| The Prisoner of Shark Island | |
|---|---|
 film poster by Joseph A. Maturo | |
| Directed by | John Ford |
| Written by | Nunnally Johnson |
| Produced by | Nunnally Johnson Darryl F. Zanuck |
| Starring | Warner Baxter Gloria Stuart Frank McGlynn Francis McDonald |
| Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
| Edited by | Jack Murray |
| Music by | R.H. Bassett Hugo Friedhofer |
Production company | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Distributed by | Twentieth Century Fox |
Release date |
|
Running time | 96 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Prisoner of Shark Island is a 1936 Americandrama film that presents a dramatized life of Maryland physicianSamuel Mudd who treated the injured presidential assassinJohn Wilkes Booth and later spent time in prison after his unanimous conviction for being one of Booth's accomplices. The film was produced byDarryl F. Zanuck, was directed byJohn Ford and starredWarner Baxter andGloria Stuart.
Twentieth Century Pictures, before it merged with Fox, purchased the rights to the bookThe Life of Dr. Mudd by Nettie Mudd Monroe, the doctor's daughter. The film's credits, however, make no reference to Monroe or her book. Modern sources state thatDarryl F. Zanuck, Twentieth Century's vice-president in charge of production, got the idea to make the film after he read an article inTime magazine about the prison camp for political prisoners on theDry Tortugas island.[1]
A few hours after the assassination ofPresidentAbraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.),Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter) gives treatment to a man with a broken leg who shows up at his door. Mudd does not know that the president has been assassinated, and also does not know the man he is treating is Lincoln's assassin,John Wilkes Booth. Mudd splints the broken leg and receives a banknote as payment, only later realizing that it is a $50 bill.
Mudd is soon afterward arrested for being an accessory in the assassination, is convicted, and is then sent to Arcadia, a prison on theDry Tortugas that is referred to in the film as "America's ownDevil's Island".
Mudd's wife hatches an escape plan using "Buck", the black prison guard who tends to Mudd. Mudd escapes his cell, hears Sgt. Rankin's instruction to kill him on sight, and gets to the prison's outer wall above the shark-infested moat before an alarm is sounded. Mudd then swims to a waiting boat where his wife and her father (Mr. Holt) help him. However, Sgt. Rankin boards the boat, recaptures Mudd and returns him to the prison, where he is confined to a windowless, underground cell along with "Buck".
The island has been in the grip of ayellow fever epidemic, with the official prison doctor having fallen ill with the same fever. The Commandant has few options and places Mudd in charge of addressing the outbreak. Now with the cooperation of the soldier guards, Mudd introduces ventilation into the hospital ward by smashing the windows and letting in a storm which relieves the men's suffering by cooling the air and “blowing all the mosquitoes away.” (The references to the mosquitoes speaks to most, if not all, of the film 's audience, who would know that yellow fever is carried by mosquitoes.) The yellow fever epidemic subsides and Mudd ironically saves the life of Sgt. Rankin, but not before Mudd also catches the fever. The soldiers sign a petition to have Mudd pardoned and he is ultimately released.
A contemporary review byFrank Nugent inThe New York Times reported that the film presents Mudd's story "with commendable directness," noting "Warner Baxter's entirely convincing portrayal of Dr. Mudd" but also claiming that the film "is scarcely more than a well-fabricated edition of the Dreyfus-Devil's Island series that has become part of the screen's tradition."[2]Variety reported that "Warner Baxter [...] turns in a capital performance as the titular prisoner of ‘America’s Devil’s Island’", and described the casting as "tiptop", with "John Carradine stand[ing] out as a new face among especially sinister heavies."[3] Writing inTurner Classic Movies, critic Jeremy Arnold described the film as a "highly entertaining, fast-moving film with endlessly fascinating subject matter," being "one of director John Ford's less-talked-about pictures" and noting that "John Carradine [...] is deliciously evil and nasty in one of the most memorable performances of his career [and] Warner Baxter as Mudd gives perhaps THE best performance of his own career."[4]
Shark Island still manages, seventy-five years later, to be adventurous, bizarre, redemptive, and blistering in its assessment of American power. A must for the Lincoln catalog.A reconsideration of the film in the context of the 2012 filmLincoln.