I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is one of the most powerful social protest motion pictures ever made in Hollywood. The film was released in 1932 and was one of several Hollywood movies that attacked social problems in the United States during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Mervyn Le Roy was the director.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang used a semidocumentary, realistic style to portray an innocent man caught in a corrupt judicial system. The scenes of life on a brutal chain gang caused a national outcry against inhumane prison conditions. The movie was adapted from an autobiography by Robert E. Burns that was first serialized in True Detective magazine in 1931 and published as a book in 1932. The work describes the author’s actual experiences as a prisoner in a Georgia chain gang.
In the film, Paul Muni starred as a war veteran drifting across the United States seeking work. Two men force him to take part in a grocery store robbery in Atlanta, and all three men are caught. Even though the veteran is innocent, he is sentenced to a chain gang. The man escapes and rebuilds his life in Chicago. However, his former wife tells the authorities where he is, and the authorities return him to the chain gang. The man escapes again and, at the end of the movie, has become a hardened criminal constantly on the run from the law.
The film won praise for its unflinching portrait of the hard life on a chain gang. The film did not mention Georgia by name, but officials of that state were outraged by the movie. The film was banned in Georgia, but its impact is credited with stimulating legislation that reformed prison conditions in the southern United States.
