I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

A really great, beautifully paced gem of a movie. Paul Muni lights up the screen in a thoughful performance, and its just a near perfect American film that they truly don't make anymore.

"I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" is an amazing, harrowing film about a smart, good man unjustly charged for crimes during the depression in America. It seems to be a protoype for the contemporary film "The Fugitive", which stars Harrison Ford, but is much more effective at showing the gritty plight of the wrongly accused... and like many Depression-era films, there are no happy endings here. A very different film amongst the classics, but with all of the great acting and simple dimensions which make the early films so enjoyable to watch. I'm so happy this film is available on video, because the RatMouse knows just what it is like to be hiding out in the gutters.

I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG says something-something about a human being being foiled in finding his own expression, trying to go straight when fell circumstance says "You have gone wrong", trying to remain human in a world that has turned inhuman, and in the end being overcome, as human beings are, by a nemisis-which in this case is only another name for a man's ignorance, trickery and failure to save members of his own tribe form distress when he finds himself organised into a society whose tragedy it still is not to be able, while seeking the path to righteousness and justice, to pull up its roots from the swamp of man's old primitive intolerances and brutalities. I saw this movie many years ago while a teenager, and I just saw two nights ago and I was surprised by just how astonishingly realistic the film still is for it's age. Most films made during the Depression alleviated audiences into happy escapism, but this clearly confronted them with some hard truths (it happens today, in all actuality). Muni gives an impressive and inspired performance as the unfortunate James Allen, and that chilling scene at the end of the movie still haunts viewers; Helen asks James Allen how he lives: His haunted reply? "I STEAL!".