Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Using nothing but character players and the personal recollections of what producer Walter Wanger saw while he did a stretch in the joint Don Siegel crafted a real masterpiece of a prison film in Riot In Cell Block 11. In fact the lack of star players gives this film a nice ring of authenticity to it.Cell Block 11 in this particular prison is the solitary ward, the place where the toughest cases are assigned. With a pair like Neville Brand and Leo Gordon in that block would you think otherwise.Anyway to protest the conditions they're in the prisoners led by Brand stage a riot where they take the guards assigned to that block hostage. When Brand is wounded in a quarrel, Leo Gordon takes over leadership and he's belonging in the psycho ward. But he's the toughest guy in the joint and nobody is going to argue with him.Emile Meyer does a great job as the warden who is a decent and compassionate individual trying to affect a few reforms. His pleas fall on deaf ears because then as now, convicts don't have any votes and by definition they are an anti-societal group. Meyer's humanity is contrasted with that of Frank Faylen who is a political appointee and tries a grandstand play with the convicts that almost gets him killed.This is as realistic a prison drama as you will ever get. Big accolades go here to Walter Wanger who had an incredible unique perspective of life on the inside and turned it with Don Siegel's help into a great motion picture.

The angry inmates in cell block 11 led by the shrewd and fearsome James V. Dunn (superbly played by Neville Brand) stage a riot in protest to the deplorable living conditions in the prison they are incarcerated in.Director Don Siegel's trademark mean'n'lean style works exceptionally well in both maintaining an uncompromisingly tough confrontational tone throughout and keeping the gripping story moving along at a brisk pace. The use of authentic Folsom Prison locations and actual guards and convicts as extras provides an utterly convincing sense of gritty realism. The hard-hitting script by Richard Collins likewise doesn't pull any punches, with the inmates drawn in a credible manner as not all of them get along and agree with one another about the riot. Moreover, the screenplay warrants extra praise not only for its admirable refusal to paint the criminals in a too sentimental light or provide any of them with needless back stories, but also for the surprising downbeat ending with Dunn winning the battle, yet still losing the war by having thirty years added to his sentence.The strong acting by an excellent cast of sturdy and refreshingly unglamorous character actors helps a whole lot, with especially stand-out work from Leo Gordon as the unstable and dangerous Crazy Mike Carnie, Emile Meyer as the sympathetic Warden Reynolds, Frank Faylen as the rigid and uncaring Commissioner Haskell, Whit Bissell as mean chief guard Snader, Robert Osterich as venerable felon The Colonel, and Paul Frees as nervous rookie guard Monroe. Don Keefer and William Schallert pop up in small roles as reporters. Kudos are also in order for Herschel Burke Gilbert's rousing score and Russell Harlan's stark black and white cinematography. An important and provocative film.

***SPOILERS*** The movie was the brainchild of producer Walter Wagner who himself served time behind bars for shooting in the groin his wife actress Joan Bennett's lover press agent Jennings Lang. That's when he caught them red handed smooching in a parked car on December 13, 1951. Sentenced to only four month for attempted murder, he got a brake using the insanity defense, Wagner in the movie "Riot in cell-block 11" was to show the public what the US prison system really is. And how it turns those in it into even worse anti-social psychopaths then when when they first entered it!Things have being going from bad to worse for the inmates at San Quentin and it's a matter of time before the entire place is going to blow it's top. It's the civic minded Warden Reynolds, Emile Meyer, who wants to give the inmates a reason not to explode by making things a lot better for them. But it's the state that refuses to give him the funds he needs that had things get soon out of hand. It's the predatory and psychotic looking James V. Dunn, Neville Brand, who devises a plan to take over the prison with the help of his fellow inmates and hold it hostage, together with it's personnel, until the Governor Thomas Browne Henry agrees in writing to improve conditions there. A full scale riot breaks out with Dunn and his second in command the deranged and kill crazy gorilla-like "Crazy Mike" Craine, Leo Gordon, taking control of the cell-block together with the prison guards assigned there.****SPOILERS*** As much as Warden Reynolds tries to prevent the violence from spreading into the other cell-blocks Dunn soon has the entire prison under his control with the national guard and state police, who in fact make things a lot worse, called in to quite things down. Warden Reynolds doesn't get any help from the state commissioner of prisons Haskell, Frank Feylen, who's more interested in using brute force instead of negotiations to settle things down with the inmates. As things later turned out Dunn & Co. got their way with Governor Henry finally giving into to their demands. In him making things better for those behind bars so when they get out they can blend in with society not go to war against it. It also turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for both Dunn and the crazed and violence driven Crazy Mike Carnie who ended up with the short or sh*t end of the stick.In a way it was a double-cross on the state's part in hanging both Dunne and Crazy Mike Craine out to dry but Warden Reynolds in fact had nothing at all to do with it. But Dunn did get what he set out to do in making conditions better for those serving time in the states prisons but in his breaking the law ended up paying a steep price for doing it! P.S Check out the usually meek and mosey Whit Bissell acting against type as the brutal and sadistic prison guard, that everyone in the "Joint" just couldn't wait to get their hands around his neck, Mister, that he demands to be called,Seden.

