sharp dialogue and the cast is tremendous. You could carp that the film, whose narrative takes place over the best part of five decades, struggles to convey the passing of time. The occasional title card with the year would help, plus the application of the ageing makeup seem haphazard and uneven. Both Lancaster and Malden get the prosthetic wrinkles too early but modern day films still struggle with this. The film's only real problem is it is phooey.
The meeting of Hollywood liberal reforming zeal with a based on a true story is often a dangerous mix. Taken from a book by Tom Gaddis (O'Brien) the film tells a version of the story of prisoner Bob Stroud. Imprisoned for manslaughter in 1909 we first see him on a train journey to Leavenworth prison breaking a window to get some air into a heated carriage. He's defying authority, but selflessly to help all the prisoners stuck in the sweatbox. In prison, he is put in solitary after assaulting an inmate over a dispute with his cellmate who touches a photo of his mother (Ritter.)
He is then sentenced to death for murdering a warder. His dear old mum successfully petitions the President to commute the sentence but Attorney General stipulates that it will be a life sentence in solitary confinement. Chief Warden Shoemacher (Malden), feeling responsible for the warder's death, promises to persecute Stroud for the rest of his time in the prison system. In solitary, he starts to raise canaries and becomes a passionate auto-didact and eventually a self-taught expert on avian diseases, publishing a book on the subject. In the 1940s he is transferred to Alcatraz which ends all his avian research. There are numerous campaigns to get him released but the prison bureau won't let him go.
Now the usual criticism of these kinds of movies would be the way they distort the reality of the story, and we will get to that. Hell, even the title is a lie. More pertinent though is how it distorts its own version of the story. The script is a redemption tale, about a violent unreasonable man who eventually becomes reformed through learning. But in the film, Lancaster's Stroud comes to us pre-redeemed. We see him being violent and unreasonable but it is always presented as him standing up for himself, as an expression of his innate integrity. Rather than a vicious psychopath, he is the man who won't bow to authority, almost Cool Hand Luke. Lancaster was one of the all-time greats, his commanding screen presence meant he could get away with outrageous distortions.
Near the beginning, he kills a prison guard. The guard is not particularly pleasant, his treatment of Stroud is a little vindictive but given Stroud's relentlessly confrontational attitude his actions are not unreasonable. His murder is a vicious, wildly disproportionate act but such is the force of Lancaster's interpretation it almost seems justified. The serenity with which Lancaster plays a person who is constantly flying off the handle is quite a feat: his actions are all wild fury but meated out with calm impassivity. Which means that, even within the dramatic structure of the film's version of the Stroud story, the transformation into the calm, benign, almost saintly figure everybody wants to see released doesn't carry much force because he doesn't seem to have come that far.
If the film feels it can only put across its case by distorting its lead character, then it doesn't have much of an argument. There seems to be plenty of evidence to suggest that the real Stroud was a nasty piece of work. There is a moment during the Extras where it is casually revealed that one of the reasons why his release was blocked was evidence in his journal that he had paedophile tendencies.
Birdman's case for rehabilitation is like the anti-capital punishment movie where an innocent man is hung. Obviously, hanging innocent people is wrong, and depriving this deep, thoughtful man of his birds is obviously cruel, though even here I did keep thinking about the widow and children of the dead warder.
Late on the film has one really insightful scene where Stroud confronts Prison boss Shoemacher, who considers himself a reformer, about the nature of rehabilitation, saying that his regime is all about making them conform to his criterion of good behaviour, and the resentment that this engenders is the reason why so many “rehabilitated” prisoners. Apart from that, the film shoves viewers into the Lord Longford chair, casually wavering aside the pain of the crimes that have been committed because the perpetrator has seen the error of their ways.
Extras
Audio commentary with film historian and editor Paul Seydor, moderated by Twilight Time's Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
Illusion of Freedom: Richard H. Kline on John Frankenheimer’s “Birdman of Alcatraz” (29 mins) – a new video piece on the film
An exclusive new video interview with film historian Sheldon Hall
Original theatrical trailer
A collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Travis Crawford, as well as a selection of archival imagery from the film’s production
Directed by John Frankenheimer. 1962.
Starring Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter, Neville Brand, Edmond O'Brien, Betty Field, Telly Savalas and Whit Bissell. 145 mins. Black and white. Out on Blu-ray from Eureka's Masters Of Cinema series.
Birdman of Alcatraz is a long and serious film about a sweet old man who looks after birds and has to stay in prison just because he killed a couple of people when he was young.
