San Quentin (1937 film)

Last updated
San Quentin
San Quentin FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Lloyd Bacon
Written by Robert Tasker
John Bright
Screenplay byPeter Milne
Humphrey Cobb
Charles Belden
Laird Doyle
Seton I. Miller
Tom Reed
Produced by Jack L. Warner
Hal Wallis
Samuel Bischoff
Starring Pat O'Brien
Humphrey Bogart
Ann Sheridan
Cinematography Sidney Hickox
Edited by William Holmes
Music by Leo Forbstein
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date
  • August 7, 1937 (1937-08-07)
Running time
70 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$365,000 (estimated)

San Quentin is a 1937 Warner Bros. drama film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, and Ann Sheridan. It was shot on location at San Quentin State Prison.

Contents

Plot

Ex-Army officer Steve Jameson (Pat O' Brien), the chief guard at San Quentin State Prison, meets May Kennedy (Ann Sheridan), who works as a singer in a San Francisco night club. Joe "Red" Kennedy (Humphrey Bogart), her brother, who is on the run from the police, is arrested at the nightclub when he comes to see his sister.

Red arrives in San Quentin a few days later with another new inmate, hardened criminal "Sailor Boy" Hansen (Joe Sawyer). After a fight with Sailor in the courtyard on his first day, Jameson punishes him. May begins a romantic relationship with Jameson, and soon finds out what he couldn't tell her before: He is the yard captain of the prison, who is in charge of the prisoners.

Jameson institutes a merit system intended to separate the hapless lawbreakers from the hardened criminals. Joe is then selected by Jameson to work outside of the prison in a road camp, constructing a new road, as a step in his rehabilitation. Lieutenant Druggin (Barton MacLane), the former chief guard, resents Jameson's methods, and surreptitiously assigns Hansen also to the road camp. Hansen then makes a plan to break out of prison. At first Red refuses to join him, but changes his mind when he learns that Jameson is dating his sister.

Hansen's girlfriend (Veda Ann Borg) arrives in a car at the site where the inmates are working and asks for help with a flat tire. Hansen volunteers to change the tire, and retrieves two guns that were hidden in the tool box. He and Red take a guard hostage and flee. After a wild car pursuit, Hansen's car crashes and he dies. Red survives the crash and escapes. He makes it to May's flat, but Jameson is already there. After a short argument, Red shoots at Jameson who is slightly injured. Red flees and is shot by a police patrol, but he has enough strength to get back to the prison, where he dies in front of the gates.

Cast

Related Research Articles

Humphrey Bogart American actor (1899–1957)

Humphrey DeForest Bogart, nicknamed Bogie, was an American film and stage actor. His performances in Classical Hollywood cinema films made him an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Bogart as the greatest male star of classic American cinema.

Ann Sheridan American actress and singer 1934–1967

Clara Lou "Ann" Sheridan was an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in the films San Quentin (1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), They Drive by Night (1940), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942), Kings Row (1942), Nora Prentiss (1947), and I Was a Male War Bride (1949).

Raoul Walsh American film director and actor (1887–1980)

Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent classic The Birth of a Nation (1915) and for directing such films as the widescreen epic The Big Trail (1930) starring John Wayne in his first leading role, The Roaring Twenties starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and White Heat (1949) starring James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. He directed his last film in 1964.

<i>Marked Woman</i> 1937 film directed by Lloyd Bacon

Marked Woman is a 1937 American dramatic crime film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, with featured performances by Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot, Jane Bryan, Eduardo Ciannelli and Allen Jenkins. Set in the underworld of Manhattan, Marked Woman tells the story of a woman who dares to stand up to one of the city's most powerful gangsters.

Lloyd Bacon Actor, director

Lloyd Francis Bacon was an American screen, stage and vaudeville actor and film director. As a director he made films in virtually all genres, including westerns, musicals, comedies, gangster films, and crime dramas. He was one of the directors at Warner Bros. in the 1930s who helped give that studio its reputation for gritty, fast-paced "torn from the headlines" action films. And, in directing Warner Bros.' 42nd Street, he joined the movie's song-and-dance-number director, Busby Berkeley, in contributing to "an instant and enduring classic [that] transformed the musical genre."

Barton MacLane Actor, playwright, screenwriter (1902–1969)

Barton MacLane was an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. Although he appeared in many classic films from the 1930s through the 1960s, he became best-known for his role as General Martin Peterson on the 1960s NBC television comedy series I Dream of Jeannie, with Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman.