The occupants of Cell Block 11 take guards as prisoners to protest at the brutal conditions in their prison. The problems are many, be it overcrowding, awful food, the mixing of psychopaths with safe category prisoners, or the treatment dished out by sadistic guards. The inmates have had enough. So led by James V. Dunn (Neville Brand), the cons draw up a list of changes they want to see enforced, changes that liberal minded Warden Reynolds (Emile Meyer) actually concurs with. But as the clock ticks down the cons are beset with in fighting, while on the outside the press and politics start to take a hold.Tho what is known as a "B" movie, and with a budget to match such a programmer, Riot In Cell Block 11 remains today one of the finest entries in the incarceration based genre of film. As relevant today as it was back then, the film has much grit and realism coursing thru its veins. Directed by Don Siegel (Dirty Harry/Escape From Alcatraz), it's written by Richard Collins (uncredited on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers), but it's with producer Walter Wanger that the core of the piece belongs. In 1951 Wanger was convicted of the attempted murder of Jennings Lang. Lang was having an affair with Wanger's wife, and when Wanger caught them in the act, he shot Lang in the groin. Wanger, after copping a plea of temporary insanity, served four months in San Quentin Prison, where his experiences there provided the genesis for Riot in Cell Block 11.Shot in a semi-documentary style on location at California's Folsom Prison, Siegel and Wanger used actual inmates and guards to authenticate their movie. This was made possible by a certain Sam Peckinpah, who here was doing his first film work as a third assistant director. Legend has it that the Warden of Folsom knew "Bloody Sam's" family and thus allowed the makers into the prison to film. The film also benefits by not having big name stars filling out the cast, Brand & Meyer are joined by Frank Faylen, Leo Gordon, Robert Osterloh, Paul Frees & Whit Bissell. Solid performers to a man, but no headliners, and this helps, as they mix with the real crims and coppers, the realistic feel the makers created.Siegel's movie isn't looking for simple answers to a persistent problem, it could have easily just gone for a death or glory violent piece of entertainment. But instead it's laced with intelligence and never sinks to preaching, in fact its finale is a rather sombre footnote to the whole episode. The characters are excellently drawn too, and it's good to see that Collins and co don't just make this a cons against authority piece, they clash with each other. Thus hitting home that not all the cons are singing off of the same page. As Warden Reynolds tells when asked about riot leader Dunn, "he's a psychopath, but he's an intelligent psychopath - just like many others on the outside" it's a telling piece of writing. As is the fact that there's no soft soaping either, there's no redemptive love interests or old sage lags to talk common sense into the ring leaders, it's tough uncompromising stuff.And while we are noting the need for reform, feeling a bond with the prisoners complaints, we are then jolted to not forget that evil men do still reside here. Evil that is perfectly essayed by an excellent Leo Gordon (a real life San Quentin resident) as Crazy Mike Carnie. Watch out for one scene involving a call to a guards wife, the impact is like taking a blow from a claw hammer. You will understand why Siegel said Gordon was the scariest man he ever met.A top draw movie that doesn't take sides, it has both sides of the fence firmly in its sights. With us the public observing from the middle. 10/10