Rent Escape from Alcatraz (1979)

A true story and a powerful prison/crime thriller - Escape from Alcatraz review by Philip in Paradiso

With Clint Eastwood in the lead, it is the true story of 3 men who, in the early 1960s, staged the only successful escape from Alcatraz prison, on the island sitting in the middle of the Bay of San Francisco. (It is no longer a prison.) No one knows what actually happened to the 3 fugitives after they broke out of the jail, but they certainly succeeded in escaping.

The film is a great classic of the genre, full of gripping suspense, even though one knows the broad storyline. It is exceedingly realistic and has not aged at all (the movie was made in the late 1970s). A great movie.

Great Prison Escape Drama - Escape from Alcatraz review by GI

A great prison escape drama based on real events and the last collaboration between Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel. Typical of both star and director it's a film that doesn't waste anything, it's a taut, well told story with an occasionally clumsy script moment and interestingly it isn't structured as a star vehicle considering Eastwood's box office pull in the 70s. Shot on the actual Alcatraz island this tells the story of the escape by three men, Frank Morris (Eastwood) and the Anglin brothers (Fred Ward & Jack Thibeau) who managed to burrow out of their cells and with makeshift life rafts disappear into the San Francisco Bay. Not only is their plans for the escape create the usual tense drama as discovery is always potentially possible but Siegel also has time to deviate away to reveal the sort of life at Alcatraz as a maximum security prison was for the prisoners. To ensure the film sides with the escapees (and to some extent the prisoners in general) the story creates a fictional head warden played with delicious nastiness by Patrick McGoohan. His casual coldness to all things exemplified in his crushing of the emblematic flower which is part of the narrative centring on the character of Doc (Roberts Blossom) who acts as the films heart. Interesting story in a lean and well made film and a solid Eastwood performance. Definitely a film to seek out if you've never seen it.

True Crime (spoiler) - Escape from Alcatraz review by Steve

The final collaboration between Clint Eastwood and his longtime director Don Siegel is a vérité account of what the script and the source book by J.Campbell Bruce claim is the only successful escape from the island prison at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. Events take place in 1962, a year before it closed.

There's an ultra-realistic approach, staged in actual locations. This isn't the political crusade of the '30s Warner Brothers prison films. There isn't any of the symbolism of those made after WWII, or the anti-authoritarianism of the '60s. It is much more candid due to relaxed censorship but doesn't wallow in misery.

Eastwood is typically laconic and impassive and gives us an antihero we can root for; we are never informed of his crime. The all male support is cast for naturalism more than name recognition... except for Patrick McGoohan as the vindictive chief warden. Who ensures we are on the side of the conspirators.

It is ultimately unclear if they got away, because... no one knows! This is mainly a work of suspense. Plus the realism and the vicarious interest of seeing inside the walls of Alcatraz in the bad old days. On those terms it is a success, and was a box office hit. Yet is not as compelling as those earlier prison films.