AGENT OF CHANGE

1930 to 1934: pre-Code Hollywood. A provocative four years of cinematic history when big studios, tentatively dipping their toes into “talkies,” embraced lurid tales featuring sex, violence, strong female leads, troubled gangsters and uncompromising social commentary, rattling and delighting the American psyche. 

In this spirit of liberation, director Mervyn LeRoy turned his lens on the prison system in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), based on the autobiographical story by Robert Elliott Burns. Paul Muni (the original Scarface) stars as James Allen, a down-on-his-luck World War I veteran wrongfully convicted of a burglary gone wrong and sentenced to harsh manual labor on a chain gang in the American South. Galerie curator James Gray calls LeRoy’s unflinching depiction “a stunning drama, thrilling and direct.” This very directness would eventually contribute to a wave of prison reform led by Georgia governor Ellis Arnall. 

In this discussion critic and film writer Steve Mears will explore the many threads running through this impactful production, delving into the history of Hollywood’s depiction of incarceration, the work of director Mervyn LeRoy and the early days of Warner Bros. at a historic crossroads in the industry.