Castle on the Hudson

Directed by Anatole Litvak, Castle on the Hudson follows arrogant mobster Tommy Gordan (John Garfield) as he’s sent to prison for a lengthy stretch after pulling off a brazen heist – with the picture subsequently detailing Tommy’s exploits within said prison alongside a compassionate warden (Pat O’Brien’s Walter Long) and several inmates (including Burgess Meredith’s Steve Rockford). Filmmaker Litvak, working from Seton I. Miller, Brown Holmes, and Courtney Terrett’s screenplay, delivers an erratic yet mostly rewarding drama that benefits from Garfield’s intense, magnetic performance, as the actor’s compelling efforts here go a long way towards cultivating a perpetually watchable atmosphere and compensating for the periodic narrative lulls – with, in terms of the latter, the movie’s meandering opening stretch testing the viewer’s patience to a fairly palpable degree. It’s clear, then, that Castle on the Hudson benefits from a smattering of impressively (and unexpectedly) engrossing sequences, including an exciting, absorbing prison-break interlude about halfway through, although the somewhat anticlimactic third act ensures that the whole thing fizzles out rather dramatically – with the final result a decent-enough endeavor that would undoubtedly fare much, much worse were it not for Garfield’s top-notch work as the larger-than-life protagonist.

**1/2 out of ****