The Steel Cage | |
---|---|
Directed by | Walter Doniger |
Screenplay by | Oliver Crawford Walter Doniger Scott Littleton Berman Swarttz Guy Trosper |
Based on | The San Quentin Story by Clinton T. Duffy Dean Jennings |
Produced by | Walter Doniger Berman Swarttz |
Starring | Paul Kelly Maureen O'Sullivan Walter Slezak John Ireland Lawrence Tierney Arthur Franz |
Cinematography | John Alton Joseph F. Biroc |
Edited by | Everett Dodd Chester W. Schaeffer |
Production company | Swarttz-Doniger Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Steel Cage is a 1954 American film noir drama film directed by Walter Doniger, written by Oliver Crawford, Walter Doniger, Scott Littleton, Berman Swarttz and Guy Trosper, and starring Paul Kelly, Maureen O'Sullivan, Walter Slezak, John Ireland, Lawrence Tierney and Arthur Franz. It was released in December 1954, by United Artists. [1] [2]
In three separate stories, San Quentin warden Duffy must contend with a crisis at the prison.
Louis, a prison cook, is about to be paroled, upsetting fellow inmate Brenner, who loves Louis's food so much that he tries to bribe him to stay behind bars. After that plan fails, a customer comes to a restaurant where Louis has been hired as chef. His insults about the dishes are so insulting, Louis smashes a plate over his head, breaking his parole. Behind prison walls again, Louis learns that Brenner's the one who sent the customer, Lee Filbert, who is now a San Quentin prisoner himself.
Ruthless convict Chet Harmon plans a breakout with help from brothers Al and Frank. A gun is planted and Chet is almost successful, taking Warden Duffy hostage, but Al has second thoughts after his brother is seriously wounded.
A mural of The Last Supper needs repair in the prison's chapel, so chaplain Harvey asks an artistically inclined inmate named Steinberg to do the restoration. Two other prisoners are sneaking in liquor through the chapel, so Steinberg demands a piece of their action. They end up taking the priest hostage as Duffy deals with a deadly confrontation.
George Lester Jackson was an American author and activist. While serving an indeterminate sentence for the armed robbery of a gas station in 1961, Jackson became involved in revolutionary activity and co-founded the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family.
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, formerly Ossining Correctional Facility, is a maximum-security prison operated by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision in the village of Ossining, New York. It is about 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City on the east bank of the Hudson River. It holds about 1,700 inmates and housed the execution chamber for the State of New York until the abolition of capital punishment in New York in 2004.
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Lawrence James Tierney was an American film and television actor who is best known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and tough guys in a career that spanned over 50 years. His roles mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law. In 2005, film critic David Kehr of The New York Times described "the hulking Tierney" as "not so much an actor as a frightening force of nature".
My Six Convicts is a 1952 American film noir crime drama directed by Hugo Fregonese. The screenplay was adapted by Michael Blankfort from the autobiographical book My Six Convicts: A Psychologist's Three Years in Fort Leavenworth, written by Donald Powell Wilson.
Each Dawn I Die is a 1939 gangster film directed by William Keighley and starring James Cagney and George Raft. The plot of Each Dawn I Die involves a crusading reporter who is unjustly thrown in jail and befriends a famous gangster. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Jerome Odlum and the supporting cast features Jane Bryan, George Bancroft, Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom, and Victor Jory.
Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre (22.00 ha) facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The facility, the oldest Texas state prison, opened in 1849.
Deuel Vocational Institution (DVI) is a state prison located in unincorporated San Joaquin County, California, near Tracy.
Menard Correctional Center, known prior to 1970 as Southern Illinois Penitentiary, is an Illinois state prison located in the town of Chester in Randolph County, Illinois. It houses maximum-security and high medium-security adult males. The average daily population as of 2007 is 3,410.
Riot in Cell Block 11 is a 1954 American film noir crime film directed by Don Siegel and starring Neville Brand, Emile Meyer, Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon and Robert Osterloh. Quentin Tarantino called it "the best prison film ever made."
Not About Nightingales is a three-act play by Tennessee Williams in 1938. He wrote the play late in 1938, after reading in a newspaper about striking inmates of a Holmesburg, Pennsylvania, prison in August 1938, who had been placed in "an isolation unit lined with radiators, where four died from temperatures approaching 150 degrees.".
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.
"George Jackson" is a song by Bob Dylan, written in 1971, in tribute to the Black Panther leader George Jackson, who had been shot and killed by guards at San Quentin Prison during an attempted escape on August 21, 1971. The event indirectly provoked the Attica Prison riot.
The San Quentin Six were six inmates at San Quentin State Prison in the U.S. state of California, who were accused of participating in an August 21, 1971 escape attempt that left six people dead, including George Jackson, a co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family, two prisoners and three guards.
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.
The Montana State Prison is a men's correctional facility of the Montana Department of Corrections in unincorporated Powell County, Montana, about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west of Deer Lodge. The current facility was constructed between 1974 and 1979 in response to the continued degeneration of the original facility located in downtown Deer Lodge.
The Missouri State Penitentiary was a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, that operated from 1836 to 2004. Part of the Missouri Department of Corrections, it served as the state of Missouri's primary maximum security institution. Before it closed, it was the oldest operating penal facility west of the Mississippi River. It was replaced by the Jefferson City Correctional Center, which opened on September 15, 2004.
The Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, United States was the target of two related domestic terrorist attacks in 1970, tied to escalating racial tensions in the state's criminal justice system. On August 7, 17-year-old Jonathan P. Jackson attempted to coerce the release of the Soledad Brothers by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley from the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California. As the kidnappers attempted to leave with five hostages by car, one of them fired at police, causing a shootout that left four people dead, including Jonathan Jackson. Judge Haley, who had a shotgun taped to his neck, was also killed. Three others were wounded. The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis, an ousted professor from UCLA with connections to George and Jonathan Jackson, and the Black Panthers. Davis owned the weapons used in the incident but stated that she had no knowledge of its happening. On October 8 of that year, the Weathermen detonated explosives in support of the earlier incident.
Walter J. Doniger was an American film and television director. He was a graduate of the Harvard School of Business.
Duffy of San Quentin is a 1954 American film noir crime film directed by Walter Doniger and written by Walter Doniger and Berman Swarttz. The film stars Louis Hayward, Joanne Dru, Paul Kelly, Maureen O'Sullivan, George Macready and Horace McMahon. The film was released by Warner Bros. on March 16, 1954.