Hellgate (1952)

Memorable, crazy movie

Best movie ever!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

It makes sense as to why fictitious names would be used in this adoption of Doctor Mudd story from the days right after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Dr Mudd was imprisoned on Shark Island for giving him medical treatment, and innocently not knowing who he was. Here, a country veterinarian played by Sterling Hayden has the same thing happened to him, except the man he treats is the head of a group of guerrillas, and Hayden is sense to a hell like Prison in the middle of the wilderness in the Middle West. Even though he continues to proclaim his innocence and hopes that with his wife Joan Leslie's help, he will be freed, the prison commander Ward Bond keeps a close watch on him, hoping that he will slip up and reveal things which of course he does not know because of his innocence. What starts off great moves into extremely convoluted plot twists, with Hayden and a group of his cave dwelling prisoners escaping and being led into an attack by Native Americans and others whom Bond has out on the watch for this group. A series a bad choices in moving the plot forward culminates with ridiculous revelations being made, and that results in this being one of the most outlandish re-tellings of American history in Hollywood history.Having already been filmed as the excellent "The Prisoner of Shark Island" in 1936, the story of Dr Mudd had already been presented in a more realistic light. If there was any reason to change what had already been filmed, it was the fact that the producers knew that there was no way that this could compare with the desperate manner in which 20th Century Fox had already done 16 years before. So why do it at all?, is my question. Sterling Hayden does an excellent job as the hero, but he is defeated by a script that doesn't seem to believe in the story it is telling. Ward Bond's character is so one dimensional yet three are indications that this character has multiple personalities because his motivations continue to change at outlandish rates. For that reason I had to give this one a thumbs down, you are better off sticking with your original story or possibly even the television version done more than 20 years later which took great pains to find out details that had not been revealed before.There is also no point in having a major actress like Joan Leslie cast in the insignificant role of the devoted wife, intermittently seeing talking with people she is hoping I can find the evidence to clear him.James Arness has a thankless role as one of the people living inside the cave prison nicknames hell we are all these prisoners are kept. the ending had me raising my eyes with disbelief, and I thought how can I have suffered through 90 minutes of this for a conclusion that made absolutely no sense.it is sad to say, but this one is a piece of American history that is well worth skipping.

Hellgate is directed by Charles Marquis Warren who also co-writes the screenplay with John C. Champion, the latter of which also produces. Andrew V. McLaglen is the assistant director. It stars Sterling Hayden, Ward Bond, Joan Leslie, James Arness, Peter Coe, John Pickard and Robert Wilkie. Music is scored by Paul Dunlap and cinematography by Ernest W. Miller."It is not for us to decide at this date that the man, Gilman Hanley, was the victim of a nations unintentional injustice. Rather, it is our duty to see that the fate that befell him can never again befall any man". Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice, U.S, Supreme Court.Lets cut to the chase, there was no Hellgate Prison, no Romara Desert and no Gilman Hanley. The film is set in New Mexico but filmed in California. And, as the few reviews about it will attest to, this is ultimately The Prisoner of Shark Island remade as a Western. But what a treat for Western fans it is.Doorway of the Damned! The Curse of Convicts! The Shame of America!Sweaty, moody and full of testosterone, Hellgate is also compact and firmly dealing in the innocent good guy suffering at the hands of a pathetic justice system. Hayden is our good doctor Hanley, well veterinarian actually, who administers basic first aid to a Guerilla outlaw and gets sent to America's Devil's Island. The prison is out in the desert, surrounded by a rock formation and the cells are underground lock ups in the caves. Punishment for misbehaving is slow whipping or a stint in the baking oven! Even if the convicts get out of the rock valley, there's Pima Indians waiting to hunt them down and secure a bounty for their heads.Hanley is in trouble, sadistic Lt. Tod Voorhees (Bond of course) doesn't much care for him, as he tells him, "You'll find I have a special regard for Guerillas", not only that but he is in a shared cell with some right characters, including Redfield (Arness), one tough mother who doesn't much care for another guy taking up the monthly water ration. What will follow is machismo moments, fights, torture, battle of wills, death and escape attempts, while anyone who has seen Prisoner of Shark Island will know that disease enters the fray and gives us a finale of punch the air satisfaction.Not all the acting is first grade stuff, though Hayden is perfect for this role, and the abruptness of the key Typhus infection turnaround for the finale kind of feels like a cheat after having endured some quality claustrophobia for the previous 75 minutes. But this is still a tight and taut production, an unquenchable thirst of moody black and white 50s cinema. Which for anyone else like me who loves Westerns and anything prison based, is manna from heaven. 8/10

