Classic Film Guide

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

An excellent drama from director Mervyn LeRoy - a film that allegedly led to changes in the inhumane conditions on chain gangs in the South. An excellent Academy Award nominated Best Actor performance by Paul Muni too. The movie was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and was added to the National Film Registry in 1991.

Muni plays a wrongly accused man who is convicted and imprisoned; he then has to work on a chain gang in Georgia. When he escapes, he changes his identity enabling him to live as a free and successful man in Chicago. However, he meets a woman (Glenda Farrell) who discovers his secret; she blackmails him into marrying her so that she can live off his largess. He then meets and falls in love with Helen (Helen Vinson), which upsets his wife. When he wants to leave his wife to marry Helen, his spouse exposes him. He then must decide whether to stay and fight it, or voluntarily return to Georgia to serve 90 days followed by a full pardon. Should he trust them? Allen Jenkins also appears.

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