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I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

A review by Damian Cannon.
Copyright © Movie Reviews UK 1997
A haunting and realistic recreation of a bygone era, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang makes a stand against injustice. With the war in Europe finally finished with, James Allen (Paul Muni) is both a sergeant and a hero. Faced with the prospect of civilian life, he's made the decision to put the technical skills taught by the military to good use, by joining the construction industry. No longer is Jim content to waste his days in a shoe factory, whatever his mother Mrs. Allen (Louise Carter) might think. Together with Jim's brother, the Rev. Robert Clinton Allen (Hale Hamilton), she's arranged everything just so at home, ready for the arrival of her cherished son. Faced with such a united front, Jim takes the minor clerk's position and tries his best, but it's no good. The future beckons, drawing him to New England, where strong backs and willing bodies are required.

Unfortunately steady jobs are scarce and it's often a case of "last in, first out", which leaves Jim tramping around the country. Little more than a hobo, Jim's spirit is sapped by degrees, reducing him to attempting to pawn his war medal (the broker has a box full of them though, a symptom of the flood of veterans). One day, penniless and starving, Jim bumps into Pete (Preston Foster), a dubious looking individual who reckons that he can rustle up a pair of hamburgers by shaking down a nearby lunch-wagon. The plan works, with the owner wearily tossing a couple of burgers onto the grill for his unwelcome guests. This isn't enough for Pete though, so he draws a gun (much to Jim's surprise) and forces him to help empty the cash register.

However, it all goes wrong when Pete rushes out of the door and gets shot dead by the cops. Jim panics and makes a break for it, firmly establishing his guilt in the mind's of the those assembled at his trial - no wonder the sentence is for 10 years hard labour. Thus commences Jim's journey into the darkness, where the clink of leg-irons is ever present and the penalty for even a minor infraction is a nasty beating. On the chain-gang, Jim is surrounded by real criminals, murderers and suchlike, yet even here there is a camaraderie. Ground down by the long, hard days of stone-breaking (up at 4.30 in the morning, back at 8.30 in the evening), there is no hope, merely a grim hanging on to the distant possibility of release. This is too much for Jim though so, with the help of Bomber Wells (Edward Ellis), he makes a break for it and dashes into the putrid swamps.

Relentlessly downbeat, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang tellingly makes the point that such a system of injustice degrades not only its victims but everyone associated with it. Within the prisons, the aim is not just to punish the guilty, but to utterly destroy them, to strip them of human dignity, ending only when existence outside of the chain-gang is unthinkable. Even when he escapes and achieves a measure of success, Jim is vulnerable to the lowliest individual, such as his manipulative and blackmailing landlady Marie Woods (Glenda Farrell). Once the leg-irons have been snapped into place, they're there for life (literally for many inmates, metaphorically if you're lucky). As Jim walks down the street, with the characteristic drunken gait, wary of all he sees, the true legacy of the chain-gang is apparent. It can turn a hero into a villain, the worst of all fates (and a message appropriate for the time).

Muni turns out an excellent performance as an everyman, an innocent caught up in events and forced to rely on his wits to survive. At every moment he remains believable, from the time he struggles free of a destiny pre-determined by his family to the horror of realising Marie's trap. Eventually reduced to a husk of his former self, even the love of Helen (Helen Vinson) is not sufficient to save him from a desperate existence. Interestingly, Jim's fellow prisoners turn out to be the most humane characters around, especially Bomber and Barney Sykes (Allen Jenkins). They alone understand each other's misery, something that escapes even Jim's immediate family.

While I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang makes its case efficiently, it suffers from a sense that the events portrayed are far removed from the present. This is entirely false, given that gangs are being re-introduced in certain states, nevertheless the distance remains. Part of this problem is that the true-life tale upon which the film is based is rooted in the Depression, a relic which occurred a generation ago. For example, Jim's attempt to sell his WWI medal must have made a huge impact at the time, yet it fails to achieve a similar level of symbolism now. Ultimately, for current tastes, not enough time is spent dwelling on the degradation and brutality suffered by the prisoners (the majority of which must be inferred). This is a shame since I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang manages to build a picture of the situation rapidly, utilising tools such as the changing face of Jim's wage slips to impart information.

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