CineMontage

Q1 2019

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18 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2019 by Edward Landler P risons are not visually attractive. That may be why prison movies were not a significant genre during the silent era. But after the introduction of talking pictures and as sound technology was refined, the 1930s saw the studios turn out over 60 movies set in penitentiaries. Attuned to melodramatic situations by its very nature, sound underscored the ambience of long confinement and the expression of emotions and conflicts literally pent up until they would erupt into violence. Audiences drawn by action and brutality could also identify with themes of innocence and guilt, rehabilitation and redemption, escape and official corruption. While most prison films to this day vividly depict the hardships of incarceration, rarely do they attempt more than a token reference to the social and economic causes of crime and its consequences. On February 28, 1954, Allied Artists released Walter Wanger Productions' Riot in Cell Block 11, a film shot at Folsom State Prison in 16 days on a budget just under $300,000. Its Variety review read, "The picture doesn't use a formula prison plot. There's no inmate reformed by love or fair treatment…nor are there any heroes and heavies of standard pattern." Howard McClay in the Los Angeles Daily News called it "the best film of its kind to ever hit the screen." During its initial run 65 years ago, Riot grossed CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY There's More Than a Riot Going On! Riot in Cell Block 11. Allied Artists Pictures/ Photofest

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