I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Sergeant James Allen (Muni) returns to civilian life after World War I, but his war experience makes him restless. His family feels he should be grateful for a tedious job as an office clerk, and when he announces that he wants to become an engineer, his brother reacts with outrage but his mother accepts it, though regretfully. He leaves home to find work on any sort of project, but unskilled labor is plentiful and it is hard for him to find a job. Wandering and sinking into poverty, he visits a cafe with a new acquaintance who forces him at gunpoint to participate in a robbery. The police arrive immediately and Allen foolishly runs and is caught (the film offers no explanation why the witness doesn't testify in defense of Allen being forced to participate in the crime).

Allen is tried and sentenced to prison at hard labor. He escapes and makes his way to Chicago, where he becomes a success in the construction business. He becomes involved with the proprietor of his boardinghouse, Marie Woods (Glenda Farrell), who discovers his secret and blackmails him into an unhappy marriage. He then meets and falls in love with Helen (Helen Vinson). When he asks his wife for a divorce, she betrays him to the authorities. He is offered a pardon if he will turn himself in; Allen accepts, only to find that it was just a ruse. He escapes once again.

In the end, Allen visits Helen in the shadows on the street and tells her he is leaving forever. She asks, "Can't you tell me where you're going? Will you write? Do you need any money?" James repeatedly shakes his head in answer as he backs away. Finally, Helen says, "But you must, Jim. How do you live?" James' face is barely seen in the surrounding gloom, and he replies, "I steal," as he backs into the darkness.

Paul Muni and Glenda Farrell in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

• Paul Muni as James Allen
• Glenda Farrell as Marie
• Helen Vinson as Helen
• Noel Francis as Linda
• Preston Foster as Pete
• Allen Jenkins as Barney Sykes
• Berton Churchill as the Judge
• Edward Ellis as Bomber Wells
• Sally Blane as Alice
• Louise Carter as Mrs. Allen
• Hale Hamilton as Rev. Allen
• David Landau as the Warden
• Jack LaRue as Ackerman (uncredited)

The film was based on the book I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang! (1932) written by Robert Elliott Burns and published by Vanguard Press.[7] The book recounts Burns' service on a chain gang while imprisoned in Georgia in the 1920s, his subsequent escape and the furor that developed. The story was first published in January 1932, serialized in True Detective mysteries magazine.

Despite Jack L. Warner and Darryl F. Zanuck's personal interest in adapting Burns's book, the Warner Bros. story department voted against it with a report that concluded: "this book might make a picture if we had no censorship, but all the strong and vivid points in the story are certain to be eliminated by the present censorship board." The story editor listed specific reasons for not recommending the book for a picture, most of them having to do with the violence of the story and the uproar that was sure to explode in the Deep South. In the end, Warner and Zanuck had the final say and approved the project.

Roy Del Ruth, the highest-paid director of the Warner Bros. Studio, was assigned to direct, but the contract director refused the assignment. In a lengthy memo to supervising producer Hal B. Wallis, Del Ruth explained his decision: "This subject is terribly heavy and morbid...there is not one moment of relief anywhere." Del Ruth further argued that the story "lacks box-office appeal", and that offering a depressing story to the public seemed ill-timed, given the harsh reality of the Great Depression outside the walls of the local neighborhood cinema. Mervyn LeRoy, who was at that time directing 42nd Street (which came out in 1933), dropped out of the shooting and left the reins to Lloyd Bacon.

LeRoy cast Paul Muni in the role of James Allen after seeing him in a stage production of Counsellor-at-Law. Muni was not impressed with LeRoy upon first meeting him in Warner's Burbank office. Despite this meeting, Muni and LeRoy became close friends. LeRoy was present at Muni's funeral in 1967 along with the actor's agent.

To prepare for the role, Muni conducted several intensive meetings with Robert E. Burns in Burbank to capture the way the real fugitive walked and talked, in essence, to catch "the smell of fear." Muni stated to Burns: "I don't want to imitate you; I want to be you."[8] Muni also set the Warner Bros. research department on a quest to procure every available book and magazine article about the penal system. Muni also met with several California prison guards, even one who had worked in a Southern chain gang. Muni fancied the idea of meeting with a guard or warden still working in Georgia, but Warner studio executives quickly rejected his suggestion.

The final line in the film "But you must, Jim. How do you live?" "I steal" replied by James is among the most famous closing lines in American film.[9] Director Mervyn LeRoy later claimed that the idea for James' retreat into darkness came to him when a fuse blew on the set, but in fact it was written into the script.[9]

According to Warner Bros records the film earned $650,000 domestically and $949,000 foreign, making it the studio's third biggest success of 1932-33 after Gold Diggers of 1933 and Forty Second Street.[2]

The film is one of the first examples of cinema used to garner sympathy for imprisoned convicts without divulging the actual crimes of the convicts. Audiences in the United States who saw the film began to question the legitimacy of the United States legal system,[10] and in January 1933, the film's protagonist, Robert Elliott Burns, who was still imprisoned in New Jersey, and a number of other chain gang prisoners nationwide in the United States, were able to appeal and were released.[11] In January 1933, Georgia chain gang warden J. Harold Hardy, who was also made into a character in the film, sued the studio for one million dollars for displaying "vicious, brutal and false attacks" against him in the film.[12]

Academy Award Nominations:[13]

• Best Picture
• Best Actor in a Leading Role – Paul Muni
• Best Sound Recording – Nathan Levinson

National Board Review Award:

• 1932 – Best Picture

Other Wins:

• 1991 – National Film Registry

• Burns, Robert E. (1932). I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!. University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-1943-8.

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (film).

• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at IMDb
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at the American Film Institute Catalog
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at the TCM Movie Database
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at AllMovie
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at Rotten Tomatoes
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at TV Guide (1987 write-up was originally published in The Motion Picture Guide)
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang at Virtual History
• I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 ISBN 0826429777, pages 198-200