I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Based on a true story, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang follows war veteran James Allen (Paul Muni) as he’s sentenced to 10 years of hard labor after inadvertently participating in a robbery – with the bulk of the picture detailing James’ efforts at starting over after he successfully escapes and relocates to Chicago. It’s inherently compelling material that’s employed to mostly captivating effect by Mervyn LeRoy, as the filmmaker, working from a script by Howard J. Green and Brown Holmes, delivers a well-paced drama that benefits from its superb lead performance and smattering of overtly engaging sequences – with, for example, the picture capturing the drudgery of James’ day-to-day prison existence to an impressively engrossing extent. There’s little doubt, as well, that I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang‘s success is due in no small part to a narrative rife with surprises and unexpected twists, and although it does suffer from a small handful of palpable lulls, the movie is, for the most part, far more entertaining and enthralling than one might’ve initially anticipated – with Muni’s commanding work here merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of its myriad of pleasures.

*** out of ****