WARNING
This review contains spoilers.
A young man, just returning from service in the Army during WWI, is tired of the drab routine and customs he experienced in the army. Trained as an army corps engineer, the young man, Alan (Paul Muni), in his early twenties seeks more exciting times than factory work.
Setting out on a journey, we find Alan unable to support himself, moving around the country working different jobs with no security and little money. He ends up somewhere along the Mississippi River in a boarding house for those out of luck. A man befriends Alan and leads him to get a "free" hamburger which Alan can only dream of tasting.
The free hamburger goes awry when the man pulls out a gun on the owner subjecting Alan to a robbery that he had no intentions on committing. The judge sentences Alan to 9 years on a chain gang somewhere in the American south.
Long hours, despicable food, regular whippings and men dying from being overworked. Alan feeling that he is being unjustly treated for a crime he was held at gun point to commit, decides to escape with the help of an inmate.
The escape is tense and nerve-racking. At one point Alan take a reed from the marsh and hides underwater breathing through the reed until the bloodhounds and guards become misdirected. He eventually makes out of the swamps and forest to an old buddy who hides him out.
It is apparent that in the scene that takes place at his old buddy's place between Alan and a presumptuous young female (prostitute) named Linda (Noel Francis) that this movie is indeed Pre-code Hollywood. From there, Alan makes it Chicago where he begins work on a railroad line as a labourer. His mind works faster than his body and he is immediately seen as an asset to the company as Alan makes ingenious business suggestions.
He finds a decent place to live with another loose woman, Marie (Glenda Farrell), whom he makes his girlfriend all the while climbing the corporate ladder at the engineering company. He studies day in and day out, reading from advanced engineering books until he lands the job as head project manager. The loose woman clings to him like static. She tells him that he doesn't love her and his pre-code reply is that the relationship is nothing but casual sex - something unheard of after 1934.
Hurt and vengeful, Marie begins plotting against Alan. Yet another blow struck down from Fortuna on Alan as Marie finds a letter from a family member that reveals Alan is an escaped convict. She blackmails him into taking her as his wife. Her goal is a clear-cut one of living the highlife, sleeping around with other men, and begging for money from Alan who is paid so very well.
Eventually it becomes to much for him and new encounters make Alan understand that Marie is binding him in chains - similar to the chain gang he escape from - losing the freedom he felt he deserved after the war. His new mistress, Helen (Helen Vinson) is sweet and loving, but the vengeful wife has had enough of Alan and goes A.W.O.L.
During a high profile meeting with city officials discussing the plans and construction for a new bridge, Alan is interrupted by two detectives who barge in, making his secret apparent to the whole city of Chicago. Lawsuits ensue and the philosophical battles emerge on whether a man who was subject to such forceful labour, for a petty crime not of his own volition, begs the question that this man is a prominent figure and contributing member of society and should not have to endure such labours so long as he is a contributing member of society.
Deciding that he wants to break free of his past and put all open troubles behind him, he volunteers to return to the chain gang on the promise that after 90 days of service - a mere formality he is told - that he may return back to Chicago under a full pardon. Needless to say, 90 days pass and his pardon is not granted. Nine months later he is re-examined for a pardon and again ultimately refused with the case not to be heard for another nine years.
Maybe he lost his mind at this point as fortune continues to strike against him. He breaks free from the chain gang once more, only to realize that the freedom he now, is no freedom at all. He has is to keep moving under assumed named after assumed name, never seeing his mistress, Helen, who loved him and whom he loed, and never retuning to a normal decent life; living by having to steal to eat and survive.
A take about how society and the world can be the antagonist to a particular individual; constantly working against an honest, loving, and courageous man that ultimately left him as a wandering vagabond and a life of thievery. The story of how the world can ruin a good man (or woman 馃槢).
Note about the author:
I watch a lot of old Hollywood films and this one is a very powerful film. American movies are so different than their European counterparts, much more lively and fresh, but not as much thought provoking as many European films. That is to say that not all Hollywood films are mindless, quite on the contrary in fact, but it is a stretch to find a lot of those in European cinema, at least up until the 1980s. Thank you Hive!
