Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1081203
24 CINEMONTAGE / Q1 2019 sure to see me, personally." Principal photography began August 17 and the lack of recognizable stars strengthened the authenticity of the setting. Like Brand, who had been the fourth most decorated soldier in World War II, fellow actor Leo Gordon had also fought in the war and also used the GI Bill to study acting. But the huge and intimidating Gordon had served five years in San Quentin for armed robbery and Heinze did not want him in his prison for any reason. Siegel and Wanger convinced the warden that not hiring the ex-con would undermine their case for reform in the movie. In his autobiography, the director recalled Heinze agreeing, but with one condition: "Each day Gordon reports to work, he'll be admitted through a side gate. Guards will strip and search him, both on entering and leaving." Throughout the shoot itself, the crisp and precise sounds picked up by recordist Paul Schmutz added immensely to audiences' immersion in the inmates' experience. As the narrative unfolds, layers of sound are gradually built over the constant resonant hum of the cell block, from cell door and bar clangs to machine noises, communications systems and loudspeakers, all woven together in the chaos of the major riot sequences. For the exterior riot scenes, 700 volunteers out of Folsom's 4,500 inmates were screened by the yard captain's office and the convict-elected Inmate Council, and selected to participate as extras. None of the convicts could be shown in close ups — only actors, state police officers and prison guards serving as extras. The sequences were shot with armed guards on duty atop the walls. Describing the shoot for Stuart Kaminsky's 1974 biography, Don Siegel: Director, Brand said, "We didn't know what… would happen in that prison yard during the riot scenes. Those were spooky scenes… You had to be there to capture what happened like you were in Vietnam in a documentary." Production wrapped on the 16th day, but the following week minor scenes were shot over two days at another location because "of a few cell interiors which presented difficult problems for us to light," Siegel told Bogdanovich. Allied Artists launched Riot's release with a $350,000 promotional budget, unprecedented for the studio. The week of its opening, the bi-weekly general-interest magazine Look published a major feature story by producer Wanger, describing prison conditions and the complexity of reform explored in the film. With his career re-established, Wanger produced Siegel's classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and ended his career with the disastrous production of Cleopatra (1963) that almost ruined 20th Century-Fox. Siegel became a major director, making Clint Eastwood an A-list star in Dirty Harry (1971) and taking him to another prison in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). Seen today, with the exception of a few minor anachronisms, Riot in Cell Block 11 still speaks directly to our dysfunctional penitentiary system. The growing privatization of prisons, which raises America's already highest rate of incarceration in the world, gives a new twist to the words of California corrections director Magee in the film's opening newsreel montage about "the shortsighted neglect of our penal institutions amounting to almost criminal negligence." f THIS QUARTER IN FILM HISTORY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22 Riot in Cell Block 11. Allied Artists Pictures/ Photofest Seen today, with the exception of a few minor anachronisms, Riot in Cell Block 11 still speaks directly to our dysfunctional penitentiary system.