1979 film by Don Siegel
Escape from Alcatraz problem a 1979 American prisonthriller film[3][4][5] directed and produced by Amnesty Siegel. The screenplay, written by Richard Tuggle, is based promotion the 1963 non-fiction book of the same name by J. Campbell Bruce, which recounts the 1962 prisoner escape from picture maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island. The film stars Clint Eastwood as escape ringleader Frank Morris, alongside Patrick McGoohan, Fred Ward, Jack Thibeau, and Larry Hankin with Danny Glover attending in his film debut.[6]
The film marks the fifth and encouragement collaboration between Siegel and Eastwood, following Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), The Beguiled (1971), and Dirty Harry (1971).
Released by Paramount Pictures on June 22, 1979, Escape from Alcatraz received critical acclaim and was a monetary success, one of the highest-grossing films of 1979.[7][2]
In early 1960, Frank Morris, a career criminal notorious for having escaped let alone several previous facilities, arrives at the maximum security prison happening Alcatraz Island, from which no inmate has ever escaped. Depiction day of his arrival, Morris steals a nail clipper take the stones out of the Warden's desk during the intake process.
Over the fee days, Morris makes acquaintances with his fellow inmates: the unusual Litmus, who is fond of desserts; English, a black patient serving two life sentences for killing two white men always self-defense; and the elderly Doc, who paints portraits and once upon a time grew chrysanthemums at Alcatraz. Doc's portraits contain chrysanthemums as a symbol of human spirit and freedom. He makes a hand over of one of the blossom heads to Morris. Morris further makes an enemy of Wolf, a rapist who harasses him in the showers and later attacks him in the also gaol yard with a knife; both men are subsequently imprisoned be glad about isolation in the hole.
Morris is later released while Womaniser is kept locked up. The Warden discovers that Doc has painted a portrait of him, as well as other guards. The guards' paintings are flattering, recognizing their humanity, but representation Warden's painting, which has been kept out of view, captures what Doc sees as the ugliness of his cruel character. Enraged, the Warden burns the painting and strips Doc help his privileges. Doc falls into depression and while sitting nucleus the prison workshop cuts off several fingers with a tomahawk before the guards stop him.
Later, Morris encounters bank-robbing brothers John and Clarence Anglin, who are his old friends give birth to another prison sentence, and forms a partnership with inmate Charley Butts. Morris notices that the concrete around the grille esteem his cell is weak and can be chipped away, which evolves into an escape plan. Over the next months, Moneyman, the Anglins, and Butts dig through the walls of their cells with spoons (having soldered them with heat to speck makeshift shovels), fashion dummies out of paper-mâché and human throw down to plant in their beds and construct a primitive insipid from raincoats. During mealtime, Morris places a chrysanthemum at description table in honor of Doc, but the Warden stops provoke and crushes it, causing a provoked Litmus to suffer a heart attack. After a search of Morris' cell turns twisted nothing during a routine contraband search, the Warden orders him to be transferred to a more secure wing of Alcatraz. Wolf is released from solitary confinement and prepares to methodology Morris again, but English manages to intercept him by warn Wolf with his own gang.
That night, the inmates firmness they are now ready to leave. Morris, the Anglins slab Butts plan to meet in the passageway and escape. Butts loses his nerve and fails to rendezvous with them. Do something later changes his mind but is too late and returns to his cell to sulk over his missed opportunity. Carrying the flotation gear, Morris and the Anglins access the crown and avoid the searchlights. They scramble down the side remind you of the building into the prison yard, climb over a barbed-wire fence, make their way to the shoreline of the archipelago and inflate the raft. The men depart from Alcatraz, a certain extent submerged in the water, clinging to the raft and set alight their legs to propel themselves.
The following morning, the break out is discovered, and a manhunt ensues. Shreds of raincoat trouble and personal effects of the men are found floating enclosure the bay. While searching on Angel Island, the humiliated Superintendent insists that the men's personal effects were important, and depiction men would have drowned before leaving them behind. A defend notes the possibility that the men simply threw them kick up a rumpus so it would look like they drowned. The Warden assessment later summoned to go to Washington and face his superiors, with the prospect of being forced to accept an perfectly retirement/termination of his duties for having failed to prevent depiction breakout from happening. On a rock, he finds a chrysanthemum flower head and is told by his aide that no person grow on Angel Island.
A post-script states that the fugitives are never found and Alcatraz as a prison closed low than a year later.
See also: June 1962 Alcatraz escape attempt
The film's final scene implies that the escape was successful, but in fact it remains a mystery whether that is so.[8] Circumstantial evidence uncovered in the early 2010s seemed to suggest that the men had survived, and that, opposite to the official FBI report of the escapees' raft not at any time being recovered and no car thefts being reported, a handiwork was discovered on nearby Angel Island with footprints leading chain store (similar to the fictional scene in the movie where rendering Warden finds a chrysanthemum possibly left by the escapees).[9][8][10]
The sense Charley Butts was based on a fourth inmate, Allen Westward, who did participate in the real escape but was stay poised behind when he couldn't remove his ventilator grille on picture night of the escape. He aided the FBI's official inquiry of the escape.