<i>Tokyo Joe</i> (film) 1949 film by Stuart Heisler

Tokyo Joe is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Humphrey Bogart. This was Heisler's first of two features starring Bogart, the other was Chain Lightning that also wrapped in 1949 but was held up in release until 1950.

<i>They Drive by Night</i> 1940 film by Raoul Walsh

They Drive by Night is a 1940 film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, and Humphrey Bogart. The picture involves a pair of embattled truck drivers and was released in the UK under the title The Road to Frisco. The film was based on A. I. Bezzerides' 1938 novel Long Haul, which was later reprinted under the title They Drive by Night to capitalize on the success of the film. Part of the film's plot was borrowed from another Warner Bros. film, Bordertown (1935) with Paul Muni and Bette Davis; almost a year after the release of Bordertown, actress and comedienne Thelma Todd's actual death in 1935 by carbon monoxide poisoning in her garage remains widely suspected of being a murder.

<i>Passage to Marseille</i> 1944 film by Michael Curtiz

Passage to Marseille, also known as Message to Marseille, is a 1944 war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe.

<i>Invisible Stripes</i> 1939 film by Lloyd Bacon

Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros. crime film starring George Raft as a gangster unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon and also features William Holden, Jane Bryan and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same name by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, a fervent crusader for prison reform, as adapted by Jonathan Finn.

<i>Kid Galahad</i> (1937 film) 1937 film by Michael Curtiz

Kid Galahad is a 1937 boxing film starring Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart and, in the title role, rising newcomer Wayne Morris. It was scripted by Seton I. Miller and directed by Michael Curtiz.

Veda Ann Borg American actress (1915–1973)

Veda Ann Borg was an American film and television actress.

<i>Black Legion</i> (film) 1937 film by Archie Mayo

Black Legion is a 1937 American crime drama film, directed by Archie Mayo, with a script by Abem Finkel and William Wister Haines based on an original story by producer Robert Lord. The film stars Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien-Moore and Ann Sheridan. It is a fictionalized treatment of the historic Black Legion of the 1930s in Michigan, a white vigilante group. A third of its members lived in Detroit, which had also been a center of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

<i>Bullets or Ballots</i> 1936 film by Edward G. Robinson, William Keighley

Bullets or Ballots is a 1936 gangster film starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane, and Humphrey Bogart. Robinson plays a police detective who infiltrates a crime gang. This is the first of several films featuring both Robinson and Bogart.

<i>Deadline – U.S.A.</i> 1952 film by Richard Brooks

Deadline – U.S.A. is a 1952 American film noir crime film and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore and Kim Hunter, written and directed by Richard Brooks. It is the story of a crusading newspaper editor who exposes a gangster's crimes while also trying to keep the paper from going out of business, and contains a subplot of him trying to reconcile with his ex-wife.

<i>Big City Blues</i> (1932 film) 1932 film

Big City Blues is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and distributed by Warner Bros. The film is based on the play New York Town by Ward Morehouse and stars Joan Blondell and Eric Linden, with uncredited early appearances by Humphrey Bogart and Lyle Talbot.

Diane Washburn

Diane Washburn is a former fashion model for Rose Marie Reid, Roos Brothers and Lily Ann as well as appearing in ads for Chevrolet and taking the cover of Life Magazine in 1953. Most notable as California's 1953 National Vintage Queen, Washburn is also the wife of late Broadway actor Jack Washburn.

<i>You Cant Get Away with Murder</i> 1939 film by Lewis Seiler

You Can't Get Away with Murder is a 1939 crime drama directed by Lewis Seiler, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gale Page, and featuring "Dead End Kid" leader Billy Halop. The film is from Bogart's period of being cast in B pictures by Warner Bros., before his breakthrough as a leading man in High Sierra two years later. The film is based on the play "Chalked Out" by Lewis E. Lawes.

<i>The Great OMalley</i> 1937 film by William Dieterle

The Great O'Malley is a 1937 crime film directed by William Dieterle and starring Pat O'Brien, Sybil Jason, Humphrey Bogart, and Ann Sheridan. The 1925 silent version The Making of O'Malley starred Milton Sills, Dorothy Mackaill and Helen Rowland.

Men in Exile is a 1937 film directed by John Farrow. A "B" movie from Warner Bros, it was the first feature Farrow directed. It is essentially a remake of their 1931 melodrama Safe in Hell, albeit with the lead switched from female to male, with some plot changes as a result.

References

  1. McCarty, Clifford (1965). Bogey - The Films of Humphrey Bogart. Cadillac Publishing Co., Inc. p. 47.
  2. McCarty, Clifford (1965). Bogey - The Films of Humphrey Bogart. Cadillac Publishing Co., Inc. p. 47.