I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Mervyn LeRoy’s uncompromising, timeless, starkly realistic 1932 drama about an innocent man driven by unemployment to a life on the road and then condemned to the hell of a Georgia chain gang still has the power to shock (it had a measurable impact on prison reform). The commanding authority of Paul Muni’s lead performance and the striking visuals (Muni’s haunted face is continuously molded by the shadows in which, as a fugitive, he is forced to live) function as subtext to a script (based on a true story) that does not hide its anger at injustice and a vindictive legal system.

Part of our Silver Screen Club series.