Metrograph

Producer Walter Wanger earned himself a stint at the County Honor Farm at Castaic after shooting agent Jennings Lang in the groin, suspecting an affair between Lang and his wife, actress Joan Bennett, and came out of the stir determined to make a film about prison reform. Riot in Cell Block 11 was the resulting work, though its impact has little to do with the liberal-minded speechifying of warden Emile Meyer and everything to do with the fiery ferocity of Siegel’s direction and the sweaty desperation of his performers, including bull-necked, gravel-voiced Neville Brand as the spokesperson of a prison uprising; yoked up Leo Gordon, an ex-con graduate of San Quentin, as the Brand character’s psychopathic foil, Crazy Mike Carnie; and the guests and guards of Folsom State Prison, where the movie was shot, who provide additional verisimilitude as background actors. A nail bomb of a picture.

35mm collection print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Distributor: Paramount