Amazon.com Essentials:
One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors
was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in
Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister
Sara, and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story
about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a
new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden
(Patrick McGoohan) and organizes a break leading into the treacherous
waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a
grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some
haunting twists. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com Essentials:
One of Clint Eastwood's two most important filmmaking mentors
was Don Siegel (the other was Sergio Leone), who directed Eastwood in
Dirty Harry, Coogan's Bluff, Two Mules for Sister
Sara, and this enigmatic, 1979 drama based on a true story
about an escape from the island prison of Alcatraz. Eastwood plays a
new convict who enters into a kind of mind game with the chilly warden
(Patrick McGoohan) and organizes a break leading into the treacherous
waters off San Francisco. As jailbird movies go, this isn't just a
grotty, unpleasant experience but a character-driven work with some
haunting twists. --Tom Keogh
