I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

One of Hollywood's earliest social protest films, it concerns the cruelty suffered by an ex-soldier wrongly condemned to hard labor on a Georgia chain gang. The brutalities of the chain gang were so emphatically exposed that there was public outcry when it was shown, resulting in reforms of the system. Based on the novel by Robert Elliott Burns. Stars Paul Muni., World War I is over. Johnny has come marching home. But there's little fanfare and no meaningful work for one war vet. There's only the desperate life of an unjustly convicted fugitive. Twice he is sentenced to a chain gang. Twice he escapes. They can put his hands and feet in irons, but not his will to be free.

Credits

Directed by
Mervyn LeRoy
Written by
Howard J. Green
Cast
Charles Middleton, Berton Churchill, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Robert Warwick, Allen Jenkins, David Landau, Douglass Dumbrille, Edward Ellis, Sally Blane, John Wray, Preston Foster, Paul Muni, Hale Hamilton, Jack La Rue, Willard Robertson, Noel Francis, Everett Brown …
Produced by
Hal B. Wallis
Cinematography
Sol Polito
Music
Bernhard Kaun
Edited by
William Holmes
Complete catalog record
, A seething indictment against the chain gangs in southern penal institutions. (Does not circulate)
, , NOTE: Two (or more) records have been merged together to create this data.

Related films

Sources

  1. 16mm Filmography (legacy record) — title, year, creator, length, format, color, sound, genre, description, catalog record
  2. Wikidata · Q944624 ↗ — country, credits