I was never interested in the
sorts of things most young children, especially girls, would find remotely
appealing. Case in point: I was about nine, spending a Sunday afternoon with my
grandma . We were watching the Discovery Channel and a special came on, called “Public
Enemies on The Rock,” a documentary about the history of Alcatraz and its
infamous menagerie of inmates. I sat, riveted, listening to former guards and
inmates tell stories of Al Capone, “Machine Gun” Kelly, Alvin “Creepy”
Karpis, and daring escape attempts. I had never heard of these men or the
prison before, but something about them and Alcatraz itself fascinated me. Over
the next year, I watched more documentaries and read about a dozen books on the
subject. Most of these reiterated information I already knew, so I quickly lost
interest.
At a local video store recently, I stumbled upon this title. The tagline on the box proclaimed: “Based on the true story of the trial
that brought down Alcatraz.” I ran through my
mental file of Alcatraz lore. Nothing I had previously read or seen had
mentioned anything about the prison being involved in any kind of lawsuit.
Murder in the First is based on the trial of Henri
Young. He was part of a group who tried to break out of Alcatraz in 1938, the
famous escape attempt that resulted in the death of “Doc” Barker. Rufus McCain,
one of the prisoners involved, tipped the guards off about the escape attempt
and told them that Henri was the mastermind. Henri’s punishment was a stay in a
basement dungeon that was used for solitary confinement when D Block got too
crowded. At the time, federal law stated that a prisoner could be sentenced to
solitary confinement for a maximum of 19 days; Henri was kept in the dungeon
for 3 straight years. The guards beat him regularly and the assistant warden
cut his Achilles tendons with a straight razor, leaving Henri partially
crippled for life.
After 3 years, the assistant warden decided that Henri
had learned his lesson. He was allowed to shower, taken to the prison barber
for a shave and a haircut, and then escorted to the prison cafeteria. While
Henri was eating, one of the other inmates told him that Rufus McCain was the
reason Henri had been sent to the dungeon. Somewhere during his long stay in
solitary, Henri had totally lost his mind, so he ran across the cafeteria and
stabbed McCain in the neck with a spoon. McCain died instantly and Henri was
charged with first-degree murder. The rest of the movie deals with the trial.
This movie features (what was for the mid-1990s) an
A-list cast: Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, and Christian Slater. R. Lee Ermey, who
played the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket, plays the judge. Kyra
Sedgwick from that crappy TV show The Closer makes sort of a cameo
appearance as a court reporter who must be tragically underpaid. (Watch the
movie and you’ll understand what I mean).
Christian Slater plays James Stamphill, a Harvard Law
graduate who now works for the public defender in San Francisco. James is fresh
out of law school and frustrated because he hasn’t gotten to go to court yet.
His boss assigns him the Henri Young case; he figures James won’t win, but at
least he’ll get some experience as a trial attorney.
I’ve seen a few other
Christian Slater movies. In most of them, the characters he played were very
unlikeable, so I had no sympathy for them. Whatever happened to them, they
deserved it, end of story. James Stamphill is not one of those characters. James doesn’t defend Henri because he’ll get a fat
paycheck. He doesn’t defend Henri because the cute legal secretary down the
hall says she’ll sleep with him after he tries his first case, whether he wins
or loses. James defends Henri because he is horrified that three years of “rehabilitation”
turned a petty criminal into a murdering nutcase and wants to make sure the
guards are not allowed to treat any other prisoners in such an inhumane
fashion.
Henri was played by
Kevin Bacon. He seemed “into” this role, so I found it easy to react to what
was happening to his character. In a scene where he cries on the stand and says
he’d rather be executed than go back to Alcatraz because of what the guards did
to him, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him. When Henri did strange or creepy
things, I started to think maybe Kevin Bacon wasn’t acting.
I was startled when I did some research online and
learned that Kevin Bacon wasn’t even considered for a Best Actor Oscar.
I mean, look at Anthony Hopkins and Jack Nicholson. They both received Best
Actor for playing psychopathic killers. Maybe the role of Henri Young didn’t
count because Henri wasn’t crazy to start with?
Looking at the facts
of the case from a 21st-century perspective, I am surprised there
was even a trial at all. During the 1930s and 1940s, inmates who killed other
inmates were usually handled internally by the warden of the prison where the
crime took place. A couple of weeks in solitary and several years added to the
murderer’s sentence was the usual punishment. The life of a fellow inmate just
wasn’t worth the hassle and expense of a public trial; those usually happened
only if an inmate killed a guard. I suppose an exception was made in the Henri
Young case because the murder took place on Alcatraz, which was federal
property.
This movie isn’t for everyone. It’s not something you watch
to be entertained. You watch it maybe because you enjoy the historical aspect
of it or you find the legal aspect interesting or you just like movies with
human drama and emotion. Even though it doesn’t end all that happily, you can
still turn the DVD off feeling satisfied. I highly recommend it.