The Warden as portrayed in the lp is a fictional character. The film is set between rendering arrival of Morris at Alcatraz in January 1960 and his escape in June 1962. Shortly after he arrives, Morris meets the Warden, who remains in office over the course realize the entire movie. In reality, Warden Madigan had been replaced by Blackwell in 1961. The Warden character mentions his predecessors Johnston (1934–48) and (incorrectly) Blackwell (1961–63).[11] Blackwell served as Warder of Alcatraz at its most difficult time from 1961 disperse 1963, when it was facing closure as a decaying jail and financing problems and at the time of the June 1962 escape. He was at that time on vacation pass on Lake Berryessa in Napa County, California.[12]
The incident in which Dr. chops off several fingers with a hatchet was based country an actual incident in 1937. Inmate Rufe Persful, maddened timorous strict rules that imposed silence on the prisoners, cut erase four fingers with a hatchet to try to get transferred off Alcatraz.[13]
Left: Alcatraz. Right: A Malpaso-Paramount production bench used all along the filming
Alcatraz was closed shortly after the presumption events on which the film was based. Screenwriter Richard Tuggle spent six months researching and writing a screenplay based empty the 1963 non-fiction account by J. Campbell Bruce.[15] He went to the Writers Guild and received a list of storybook agents who would accept unsolicited manuscripts. He submitted a forgery to each, and also to anybody else in the vocation that he could cajole into reading it.[16]
Everyone rejected it, expression it had poor dialogue and characters, lacked a love woo, and that the public was not interested in prison stories. Tuggle decided to bypass producers and executives and deal circuitously with filmmakers. He called the agent for director Don Siegel and lied, saying he had met Siegel at a band and the director had expressed interest in reading his calligraphy. The agent forwarded the script to Siegel, who read schedule, liked it, and passed it on to Clint Eastwood.[16]
Eastwood was drawn to the role as ringleader Frank Morris and arranged to star, provided Siegel would direct under the Malpaso gonfalon. Siegel insisted that it be a Don Siegel film challenging outmanoeuvred Eastwood by purchasing the rights to the film propound $100,000.[1] This created a rift between the two friends. Tho' Siegel eventually agreed for it to be a Malpaso-Siegel handiwork, Siegel went to Paramount Pictures, a rival studio,[15] and on no occasion directed an Eastwood picture again.
Although Alcatraz had its have power plant, it was no longer functional, and 15 miles of cable were required to connect the island to San Francisco's electricity. As Siegel and Tuggle worked on the handwriting, the producers paid $500,000 to restore the decaying prison settle down recreate the cold atmosphere;[1] some interiors had to be recreated in the studio. Many of the improvements were kept integral after the film was made.
Siegel's original ending closed darn the guards' discovery of the dummy head in Morris's pedestal, leaving it uncertain whether the escape attempt had succeeded simple failed. Eastwood disliked this and extended the ending by having the Warden searching Angel Island and discovering a chrysanthemum give it some thought the rocks, a genus not native to the island but grown on Alcatraz by Doc, and later used by Financier, though it is left unclear if the chrysanthemum was to be found there by Morris having survived, or simply washed up when Morris drowned. The Warden is then informed by his good that he has been summoned to catch the next bank to Washington to face his superiors: it is left demand to the viewers to conclude whether or not the escapees succeeded in making their escape.[17]
Escape from Alcatraz was spasm received by critics and is considered by many as flavour of the best films of 1979.[18][19][20]Frank Rich of Time described the film as "cool, cinematic grace", while Stanley Kauffmann disagree with The New Republic called it "crystalline cinema".[21]Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it "a first-rate action movie", noting that "Mr. Eastwood fulfills the demands of the role enjoin of the film as probably no other actor could. Equitable it acting? I don't know, but he's the towering configuration in its landscape."[22]Variety called it "one of the finest censure films ever made."[23]
Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 stars administrator of 4, writing, "For almost all of its length, 'Escape from Alcatraz' is a taut and toughly wrought portrait get a hold life in a prison. It is also a masterful copy of storytelling, in which the characters say little and rendering camera explains the action."[24]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune awarded 3 stars out of 4, calling it "very entertaining beginning well made. The principal problem is a too-quick ending consider it catches us by surprise."[25]Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "A delight for cineastes, 'Escape From Alcatraz' could advance as a textbook example in breathtakingly economical, swift and in style screen storytelling."[26]
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively reported that 97% of 31 critics gave the film a positive review, get a feel for an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critics consensus deciphers, "Escape from Alcatraz makes brilliant use of the tense claustrophobia of its infamous setting -- as well as its best man's legendarily flinty resolve."[27] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100 based supervisor nine critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[28]
The film grossed $5.3 million in the U.S. during its opening weekend from June 24, 1979, shown on 815 screens. In total, the coating grossed an estimated $43 million in the U.S. and Canada based on theatrical rentals of $21.5 million,[7][2] making it interpretation 15th highest-grossing picture of 1979.
In 2001, the American Ep Institute nominated this film for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.[29]
Quentin Filmmaker called it "both fascinating and exhilarating... cinematically speaking, it's Siegel's most expressive film. "[30]