From The Rock Against The Nazi-Night Takers-Director Edward Dmytryk’s “Seven Miles From Alcatraz” (1942)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sandy Salmon

Seven Miles From Alcatraz, starring James Craig, Bonita Granville, directed by Edward Dmytryk, 1942

Who was it, Uncle Joe, Stalin, I think who said paper will take anything written on it. Well apparently the same thing is true for film as the film under review, a slightly-veiled World War II propaganda piece by Edward Dmytryk in the days when the Soviet Union was an American ally and all hands, American and Soviet among others, were needed in the titanic struggle to smash the Nazi-night-takers who were subjecting Europe to a thrashing. (Of course a few years later Dmytryk when the tide turned against the Soviets in the early Cold War days and all hands were needed against them   wound up being jailed as one of the Hollywood Ten who were honorably sentenced for contempt for not snitching on their fellow leftists-although he did “sing” later, sang loud to save his two bit career). The film under review was an effort in that direction although it was spiced up a bit as a third-rate thriller.        

When the deal went down that mention of “all hands against the Nazis” was no hyperbole as the two main characters of this film were escapees from “the Rock,” Alcatraz, the supposedly inescapable federal prison out in Frisco bay. Champ, played by James Craig, and Jimbo hightailed it one foggy night and wound up seeking refuge at a lighthouse out in the Japan currents. They take the residents of that lighthouse hostage, including the lighthouse keeper’s fetching wholesome daughter Ann, played by Bonita Granville, and plan their next moves (and Champ plays his hand trying to get with Ann to keep himself occupied until shipping out time).

What the fugitives did not know, nor did the residents, was that one of their number was a Nazi agent using the place to work on his nefarious plans to help blow up half of Frisco town if the opportunity presented itself. Jimbo wound up wasting that agent without knowing what his purposes had been. Those became clear when a threesome, two men and a woman, claimed they were stranded and sought refuge at the lighthouse. Their real purpose was to rendezvous with a German sub in order to get detailed plans of the layout of the city to the proper military authorities. For most of the film Champ and Jimbo could have cared less about what the Nazis were up to, it wasn’t their fight. After all they were prisoners, escaped prisoners, who were looking for a getaway. They would bargain with the devil if he could get them out. But once they became aware that the plans would have blown the Rock and them with it they began to see the light, began to see that they had to defend American right against the vermin.                

   

Jimbo said it best, “they were gangster’s but they were American gangsters” and they formed that vaunted united front with the lighthouse residents to do the Nazi scum in. Got the information to the right people to blow that damn Nazi sub out of the water too. See even fugitives, low life, could contribute to the war effort. Okay.