Mjeteconer Just perfect...

GazerRise Fantastic!

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

romanorum1 With General Lee's surrender the Civil War was almost over. While enjoying the play "Our American Cousin" in Ford's Theater at Washington on Friday evening, 14 April 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of his head by John Wilkes Booth. Booth broke his left leg while jumping onto the stage and yelling, "Sic temper tyrannis!" ("thus always to tyrants"). Escaping by horseback with companion David Herold (Paul Fix) on a rainy night, Booth (Francis McDonald), who could no longer continue in his condition, stopped by the residence of country doctor Samuel Mudd. Mudd (Warner Baxter), not knowing about the assassination of the president, set Booth's leg. Because of this act, Dr. Mudd was soon arrested by union soldiers and brought to trial along with seven others, four of whom were directly involved in the plot to assassinate Lincoln. They were hooded and shackled. Not being able to speak for himself, Mudd was powerless at military court. He was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment; the four major conspirators were condemned to hanging (Atzerolt, Herold, Powell, Mrs. Surrat). The heartbroken and enraged nation wanted due process at any cost and injustice it got. Mudd was sent to Dry Tortugas (later Ft. Jefferson National Monument; now Dry Tortugas National Park), a gloomy island prison located about 70 miles west of the Florida coast. Its motto was "Leave Hope Behind Who Enters Here." The prison walls were surrounded by a moat of sharks. Ostracized, Mudd was badly treated, especially by Sergeant Rankin (John Carradine). When Mudd fails in his escape attempt, he is thrown into the hole below ground. Only when yellow fever strikes do the prison authorities release Mudd, as he is a physician. One thousand prisoners and guards, or one-third the population, are stricken, including the chief physician and Sgt. Rankin. Mudd performs heroically, but a relief ship does not disembark at Fort Jefferson with its badly needed medical supplies, as the officers and crew are afraid of contracting the yellow fever. At his wits end, and himself stricken with the disease, Mudd – who has earned some authority – orders the prison batteries to fire upon the relief vessels. The battery is totally manned by African-Americans. When one of them hesitates to fire upon the vessel with the American flag, Mudd commands, "Fire that gun, Negro." The Negro complies, and his sure shot makes a direct hit upon the mast of the vessel, after which its mariners decide to deliver the supplies. Slowly the disease is finally beaten, and Dr. Mudd has become a hero. Because of his efforts, President Andrew Johnson gives Mudd a full pardon (in 1869, nearly four years after his arrest). He returns to his attractive wife Peggy (Gloria Stuart) and still young daughter. Director John Ford knew how to make a movie, and he also knew how to stir up emotions whether he is factual or not. Although Dr. Mudd was pro-Southern in his outlook, he was no conspirator. But the fact is that Mudd knew who Booth was, and that fact came out at trial. Perhaps he was fearful to make the admission once he knew about Lincoln's death. But Mudd also apparently failed to report immediately about Booth's situation once he learned about Lincoln's fate. By the way, the expression "His name is mud" or "My name is mud" does not really emanate from the Dr. Samuel Mudd case.Movie critic Leonard Maltin was right: Warner Baxter is superb in the title role. Notable backup actors include Gloria Stuart, John Carradine, and Ernest Whitman (as Buck, Mudd's black friend). John Ford won the Oscar for Best Director four times. Ne made a number of great movies, like "Stagecoach" (1939), "The Grapes of Wrath" (1940), "How Green Was My Valley" (1941), "The Searchers" (1956), "The Man Who Shot liberty Valence" (1962), and others. "The Prisoner of Shark Island" does not fall too much below them, even though it is rather pro-Southern in its outlook.

zetes Not among Ford's best films, unfortunately. Warner Baxter is excellent as Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it jumping from the balcony in which he shot Abraham Lincoln. Like most Hollywood films, it completely ignores history. It's not generally believed that Mudd was a conspirator against Lincoln, but the truth was a lot murkier than this film presents. The beginning of the film is pretty good, with the assassination and Mudd's arrest and trial. Strangely enough, I thought it got much less interesting when it moved to the titular island, Dry Tortuga in the Florida Keys. I don't exactly know why, but I lost interest during the latter half of the movie, despite the wonderful presence of John Carradine at his hammiest. Love that guy. The bug-eyed Negro characters are pretty annoying in this one, although I thought the character of Buck, a former slave of Mudd's who aids him in prison, was one of the more positive characters of that type I've seen. Not that the depiction isn't fairly racist, but at least he's kind of a hero.

allengrimes John Ford's compelling story attempts to portray Dr. Samuel Mudd as a dedicated professional who innocently helps a stranger, whom he later learns is John Wilkes Booth, the murderer of President Lincoln. Many historians agree that Dr. Mudd met with Booth on at least three and possibly four occasions. Two in Maryland, one time at Dr. Mudd's farm and twice in Washington DC, where according to Dr. Mudd's admittedly perjured sworn statement, he accidentally ran into Booth and met him once at his hotel and once at Booth's hotel. The Washington meetings were in the presence of the other conspirators. There is little doubt that Booth nurtured his relationship with Dr. Mudd for the purpose of planning his escape route. It is not known what Dr. Mudd knew or did not know regarding the plot against Lincoln, but it is difficult to believe, given the number of meetings with Booth and the other conspirators and Booth's inclination to rail against abolitionists, that Dr. Mudd did not have some knowledge of the plot. While it is doubtful that the doctor would agree to assist in an assassination, he may have been a willing party to the original plot which was to kidnap the president and assassinate Secretary of State Seward, allowing the conspirators to stop at his farm on their way to Virginia. It was only later, that Booth resolved to kill the president. When Booth came to the doctor's home, Mudd may not have known that the president had been killed, but surely knew after his trip to Bryantown on April 15th. Despite hearing that the president had been murdered and that Booth was the prime suspect, Dr. Mudd still waited another day before sending word to the authorities that Booth had been at his home. The movie suggests that Mudd was convicted in the frenzy that followed the assassination, but in fact the evidence that sealed his fate was his sworn statement, in which he claims to have met Booth only once before the assassination and the testimony of other conspirators who placed Dr. Mudd in the room when the plot against the president was discussed.Another fictionalized part of the movie is Dr. Mudd's role in the Yellow Fever outbreak at the prison. It is true that Dr. Mudd volunteered his services when the prison doctor died of Yellow Fever and that his heroic efforts saved many lives, there is no evidence to support the assertion that he ordered prison guards, members of the all Colored 82nd, to fire upon a United States Navy vessel in order to force them to bring medical aid to the island during a violent storm.

