Escape From Alcatraz: 7 Things You Don't Need to Know

If you're a tourist visiting San Francisco, there's a pretty good chance that you're going to want to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, check out Lombard Street, and grab a sourdough bowl full of clam chowder down at Fisherman's Wharf. Full disclosure... I've done all these things. Some of them more than once. But what's always at the top of my list of things to do when family and friends come to town is to hop on the ferry and go explore Alcatraz. In its history, Alcatraz has hosted a lighthouse, a Civil War-era fort, a military prison, and most famously a federal prison. As a federal prison, officially no prisoners were ever able to escape successfully, but three men got pretty close, and may have actually done it in 1962. Their plan served as the inspiration for the classic film I'm going to be talking about this week. So let's get ready for lockdown and settle back in your bunk as I walk you through some useless facts you don't need to know about the 1979 classic, Escape from Alcazar. "Welcome to Alcatraz." Anytime you shoot on location you're gonna have some challenges and Escape from Alcatraz was no exception the first challenge the filmmakers had to face was simply getting the prison to look like it did in 1962 at nearly a decade between the prison closing and the island becoming a National Recreation Area the salt air had done so much damage that Paramount Pictures had to spend about half a million dollars just repairing the painting and refurbishing the prison even getting power on the island was a challenge since the prison's power plant was beyond repair and most of the wiring on the island had corroded instead the producers ran 15 miles of cable to reconnect the island to the city's electricity another factor they had to deal with was the graffiti fainted on the island during an occupation by Native Americans that started in 1969 the crew is required to protect the Kofi T so they camouflaged what they could and painted over the rest with appealable water-soluble paint when the production ended the pain was carefully removed leaving the graffiti visible again challenges of filming on Alcatraz didn't in with just getting the buildings in the grounds looking right they also had to deal with the tourists that's because while they were filming the movie tourists were still allowed onto the island with a new boat full of them arriving every 30 minutes working around them and the noise they made forced the producers to move a lot of the filming to the nighttime but for those scenes where they needed to shoot in the daytime and the public areas Clint Eastwood would often promise to talk with the visitors and sign autographs if they remain quiet while they shot the scene even today escaped Alcatraz has a huge impact on the tourists who visit the island one of the most common questions Alcatraz tour guides are asked is which cell was Clint Eastwood's now even though the prison have been closed for more than 15 years when the film was made some authentic pieces were still around and were able to be used in the movie one example we see at the beginning of the film is the boat that brings Clint Eastwood's character to the island the boat is the warden Johnson named for the first warden of Alcatraz and it was the actual boat that used to transport prisoners to and from the island the boat was custom built the prison by inmates at McNeil Island in Washington State between 1945 and 1961 it made a hundred and forty-four thousand trips to the city and back one of the more shocking scenes of the film is when Doc who's had his painting privileges permanently revoked because he painted ugly caricatures of the warden and several guards takes a hatchet and chops off his fingers the scene was based on a real-life incident involving an inmate named Ruth her spawn in 1937 Perce fall suffering from schizophrenia tormented by the policy of absolute silence and abused by his fellow inmates chopped off four of his fingers on one hand with a hatchet he then turned to the inmate next to him and asked him to chop off the fingers of his other hand first of all was taken to the prison hospital before the other inmate could help him out but his story became legend and found its way into the movie clinics Wood was already a star when Escape from Alcatraz was released but the cast did include some relatively unknown actors who would go on to make dozens of movies first up is Danny Glover who made his film debut playing an inmate Clint Eastwood meets while delivering books would they do given his own and in his first starring role Fred Ward appeared as John Anglin one of the two Englund brothers to attempt to escape with Eastwood now the most dramatic part of the story is of course the actual escape and one of the more dangerous stunts in the entire film was when the three inmates climbed down the prison wall and make a break for the water to make the scene as authentic as possible Clint Eastwood Fred Ward and Jack Tebow actually performed the stunts themselves it's even alleged that Fred Ward and Jack Tebow will cast in these roles in part because of their athleticism and their ability to do this done the scene was so dangerous at two times during the shoot director Don Siegel thought the actors had actually been swept away by the current now the ultimate question in Escape from Alcatraz is did they make it to freedom while the film clearly implies that they did the prison insists that all three men drowned in the bay in fact a passing freighter reported seeing a body wearing a prisoner's uniform floating in the ocean outside of San Francisco Bay a week after the escape but more recent information does show that the prisoners makeshift raft was among the items found on Angel Island with civilian boats dock dog just the other side of the island the inmates could easily have reached the mainland from there and there you have it more useless facts you can use to amaze or annoy your friends and if you'd like to learn more about Alcatraz and in particular the history of the island before it was a prison click on the link in the description below to see my daughter's award-winning documentary she made about 4 Alcatraz it's really interesting especially if you only know Alcatraz as a prison and as always thanks for watching and I hope to see you again here soon on a million movies

Channel: A Million Movies

Views: 9,199

Rating: 4.9154077 out of 5

Keywords: movies, TCM, Clint Eastwood, Alcatraz, Escape, Film Festival, Trivia

Id: apfe22V6zZs

Length: 7min 17sec (437 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 19 2018