A young John Garfield leaves his girl friend, Ann Sheridan, and is sent to Sing Sing, assured by his lawyer, Jerome Cowan, that he'll be gotten out shortly. Unfortunately, Jerome Cowan, whatever else he may be, is a lawyer and has his own agenda. The cocky Garfield makes light of his tribulations in the slams while Cowan pursues Sheridan.
Garfield begins to get smart under the tutelage of the tough but fair warden, Pat O'Brien. (John Litel is the priest in this one.) He behaves himself. And when the warden receives a telegram informing Garfield that his girl may not live through the night, O'Brien gives him a brief parole to visit her.
Things go wrong. While visiting Sheridan at the hospital, Garfield runs into Cowan, whose treachery is now revealed. Sheridan shoots and kills Cowan to save Garfield from being beaten to death. Garfield escapes and is blamed for the death. (I forget where that gun came from.) But he mans up and turns himself in anyway. He shouldn't have.
It's an odd, play-like movie, with good performances, inexpensive sets, one location shot of the exterior of Grand Central Station in New York, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams doing his best to act, Sheridan looking good, and eliciting myriad unspoken questions about capital punishment. It's so terribly irreversible.
But the climax is unusual. Here is Garfield, a protagonist, not a bad guy, loving and in his own way honorable, yet he marches off with a smile, a wisecrack, and a cigarette to the electric chair. I kept waiting for the last-minute phone call from the governor. But no. All that fades in after his retreating figure is "The End."
Garfield begins to get smart under the tutelage of the tough but fair warden, Pat O'Brien. (John Litel is the priest in this one.) He behaves himself. And when the warden receives a telegram informing Garfield that his girl may not live through the night, O'Brien gives him a brief parole to visit her.
Things go wrong. While visiting Sheridan at the hospital, Garfield runs into Cowan, whose treachery is now revealed. Sheridan shoots and kills Cowan to save Garfield from being beaten to death. Garfield escapes and is blamed for the death. (I forget where that gun came from.) But he mans up and turns himself in anyway. He shouldn't have.
It's an odd, play-like movie, with good performances, inexpensive sets, one location shot of the exterior of Grand Central Station in New York, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams doing his best to act, Sheridan looking good, and eliciting myriad unspoken questions about capital punishment. It's so terribly irreversible.
But the climax is unusual. Here is Garfield, a protagonist, not a bad guy, loving and in his own way honorable, yet he marches off with a smile, a wisecrack, and a cigarette to the electric chair. I kept waiting for the last-minute phone call from the governor. But no. All that fades in after his retreating figure is "The End."