Sterling Hayden is a peaceable ex Confederate and family man in 1867 Kansas, during a kind of Jesse James milieu when some former soldiers had formed bandit gangs and become a nuisance. He's a veterinarian and, in his good-natured way, he treats James Anderson, who shows up at his doorstep with a damaged rib. Anderson who, along with Bill McKinney, practically had a lock on the stereotypical chain gang boss and people of that ilk, is actually the leader of one of the roving bandit gangs.Hayden, of course, being a peaceable and polite horse doctor, knows nothing of this. He makes sure that mares foal properly, if that's the word. He's just trying to get along. But the U. S. Army believes otherwise. Due to a set of unfortunate circumstances, Hayden is convicted of being a bandit and an ex guerrilla, the kind of no-goodnik who would burn down the house of a Yankee with the women and children still inside.That, in any case, is what Ward Bond thinks. Bond is the head of the prison to which Hayden is sent. The prison camp is in a broiling hot canyon surrounded by convincingly arid desert. The Army guards at the camp are aided by Pima Indians who are paid to bring in the bodies of prisoners who try to escape. These particular Pima may be as rough as they say, but generally the Pima, like their Papago neighbors, were among the first to be acculturated and settle down to a horticultural life around the Colorado River.I rather like the production design -- the dozen or so tents of the soldiers, the wooden shack that is Bond's headquarters, and the interior of the caves and the mines where the prisoners work. Corridors are carved out of obviously fake rock, reminding a view of a Boris Karloff movie, but they're atmospheric.The movie has all the requisite moments of penal unpleasantness -- the surly guards, the cruel whipping of the prisoner who misbehaves, the chipping of the escape tunnel, the hot box in the sunshine, the shackles and humiliation. We've seen it all before, in prison movies more carefully structured than this one. I will mention "Cool Hand Luke" and "I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang" in passing, but they had bigger budgets and A-list stars. And "the oven" in "The Bridge On The River Kwai" is in a class by itself.The problem -- the thing that makes this less gripping than it has a right to be -- lies in three elements. First, Charles Marquis Warren was a hack director. He makes errors that you and I wouldn't make. Too many pointless close ups of men looking at one another while nothing is happening, just for example. He's dull. Another is that the film seems hastily written. We never see the men at work. The typhus epidemic is handled perfunctorily. The disease is spread by a microorganism found in the feces of human lice (yuk) and has nothing to do with water. And neither Sterling Hayden nor Ward Bond put much effort into their performances. Hayden -- okay, he never cared for acting anyway. But I can't remember a single movie in which Ward Bond was so slow and inexpressive, not from his earliest work nor from his last period, including "Rio Bravo." The result of all this is a Western that's mediocre at best, an inexpensive rerun of "The Prisoner of Shark Island," and a movie that is entirely without poetry.

Surprisingly well-produced and offbeat Western from budget-minded Lippert Productions. Note how well stocked with convicts the prison camp is, along with the realistic army tents for the staff. Hard to believe this "Devil's Island" is just a few miles from downtown LA in often-used Bronson Canyon. Lippert does a really convincing job recreating a desert penal colony in the middle of a big city. The prologue from Oliver Wendell Holmes suggests the story is based on fact, though that's not stated. Hayden plays a veterinarian wrongly convicted of guerrilla activity following the Civil War. At the prison camp he has to survive a guerrilla-hating commandant (Ward Bond), a cruel guard (the great Robert Wilke), and scheming fellow prisoners like James Arness. (The Hayden-Arness fistfight features two of the physically biggest men in Hollywood.)The camp is a real hellhole, with underground cells (well-done), a half buried punishment coffin called "the oven", and a posse of Pima Indians for those escaping on foot. And get a load of that trap door leading underground, as if the Devil himself were on the other side. I like the way armed guards are posted on the canyon rim and silhouetted against the sky— another nice touch. There's plenty of intrigue and action, although the typhus outbreak comes as something of an anti-climax following the jailbreak. Hayden underplays throughout, as does Arness. It's really Bond and Wilke who make the strongest impression. Then too, pretty Joan Leslie has her name on the marquee, but only appears for about 5 minutes as Hayden's long-suffering wife. Anyway, it's an offbeat and entertaining 90 minutes that'll make you think twice about helping suspicious-looking strangers,