My Life Behind Bars
Jan 19 '08
The Bottom Line They might as well just have laid
The old man down
And we're gonna raze, raze the prisons
To the ground ~
Joan Baez
We go from every angle there is folks, from dirty, smutty prison stories to sad conclusions to struggles to survive. Nothing gets the blood flowing like a good prison movie. Always the chance you’ll catch some official doing things that should put them behind the bars they are supposed to be guarding or a few nubile maidens romping about in shower scenes. Prison movies give a lot of things to a lot of people. All ya gotta do is watch.
Fist we meet Barbara Graham. Graham, a true life person, was played in two versions of this movie. I saw the 1958 version with actress Susan Haywood as Graham. The movie, titled I Want To Live! is told in narration by Edward Montgomery, a journalist, who meets with Graham shortly prior to her trip to the gas chamber. It was released later, in 1983, with Lindsey Wagner as Graham. Graham was known as a loose woman in her time and perhaps she just met up with the wrong man and he did her wrong; happens.
Our next foray behind the bars brings us three brothers, accused of murder and sent to prison. In prison they meet up with good old dad, nothing like a family reunion to make a good prison movie. This one, titled 15 to life gives us a rather seamy side of the institution and just what can happen to an otherwise decent boy, only 15 at the time, that ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Speaking of family reunions, we just can’t forget Treasure, in Stranger Inside. Treasure has spent most of her life behind bars for one infraction or the other, but reaching her 21st birthday doesn’t bring her any glory. No, at that ripe old age, she leaves the youth facilities and is moved to the adult prisons to finish her murder sentence. Her one big goal in life is to meet her Mama, and by moving to this adult facility she gets just that chance.
Girls In Prison shows us three unlikely cellmates. Melba was responsible for murdering a TV commentator when he showed a picture of her brother’s corpse on TV. In fact she did it on live TV, pretty ballsy I’d say. Good old Carol just gets involved in a barroom fight after having a really bad day and ends up with a murder charge to top it off. Then there is little Aggie. Cute little country western singer that didn’t appreciate a promoters casting couch one bit. Just three little ladies, sharing a cell.
Back to more actual events, although I am sure they were glorified for the movie, we are in the middle of a prison uprising in 1971, Attica State Prison, with the movie Against The Wall. It was a made for TV movie but actually very good. Interesting interaction between all the players and it once again gives Clarence Williams III the opportunity to express his feelings about being an oppressed black man.
Well this one will give you all the shaved beavers, perky nipples and butt cheeks your heart could desire. It is a typical women’s prison flick with strip searches, shower scenes, prison fights and, just for fun, an undercover FBI agent. How ingenious. This epic is titled
Under Lock and Key. Sign up for a tasteless, flesh exposed, prison movie right here folks.
There simply can’t be a listing of prison movies without mentioning the injustice of
Cool Hand Luke. Now Luke wasn’t a bad sort, just got a little drunk and decided to rid the parking meters of their coins. He didn’t even want the money, he just wanted to knock the tops off the meters. His decidedly erroneous judgment call put him in direct conflict with Strother Martin and their failure to communicate. If ever there was a prisoner people rooted for, it was Luke. And even more, he was admired for his ability to eat hard boiled eggs. Oh my aching tummy.
If it is bad treatment of prisoners you want to see, you can’t go wrong with
Murder In The First when we pit a rather distasteful Gary Oldman against a headstrong Kevin Bacon. The results, for both of them, aren’t pleasant. This movie was ~loosely~ based on actual events. Really it is a good movie, tight acting by Bacon, probably one of his best vehicles ever.
Brotherhood, behind bars, often becomes the only way you can get by. In Cadence we find an unlikely group of prisoners join together to beat ‘The Man’. They do a great march to Working On The Chain Gang, with a very untalented addition to their group. The movie stars Martin and Charlie Sheen and Martin is just a tad bit insane in the movie.
A beautiful movie, if there could be such a thing, about brotherhood in prison is Papillon with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, and an unusual friendship they shared behind bars.
Of course there are hundreds of prison movies available. Some actually very good like Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Birdman of Alcatraz, etc., but these are the guys I spent time behind bars with so these are the guys I can talk about. We always like to think, who cares if they are being treated unfairly, they are criminals. However, as we find out more and more, some are unjustly accused and imprisoned. That doesn’t mean the blue million prisoners have tarnished halos, for most of them are right where they are supposed to be; if not for the crime charged, then for one missed by the system.
That doesn’t mean they should be beaten, raped, and mistreated by those in authority however. On the other hand, they show so much violence to authorities, it is hard not to find yourself in the position to returning that violence to them. It is truly a catch 22 situation.
Hey, if it were my world, only the white collar criminals would be behind bars. The rest would be dropped on an island somewhere and they could all work it out among themselves.
Thanks,
Susi
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Member: SusiDee
Location: Gastonia NC
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About Me:
It's easier to build a child than repair an adult
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