Simply Perfect

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Copyright 17 February 1940 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Globe: 3 March 1940. U.S. release: 15 July 1940. Australian release: 18 April 1940 (sic). 77 minutes. Censored to 58 minutes in Australia.U.K. and Australian release title: YEARS WITHOUT DAYS.SYNOPSIS: Mobster Tommy Gordon is not worried about being sentenced to Sing Sing because he believes his political pals will get him a fast parole. He tells his girlfriend, Kay, not to worry. He makes no effort to reform in prison, and after causing a near-riot is given three months in solitary confinement by Warden Long, a dedicated prison reformer. After the ninety days in solitary, Tommy concedes that his friends have deserted him, and he joins a group of convicts planning to escape. NOTES: A re-make of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932). John Garfield was extremely popular in Australia when this film was released, but close to 20 minutes of censor cuts put paid to any hopes that Warner Bros entertained for big money at Oz ticket windows. Instead the movie had to be released at flat rates as a "B"-grade support. COMMENT: It's hard to believe that Anatole Litvak had anything to do with this limp re-make, let alone direct it. Great cast too. But despite forceful playing by the charismatic Garfield and personable Sheridan, the characters never really come across. As a result, the story has little impact. Weak support playing by Pat O'Brien (especially) and Jerome Cowan doesn't help. True, part of the problem lies in the script. O'Brien's role is not built up sufficiently to make him a sympathetic figure. He's always just a minor character. This lack of audience empathy with Warden Long robs the climax of much of its drama. Of the big support cast, only Burgess Meredith really makes an impression, though Guinn Williams has some effective moments. Technical credits are smooth, but undistinguished. Like the script, the film editing tends to be flaccid, with scenes held too long and then faded out in a somewhat old-fashioned way that militates against the realism so vital to this story. Production values do not impress half as much as Twenty Thousand Years

A young John Garfield leaves his girl friend, Ann Sheridan, and is sent to Sing Sing, assured by his lawyer, Jerome Cowan, that he'll be gotten out shortly. Unfortunately, Jerome Cowan, whatever else he may be, is a lawyer and has his own agenda. The cocky Garfield makes light of his tribulations in the slams while Cowan pursues Sheridan.Garfield begins to get smart under the tutelage of the tough but fair warden, Pat O'Brien. (John Litel is the priest in this one.) He behaves himself. And when the warden receives a telegram informing Garfield that his girl may not live through the night, O'Brien gives him a brief parole to visit her.Things go wrong. While visiting Sheridan at the hospital, Garfield runs into Cowan, whose treachery is now revealed. Sheridan shoots and kills Cowan to save Garfield from being beaten to death. Garfield escapes and is blamed for the death. (I forget where that gun came from.) But he mans up and turns himself in anyway. He shouldn't have.It's an odd, play-like movie, with good performances, inexpensive sets, one location shot of the exterior of Grand Central Station in New York, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams doing his best to act, Sheridan looking good, and eliciting myriad unspoken questions about capital punishment. It's so terribly irreversible.But the climax is unusual. Here is Garfield, a protagonist, not a bad guy, loving and in his own way honorable, yet he marches off with a smile, a wisecrack, and a cigarette to the electric chair. I kept waiting for the last-minute phone call from the governor. But no. All that fades in after his retreating figure is "The End."

Cocky gangster (Garfield) goes to prison where he gradually reforms until given a break by the prison warden (O'Brien). Then problems ensue.Typically gritty Warner Bros. fare from the pre-war era. Garfield shows he's in the same gangster class as Cagney and Robinson. Watch him spit out dialog faster than a machine gun burst while doing a tough-guy routine. And who better to double-cross him than that slippery lounge lizard Jerome Cowan who could machine gun his own dialog as a reporter in dozens of period films.But the real scene stealer is scrawny, athletic Burgess Meredith, a brainy con who outwits the prison head-doctor (Grant Mitchell) in the movie's best scene. He may be the least-likely looking con I've seen; still, he and Garfield make a dynamic leadership team (as long as it's not Saturday!). On the other hand, goofy Big Boy Williams strikes me as a matter of taste.It's a compelling, if not original, plot that redeems Garfield without whitewashing him. Still, I'm not sure what his actual capital crime is when they lead him away, especially when the all-powerful Production Code insisted that justice be served on this side of the pearly gates. Nonetheless, his scenes with the warden (O'Brien) are nicely shaded gems of growing respect, while a lovely Sheridan is affecting as the luckless girlfriend. As this gutsy little programmer shows, star-studded MGM may have had the gloss, but plebeian Warner's had the grit.

Tommy Gordon, a criminal seen at the start of the story, is a suave man. He is well regarded in the best places in the Manhattan of the era, where his presence is well regarded. Unfortunately, his luck runs out when he is found guilty of the robbery, he masterminded. His beautiful girlfriend, Kay, is devastated. It is hard to believe with all of Tommy's connections, he could land in Sing Sing, one of the toughest prisons in the country.The idea that he will have to give up his clothes in exchange for the prison garb, does not go well with Tommy. He does not endear himself to the guards, or Walter Long, the warden. After realizing his influence and good standing in the criminal world will not let him get anywhere, he decides to join the system in getting himself sent to the shoe factory. There he meets Steve Rockport, another con, preparing an escape. Fortunately for Tommy, the plan goes wrong for his friend, but he remains in his cell, when he could have tried to escape as well.Warden Long begins to take another look at Gordon, for he thinks he is toeing the line. When Kay, his lover has a terrible accident, Tommy appeals to Long to let him go to her. Long, who has a good heart, makes a deal with Tommy and allow him to go for a short time to Kay. Trouble follows him in the shape of his former pal Ed Crowley coming to see Kay and there is a scuffle among them. Kay, trying to protect Tommy shoots Ed. The police, summoned to the apartment, takes Tommy back to Sing Sing. Later on, he is found guilty of murder in the first degree and condemned to the electric chair.Directed by Anatole Litvak, this is another remake of Lewis Lawes' "Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing". The film is a good adaptation, but it has a fatal flaw: we do not believe for a moment the warden, any warden, would have allowed Tommy to leave the prison on his own word. Add to that the fact that such a high security place offered no possibility of escape in any form, although we are sure, must have been tried. John Garfield makes a wonderful Tommy Gordon full of bravado. This actor was always a welcome presence in any of the films in which appeared. He was charismatic, distilling a positive aura into anything he played. Pat O'Brien is Warden Long, the man who believe in Tommy, perhaps naively. Ann Sheridan casts a sophisticated aura on her Kay, the woman that loved Gordon. Burgess Meredith was Steve Rockport, the con man who wanted to escape. Jerome Cowan, one of the busiest character actors of the era is seen as Crowley.