lugonian THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (20th Century-Fox, 1936), subtitled "Based on the Life of Samuel A. Mudd," directed by John Ford with screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, brings forth an obscure fact-based story about one country doctor whose name has become unjustly associated with conspiracy and treason. The preface that precedes the story gives the indication as to what the movie represents ... FORWARD: "The years have at last removed the shadow of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd of Maryland, and the nation which once condemned him now acknowledges the injustice it visited upon one of the most unselfish and courageous men in American history," George L. Radcliffe, United States Senator of Maryland. THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND recaptures the tragic event in American history forgotten through the passage of time. Aside from the fact that this could very well be a sequel to D.W. Griffith's biographical depiction of ABRAHAM LINCOLN (United Artists, 1930), with its concluding minutes depicting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (Walter Huston) seated along side his wife, Mary (Kay Hammond), by John Wilkes Booth (Ian Keith), while watching a play, "Our American Cousin," at Ford's Theater. What happens after-wards is never really disclosed, until the release of THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND six years later. The Civil War has ended. Soldiers are seen parading home, accompanied by a marching band. Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.) comes out on his upstairs balcony, and not quite up to making a speech, asks the band to simply play "Dixie." The reconstruction of Lincoln's assassination at Ford's Theater soon follows, with Lincoln, becoming the fatal victim of a bullet aimed at his head shot from the gun belonging to John Wilkes Booth (Francis J. McDonald). Injuring his leg after jumping onto the stage, Booth, accompanied by David E. Herold (Paul Fix), make their escape from the theater riding on horseback into the rainy night bound for Virginia. Unable to stand the pain of his leg much longer, the two fugitives from justice locate the home of a country doctor named Samuel Alexander Mudd (Warner Baxter), a happily married man with a beautiful wife, Peggy (Gloria Stuart), daughter, Martha (Joyce Kay), and his live-in father-in-law, the outspoken Colonel "Turkey" Dyer (Claude Gillingwater Sr.). Unaware of who this injured man is, true to his profession, Mudd attends to the fracture of this stranger's leg before moving on. The next morning, officers trace Booth's whereabouts towards Mudd's property, and when one of them finds a cut up boot with Booth's name nearly smeared off, Mudd, is taken away from his family, put to trial and charged with being part of the conspiracy to Lincoln's murder along with seven others, including the captured David Herold. (Wilkes fate is described through inter-titles as being killed while resisting arrest in Virginia, leaving eight strangely assorted people, guilty as well as the innocent, to face trial and an angry mob). In spite of his pleas, Mudd, is sentenced serve life of hard labor at Dry Tortugas, a prison located on the Gulf of Mexico along the Florida Keys surrounded by man-eating sharks, better known as "Shark Island." Once there, Mudd finds his name associated with conspiracy and treason, and must cope with Sergeant Rankin (John Carradine), an evil jailer and Lincoln sympathizer, who, once learning of Mudd's identity, pleasures himself in abusing the doctor with punches to his jaw and forceful shoves every chance he gets.Other actors featured in this historical drama include Harry Carey as the Commandant; Francis Ford as Corporal O'Toole; Fred Kohler Jr. as Sergeant Cooper; along with O.P. Heggie (1879-1936) as the prison physician, Doctor McIntire, and Arthur Byron (1872-1943) as Secretary of War Erickson, each making their final screen appearances. Child actress Joyce Kay as Martha Mudd looks somewhat like a pint-size Shirley Temple, with curls and all. Extremely cute, her movie career became relatively short-lived.Whether the story about inhuman injustice to an innocent doctor is historically accurate or not really doesn't matter, for that John Ford's direction recaptures the essence to the post Civil War era, along with brutal hardships of prison life depicted on screen as America's Devil's Island. Warner Baxter, gives one of his best dramatic performances of his career of the doctor condemned for following the ethics of his trade. The yellow fever sequence where Mudd, who has contacted yellow fever himself, shows his true dedication by working continuously in heat and rain, and making all efforts possible to save those hundreds of near death prisoners. Even more dedicated is his wife, Peggy, wonderfully played by Gloria Stuart, who, like her husband, stops at nothing either, in this case, trying to prove her husband's innocence in countless efforts in getting Sam a new trial. Right from the start, viewers are very much aware of Mudd's innocence, and as with many noted historical figures who have faced similar situations, he finds himself punished along with the guilty, with the indication that everything happens for a reason. One man's fate (Lincoln) becomes another man's (Mudd) destiny.As with the biographical sense of Samuel A. Mudd, the film version to THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND is unjustly forgotten. Out of circulation on the commercial television markets since the late 1970s or beyond, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND frequently aired on the American Movie Classics cable channel until 1993, and brought back one last time in August 1999 as part of AMC's annual film preservation and tribute to director John Ford. In later years THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND has played on the Fox Movie Channel as well as Turner Classic Movies where it premiered December 10, 2007. Of great interest to American history buffs, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, is the sort of Hollywood-style history lesson director John Ford does best. (***)