Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Mjeteconer Just perfect...

BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Anatole Litvak, John Garfield plays Tommy Gordon, a small time hood who is working his way to the top against the wishes of his girlfriend Kay Manners, played by Ann Sheridan. When he forgets it's his bad luck night (Saturday) and pulls a job anyway, naturally he gets caught.Since Gordon's lawyer (Jerome Cowan) has always been able to get him off easily in the past, he's a pretty cocky guy. However, this time he gets sent to Sing Sing, the "castle", and it takes some isolation treatment by the warden, played by Pat O'Brien, to get him to conform enough to be released into the prison population.Kay visits him in prison and says she's working with his lawyer to get him out. Gordon doesn't trust his lawyer, thinking he's making a play for Kay, and tells her to stay away from him. Gordon soon befriends a couple of cons played by Burgess Meredith, the smart guy, and Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, a dumb lug and they all hatch a plan to escape.On the night of the escape, Gordon realizes it's Saturday night and refuses to leave his cell. Good thing too because, the warden was tipped off and, Meredith is killed in the attempt, while Williams is sentenced to die because a guard was killed. When the warden realizes that Gordon didn't try to escape, he begins to trust him.Later, Gordon is summoned by the warden and told that Kay has been in an auto accident and isn't expected to live. If Gordon will promise to come back, the warden will let him go to see her. He promises to return even if it means the chair. As he's leaving the warden's office, he notices that it's Saturday but goes on anyway.On his way to see Kay, Gordon picks up a tail from a policeman who can't believe what he's seeing. When Gordon gets to the bedridden Kay, he learns that his lawyer was indeed moving in on her and was the cause of her injuries. He takes her gun and starts to leave to settle the matter when Kay convinces him not to and to give her the gun. About that time, the lawyer shows up and the two men start fighting. When the lawyer appears to get the upper hand, Kay shoots him. The policemen hears the shot and tries to force Kay's apartment door. Gordon flees with the gun and the lawyers money.Gordon hooks up with his old gang and arranges for safe passage out of town on a boat. However, upon reading the headlines and seeing that the warden will lose his position for letting him go, he decides to return. Kay insists she shot the lawyer but nobody believes her and Gordon is sentenced to die.The ending of the film is very good, with Williams having to face his fate before Garfield, John Litel as the prison chaplain, and a couple of more scenes with Sheridan and O'Brien as Gordon faces his fate.FYI, noted character actor Henry O'Neill plays a district attorney in the film.

Robert J. Maxwell 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."

dougdoepke Cocky gangster (Garfield) goes to prison where he gradually reforms until given a break by the prison warden (O'Brien). Then problems ensue.Typically gritty Warner Bros. fare from the pre-war era. Garfield shows he's in the same gangster class as Cagney and Robinson. Watch him spit out dialog faster than a machine gun burst while doing a tough-guy routine. And who better to double-cross him than that slippery lounge lizard Jerome Cowan who could machine gun his own dialog as a reporter in dozens of period films.But the real scene stealer is scrawny, athletic Burgess Meredith, a brainy con who outwits the prison head-doctor (Grant Mitchell) in the movie's best scene. He may be the least-likely looking con I've seen; still, he and Garfield make a dynamic leadership team (as long as it's not Saturday!). On the other hand, goofy Big Boy Williams strikes me as a matter of taste.It's a compelling, if not original, plot that redeems Garfield without whitewashing him. Still, I'm not sure what his actual capital crime is when they lead him away, especially when the all-powerful Production Code insisted that justice be served on this side of the pearly gates. Nonetheless, his scenes with the warden (O'Brien) are nicely shaded gems of growing respect, while a lovely Sheridan is affecting as the luckless girlfriend. As this gutsy little programmer shows, star-studded MGM may have had the gloss, but plebeian Warner's had the grit.

Michael O'Keefe Anatole Litvak directs this remake of 20,000 YEARS IN SING SING. Very faithful to the original starring Spenser Tracy. Tommy Gordon (John Garfield) is a mobster with a super ego. He does not worry about his prison sentence, because he figures his connections on the outside will make his 'time in the can' easier. Enter the stern, but kind hearted warden (Pat O'Brien) and the stand by her man girlfriend (Ann Sheridan)and we have the typical players of a basic prison drama. Garfield plays the role with more attitude than Tracy did. Also starring are Burgess Meredith, Henry O'Neill, Guinn Williams and Jerome Cowan. Hard to notice any change in script from the first version eight years earlier. Very good opener for a Litvak double header that also features CONFESSIONS of a NAZI SPY.