The Last Mile (1932)

We are all just numbers here. The Last Mile is directed by Samuel Bischoff and adapted to screenplay by Seton Miller from the John Wexley play of the same name. It stars Preston Foster, Howard Phillips, George Stone, Noel Madison and Adam Roscoe. Music is by Val Burton and cinematography by Arthur Edeson. Interesting watching this pic these days to note just how much set in stone the formula is even today. All of the staples of the prison based dramas are right here in 1932, and of course the thematic beats of anti capital punishment still bang loud as much today as they did back then. Reprieve! Reprieve! The Last Mile in production is very much of its time, the stage origins not really leaving us as this is essentially a one set production. The acting ranges from excitable overacting to non credible characterisations. It's also a touch irritating that the key element for our main man Dick Walters (Phillips), the flashback to why he was sentenced to death, is played too early in the piece. And yet there's a power in the drama that lures you in, keeps you right there in the confines of death row. From a photographic stand point it looks terrific, Edeson's (They Drive by Night/Casablanca/The Maltese Falcon) monochrome lensing is perfectly moody. Holding court in the acting stakes is Foster, who is right at home playing the angry alpha male, it's the plum role and the one with the dramatic swagger. It was a busy year for Foster with 7 releases! Including the brilliant I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Not a great film but it's above average, and important in a number of ways as regards the history of genre cinema. While as a time capsule it remains a fascinating venture. 6/10

Reduced to the status of being a number not a name, “Walters” (Howard Phillips) has been sentenced to death for a murder he protests that he did not commit. Into prison he goes, to share a cell with “Mears” (Preston Foster) who makes no such claims to innocence. Therefore he reckons he has little to lose when he organises a prison revolt against the hitherto fairly benign rule of it’s governor (Walter Walker). Whether he likes it or not, “Walters” is going to be caught up in this drama - damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. With the armed officers now lined up outside and his thuggish, hostage taking, fellow inmates desperate and ruthless inside, what chance he - or any of them - can stay alive? Also, thanks to a fainting spell from the terrified “Walters”, we get a flashback of the events that led up to his imprisonment and from then on in I thought that Phillips delivered fine in the latter scenes with the slightly wooden Foster also working adequately. This is a very wordy drama that does benefit from quite a lively, poignant even, last twenty minutes as it showcases the only solution to the hopelessness for those incarcerated with no chance of reprieve or parole, and illustrates that prison wardens were often at considerable risk if things went wrong in the cell blocks. Much of the rest of this, though, is over-dramatised to the point that it might have been better made as a silent film. Some of the contorted facial expressions and histrionics are nowadays more likely to raise a smile than any sense of sympathy, but it still sends a clear message suggesting that prison reform is essential to any possibility of rehabilitation for people who really do think life is cheap.