"God was telling me He's not going to let me die!
No one would have taken alienated warden's wife Kate (Diane Keaton) for a rebel. But with the arrival of brothers Ed and Jack Biddle, sentenced to hang for murder, she takes radical steps to set all three of them free, if only for one night of pleasure.
Ms. Keaton turns in a powerful performance as a repressed housewife who married too young, quickly had a gaggle of kids, and only later discovered that she despised her spouse.
The outlaws, played by a decade-younger Mel Gibson and Matthew Modine, are desperadoes wanting to chose their own manner of execution. "You're our only friend," Ed tells Kate, who is seduced by a finger-touch through bars and a request for saws. (One can't help but wonder whether New York's notorious Dannamora escapees of 2015 studied this film!)
This story from turn-of-the-20th-century Pittsburgh was intriguing to me partly because I grew up in the Steel City, passing the medieval-inspired 1889 jail and its Bridge of Sighs on my trips downtown. I enjoyed being transported to my city's horse-and-buggy days.
The cinematography here is wonderful, managing to convey both intimacy and distance in the same interactions. I was entirely drawn in by the story that unfurls within the prison's forbidding granite walls.
Look up the Biddle boys on Wikipedia and read of a significantly more sordid rap sheet. But this is the movies, and such discrepancies don't bother me. This film is great for psychological interest, suspense, and wintry atmospherics. Ah, for the days of sleigh rides!
No one would have taken alienated warden's wife Kate (Diane Keaton) for a rebel. But with the arrival of brothers Ed and Jack Biddle, sentenced to hang for murder, she takes radical steps to set all three of them free, if only for one night of pleasure.
Ms. Keaton turns in a powerful performance as a repressed housewife who married too young, quickly had a gaggle of kids, and only later discovered that she despised her spouse.
The outlaws, played by a decade-younger Mel Gibson and Matthew Modine, are desperadoes wanting to chose their own manner of execution. "You're our only friend," Ed tells Kate, who is seduced by a finger-touch through bars and a request for saws. (One can't help but wonder whether New York's notorious Dannamora escapees of 2015 studied this film!)
This story from turn-of-the-20th-century Pittsburgh was intriguing to me partly because I grew up in the Steel City, passing the medieval-inspired 1889 jail and its Bridge of Sighs on my trips downtown. I enjoyed being transported to my city's horse-and-buggy days.
The cinematography here is wonderful, managing to convey both intimacy and distance in the same interactions. I was entirely drawn in by the story that unfurls within the prison's forbidding granite walls.
Look up the Biddle boys on Wikipedia and read of a significantly more sordid rap sheet. But this is the movies, and such discrepancies don't bother me. This film is great for psychological interest, suspense, and wintry atmospherics. Ah, for the days of sleigh rides!