Blackwell's Island

source: Blackwell's Island

Moviecut—Blackwell's Island

Blackwell's Island

Blackwell Island, which was actually also known as Minnehanonck, Varkens, Roosevelt Island, and Welfare Island is where the prison is located in this John Garfield film. Haydon, a newspaper reporter, ends up in the prison to find out what conditions are like, and it turns out another prisoner Bull Bransom ( Stanley Fields, boxer, actor, and cousin to vice president Spiro Agnew!) is really running things. Haydon gets chummy with Bransom (quite easily!) but when Bransom lays out an escape plan, Haydon thinks he's being set up. they make a run for it, and all hell breaks out. It's fast paced, and moves right along! Garfield made a ton of great films with beautiful leading ladies, but the cream of the crop was Postman Always Rings Twice in 1946. it's the best of his roles. Directed by Bill McGann, who had worked his way up in various studio occupations. Very quick but dramatic ending in this one! was the stepping stone for Garfield, who was moving up fast.

If you like the Screen's First Rebel you will love this fun B programmer which was Garfield's initial film for Warner Bros. He had that rapid fire line delivery and script memorization of hard lines down to a T here. Great supporting cast of Warner stock players and Stanley Field's most screen time ever. Loved the prison set decoration and lensing of the movie. The Tough Guy looked like he had fun making this assembly line B picture and you will as well viewing it. Highly Recommend!

On the waterfront in New York City, practical joking extortionist Stanley Fields (as Bull Bransom) is not amused when reporter John Garfield (as Tim Haydon) starts writing a series of articles exposing his racket. After beating up policeman Dick Purcell (as Terry Walsh), Mr. Fields is sentenced to "Blackwell's Island". But Fields soon has the prison operating like his private country club, with criminal activity continuing. Mr. Garfield goes undercover as an inmate to investigate. Playing Mr. Purcell's pretty sister, nurse Rosemary Lane (as Sunny), provides Garfield with a romantic interest. **** Blackwell's Island (3/2/39) William McGann ~ John Garfield, Stanley Fields, Dick Purcell, Rosemary Lane

Blackwell's Island (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Interesting if not totally successful Warner film that mixes their gangster pictures with their prison films of the time. A gangster gets sent to prison but he's having an easier time calling the shots there so a reporter (John Garfield) enters to try and see what's going on. There's a strange mixture of laughs and thrills in this picture that comes off pretty strange. The gangster in the picture is played for nothing but laughs and this includes him constantly playing pranks on people. The film's screemplay is pretty weak and doesn't offer too much that we haven't seen in countless other Warner dramas. The one big bonus is the terrific performance by Garfield.

As incredible as it may seem, much of the details of the main criminal is this film is stolen "straight from the headlines" about Joseph/Joeyrel Rao, a racketeer who was convicted on conspiracy charges related to a seltzer racket in the Bronx. Once jailed, he literally took it over, with the help of crooked Tammany Hall politicians, and ran more rackets then they could list or even discuss in the film (e.g. drug dealing, prostitution, etc.). This Rao was related to the same Rao family as the famous restaurant and yummy tomato sauces you can get in your grocery store. You can research him by going to the NYTimes.com. It is hard to find general data about him on the web.

This is one of those movies which are jammed packed with actors who's names we don't recall but who's faces are very familiar because they appear in so many of these great B movies. About the only well known actors are John Garfield and Victor Jory. This film is about a New York protection racket boss, played by Stanley Fields as somewhat menacing yet also a comic figure. He and two of his henchmen get sent to a local prison on a Hudson River island, where they end-up taking control and have the warden and his staff do their bidding. Garfield plays a crusading crime reporter who arranges to become a prisoner on the island so as to get the goods on the mob. It's great fun with lots of action, laughs, and good solid performances by all parties. You won't take this picture very serious but you will have a lot of fun while watching it.

It will not be on anyone's Top Ten list, nor should it be. It's not a great movie. But it's certainly a good one, and downright exciting at the end. It also falls into one of the categories of movies that Hollywood really doesn't make anymore, at least in the same way. Are some of our prisons as corrupt as this one? It wouldn't surprise me, though the corruption is probably not as visible as in this movie. What makes this movie work for me is John Garfield's energy and determination. Once he gets himself arrested and sent to prison, things really start to take off. No, the end is not surprising. You know that his character is unlikely to be killed. He is likely to break the story he went after and break the criminal's hold over the prison. But the way he did it held me. You could do worse than to watch this movie.