Starring: Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Claude Gillingwater, Arthur Byron, O.P. Heggie, Harry Carey, Francis Ford, John McGuire, Francis McDonald, Douglas Wood, John Carradine, Joyce Kay, Fred Kohler Jr., Ernest Whitman, Paul Fix, Frank Shannon, Frank McGlynn Sr., Leila McIntyre, Etta McDaniel, J.M. Kerrigan, Arthur Loft, Paul McVey, Maurice Murphy
Writer: Nunnally Johnson
Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Editor: Jack Murray
B&W, 1h 36m. 1.37:1 presentation.
Released on: February 12, 1936 by Twentieth Century Fox.
My experience: Ford at Fox DVD box set.
The Prisoner of Shark Island gets my vote for must underrated John Ford movie that has pretty much been cancelled by the general population at large. It's a wonderfully told character study / history lesson / prison break film / wrong man story that happens to be a product of its time in regards to racial stereotypes. Check that. It's probably a bit ahead of its time, as there are a couple of black characters who have significant roles in the film, and are treated and portrayed far better than in most studio films of the time, but is definitely far behind our times, in that in general the African-American actors, while not all bug-eyed and subservient, are still painted with the same askance-looking brush as in other cinematic documents of its era.
Which is too bad, because other than that, quite frankly, this is a great film.
Warner Baxter, the second ever best actor Oscar winner for 1929's In Old Arizona, plays Dr. Samuel Mudd, a country doctor in rural Maryland who unwittingly aids a fugitive John Wilkes Booth (Francis McDonald), by setting his leg and giving him directions after the infamous former actor has gone on the run for shooting president Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.). When two Union soldiers (John McGuire and Fred Kohler Jr.) find one of Booth's discarded boots on the Mudd property, the well-meaning doctor is taken away from his wife Peggy (Gloria Stuart) and daughter Martha (Joyce Kay), and father-in-law, former Confederate colonel Jeremiah Milford Dyer (Claude Gillingwater), quickly paraded through a kangaroo court by Secretary General Erickson (Arthur Byron) along with other various "conspirators" - both innocent and guilty among them - and sentenced to do time at Devil's Island, in the Dry Tortugas off Key West in Florida.
Upon arriving at the prison, Mudd is treated with disdain and hatred by staff and prisoners alike, including Sgt. Rankin (John Carradine), who goes out of his way to make Mudd's life a living hell. His only friend is his former neighbour, Buck Milford (Ernest Whitman), who has attached himself to the prison as one of their multitude of black guards, and helps correspond with Mudd's wife in an attempt to help him escape the prison. The attempt fails, however, and Mudd is thrown in solitary along with Buck.
The good doctor's luck changes when an epidemic of yellow fever sweeps the island, rendering most of the staff and prisoners either very sick or very dead. When the prison doctor, MacIntyre (O.P. Heggie), comes down with the sickness, it's up to Mudd, along with the prison commandant (Harry Carey) and Corporal O'Toole (Francis Ford), to save the people on the island. Will such a good deed go unnoticed, or will it finally bring recognition and a pardon from president Andrew Johnson?
There's so much to like about this movie. Firstly, let's talk about how well it's shot. For Lincoln's assassination, we follow Booth through the inner rooms of the theatre, the sound of the actors performing dropping in and out of the soundtrack depending on Booth's position in relation to them. Brings a nice realism and tenseness to a scene that's frankly been done to death over the years. Ford also shoots the demise of the former president beautifully. At the moment the president passes, a muslin curtain is pulled before between the actor and the camera, which then racks focus towards the curtain, a figurative representation of the dimming of the light of the late statesman.
The use of odd angles and unusual setups help make the court scenes, short as they are, stand out for their oppression and judgment. Then when we get to the prison, the light and shadows work wonders to convey the atmosphere of loneliness and terror. When we think of John Ford's work, we usually think of the Technicolor westerns of the 1950s, but his black and white work from the 1930s and 1940s is just as gorgeous, and I feel works more towards telling the story rather than just being picturesque.
The acting is top-notch, with the exception perhaps of the little girl who plays Dr. Mudd's daughter. Then again, most child actors of the time grate on me, so your mileage may vary. Aside from the aforementioned social attitudes that are very much of their time, I really can't think of anything negative to say about this one. The Prisoner of Shark Island is an underrated gem that deserves more recognition in the Ford pantheon.
Nine misjudged medics out of ten.
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