It has to be said it is a very fine film about a sweet old man who has to stay in prison just because he killed a couple of people. Right from the striking opening credits sequence (incredibly for a striking credit sequence from this period NOT done by Saul Bass), this is a quality production. There is some beautiful black and white photography by Burnett Guffey, the script has some sharp dialogue and the cast is tremendous. You could carp that the film, whose narrative takes place over the best part of five decades, struggles to convey the passing of time. The occasional title card with the year would help, plus the application of the ageing makeup seem haphazard and uneven. Both Lancaster and Malden get the prosthetic wrinkles too early but modern day films still struggle with this. The film's only real problem is it is phooey.
The meeting of Hollywood liberal reforming zeal with a based on a true story is often a dangerous mix. Taken from a book by Tom Gaddis (O'Brien) the film tells a version of the story of prisoner Bob Stroud. Imprisoned for manslaughter in 1909 we first see him on a train journey to Leavenworth prison breaking a window to get some air into a heated carriage. He's defying authority, but selflessly to help all the prisoners stuck in the sweatbox. In prison, he is put in solitary after assaulting an inmate over a dispute with his cellmate who touches a photo of his mother (Ritter.)
He is then sentenced to death for murdering a warder. His dear old mum successfully petitions the President to commute the sentence but Attorney General stipulates that it will be a life sentence in solitary confinement. Chief Warden Shoemacher (Malden), feeling responsible for the warder's death, promises to persecute Stroud for the rest of his time in the prison system. In solitary, he starts to raise canaries and becomes a passionate auto-didact and eventually a self-taught expert on avian diseases, publishing a book on the subject. In the 1940s he is transferred to Alcatraz which ends all his avian research. There are numerous campaigns to get him released but the prison bureau won't let him go.
Now the usual criticism of these kinds of movies would be the way they distort the reality of the story, and we will get to that. Hell, even the title is a lie. More pertinent though is how it distorts its own version of the story. The script is a redemption tale, about a violent unreasonable man who eventually becomes reformed through learning. But in the film, Lancaster's Stroud comes to us pre-redeemed. We see him being violent and unreasonable but it is always presented as him standing up for himself, as an expression of his innate integrity. Rather than a vicious psychopath, he is the man who won't bow to authority, almost Cool Hand Luke. Lancaster was one of the all-time greats, his commanding screen presence meant he could get away with outrageous distortions.
Near the beginning, he kills a prison guard. The guard is not particularly pleasant, his treatment of Stroud is a little vindictive but given Stroud's relentlessly confrontational attitude his actions are not unreasonable. His murder is a vicious, wildly disproportionate act but such is the force of Lancaster's interpretation it almost seems justified. The serenity with which Lancaster plays a person who is constantly flying off the handle is quite a feat: his actions are all wild fury but meated out with calm impassivity. Which means that, even within the dramatic structure of the film's version of the Stroud story, the transformation into the calm, benign, almost saintly figure everybody wants to see released doesn't carry much force because he doesn't seem to have come that far.
If the film feels it can only put across its case by distorting its lead character, then it doesn't have much of an argument. There seems to be plenty of evidence to suggest that the real Stroud was a nasty piece of work. There is a moment during the Extras where it is casually revealed that one of the reasons why his release was blocked was evidence in his journal that he had paedophile tendencies.
Birdman's case for rehabilitation is like the anti-capital punishment movie where an innocent man is hung. Obviously, hanging innocent people is wrong, and depriving this deep, thoughtful man of his birds is obviously cruel, though even here I did keep thinking about the widow and children of the dead warder.
Late on the film has one really insightful scene where Stroud confronts Prison boss Shoemacher, who considers himself a reformer, about the nature of rehabilitation, saying that his regime is all about making them conform to his criterion of good behaviour, and the resentment that this engenders is the reason why so many “rehabilitated” prisoners. Apart from that, the film shoves viewers into the Lord Longford chair, casually wavering aside the pain of the crimes that have been committed because the perpetrator has seen the error of their ways.
Extras
Audio commentary with film historian and editor Paul Seydor, moderated by Twilight Time's Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman.
Illusion of Freedom: Richard H. Kline on John Frankenheimer’s “Birdman of Alcatraz” (29 mins) – a new video piece on the film
An exclusive new video interview with film historian Sheldon Hall
Original theatrical trailer
A collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Travis Crawford, as well as a selection of archival imagery from the film’s production
