I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang

Dir. Mervyn LeRoy 92 Minutes

USA

1932

Starring: Paul, Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Allen Jenkins, Berton Churchill

****/***** After receiving an unofficial Oscar nomination in 1929 for his debut film The Valiant, Fox next cast their blossoming star Paul Muni in Seven Faces, requiring him to transform himself multiple times in an effort to market him as the next Lon Chaney. The film was not a success, and Muni's future seemed in doubt until 1932 with the one-two punch of Howard Hawk's Scarface and Mervyn LeRoy's I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, the latter of which earned Muni his second, this time official, Oscar nomination. By turns a powerfully acted drama and a damnation of the southern chain gang system (which led to actual reform), the film follows Muni's James Allen, a war veteran with optimism and ambition to find his fortune. But Allen is caught in the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time during a robbery at a hamburger counter, and because he is forced at gun point by the criminal to take cash out of the register he is implicated and arrested. Tortured by the intense labor of the chain gang, Allen plots and is eventually successful in his escape, finding the means and ability to start anew. As he rises the ranks and becomes a respected figure in society, he is eventual found out and reluctantly agrees to return to the chain gang for ninety days in exchange for a full pardon, But the prison systems are not quite as eager to follow their end of the bargain.  Muni brings an intensity and well-rounded liveness to the role that is already evident in the otherwise bland The Valiant and naturally evident in Scarface (as of this writing, Seven Faces remains unseen), but James Allen requires quite the wide spectrum of emotions with Muni capturing each so strongly. The often reliable LeRoy (somehow not nominated here) feels passionate about the politics at the root of the narrative, and this is quite easily the strongest of his work at the period, managing to avoid leaning into the didactic in conveying the message about the institutional chaos regarding chain gangs. Rather one is quickly swept up in Allen's plight, from the hopes and dreams that start his story to the bone-chilling final shot, line, and line delivery. An absolute must for anyone eager to dip their toes into the wonderful well of pre-code Hollywood. ​October 9th, 2019