Murder in the First (1995)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Marc Rocco

Writer (WGA):

Dan Gordon (written by)

Release Date:

20 January 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

They locked him up. They crushed his spirit. But they couldn't hide the truth.

Plot:

An eager and idealistic young attorney defends an Alcatraz prisoner accused of murdering a fellow inmate. The extenuating circumstances: his client had just spent over three years in solitary confinement.

Plot Keywords:

Alcatraz | Dungeon | Prison | Spoon | Inmate

Awards:

2 wins & 2 nominations

Cast

Christian Slater	...	James Stamphill
Kevin Bacon	...	Henri Young
Gary Oldman	...	Milton Glenn
Embeth Davidtz	...	Mary McCasslin
William H. Macy	...	D.A. William McNeil
Stephen Tobolowsky	...	Mr. Henkin
Brad Dourif	...	Byron Stamphill
R. Lee Ermey	...	Judge Clawson
Mia Kirshner	...	Adult Rosetta Young
Ben Slack	...	Jerry Hoolihan
Stefan Gierasch	...	Warden James Humson
Kyra Sedgwick	...	Blanche, Hooker
Alex Bookston	...	Alcatraz Doc (as Alexander Bookston)
Richie Allan	...	Jury Foreman
Herb Ritts	...	Mike Kelly

Also Known As:

Meurtre à Alcatraz (France)

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Argentina:18 | Iceland:12 | Iceland:16 (video rating) | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | South Korea:15 | Philippines:R-18 | Canada:14A (TV rating) | New Zealand:R18 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 (bw) | Portugal:M/16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 | USA:R | France:-12

Filming Locations:

Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The real life Henry Young was a bank robber who had taken and brutalized a hostage on at least one occasion and committed murder in 1933 - some 3 years before being incarcerated at Alcatraz. He had served time in State prisons in Montana and Washington before entering Federal prison for the first time in 1935 at the U.S. Penitentiary on McNeil Island, Washington (which is now a State prison).

Goofs:

Factual errors: Although the movie took place in the late 1930s, all exterior shots of Alcatraz show the burned out shell of the warden's house. The warden's house on Alcatraz didn't burn down until 1970, seven years after it was closed as a prison, during the Indian Occupation of the island.

Quotes:

Henri Young: Action I won. Reaction you can't ever take that away from me

Movie Connections:

Referenced in La très très grande entreprise (2008)

Soundtrack:

Tuxedo Junction

In this courtroom I'm the only one who decides what is and what's not OK! OK!

**SPOILERS** Highly fictitious account of the life and times of Alcatraz inmate and career criminal #Az244 Henri Young, Kevin Bacon, and his fight to put an end to the torturous dungeon, solitary confinement, where he spent most of his time while incarcerated on the "Rock".

We're given the impression that Young's only crime that in the end landed him on the "Rock" was a petty $5.00 robbery of a grocery store. This was in order to get food for him and his nine year-old sister Rosella, Amenda Borden,during the hight of the Great Depression. In fact Young was involved in a number of robberies and burglaries that ended with a robbery, and murder of the proprietor, of a bakery in Oregon and then followed by a failed bank robbery in Washington State.

Sent to Alcatraz in 1935 to serve his time on January 13, 1939 Young together with a number of fellow inmates made an unsuccessful escape attempt from the "Rock" where the leader of the group Arthur "Doc" Barker, Michael Melvin was gunned down and killed by the prison guards. Sent to the hole for punishment Young developed a festering hatred toward his fellow inmate who was involved with him in the failed escaped attempt Rufus McCain, David Michael Sterling. Young held McCain responsible, in his unfounded suspicion of him, for tipping off the guards in Young and his fellow inmates escape plan.

Out off the hole and in with the local prison population Young, after an unsuccessful attempt earlier, attacked McCain in the prison tailor shop and stabbed him with a sank, home-made prison knife, killing him: Not in the mess-hall with a spoon like depicted in the movie.

The most egregious misrepresentation in the film "Murder in the First" of Youngs stay in Alcatraz is that he was assigned a young lawyer, who just passed the state bar, to defend him in his trial for McCain's murder James Stamphill, Christian Slater. In fact the real James Stamphill was actually a fellow Alcatraz inmate who was involved, but didn't participate, in the January 13, 1939 escape attempt with Young! The attorney who actually successfully defended Young at his murder trial was San Francisco lawyer Sol Abrams.

The film had Henri Young being tortured by the prison guards and assistant Warden Milton Glenn, Gary Oldman, day and night until he finally snaps. It's then, according to the movie, Young is let out of the hole where, in what seem like within minutes, he attacked and murdered McCain with a spoon in front of well over two hundred witnesses in the prison lunchroom.

An open and shut case at first Young's court-appointed attorney James Stamphill turns the trial upside down. Stamphill puts the entire prison staff from warden Humson,Stefan Glerasch, on down on trial for inhuman treatment of prisoners instead of defending his client Henri Young for murdering one of them! With young going from sane to insane during his trial Stamphill and his lady assistant attorney Mary McCasslin, Embeth Davitz, get Young off on an insanity conviction, involuntary manslaughter, where he's to serve just under 3 years behind bars.

***SPOILER ALERT*** Were given the information that Young deathly afraid of being sent back to the "Rock" in fact wanted to change his plea, which his lawyer Stamphill prevented him from doing, from not guilty due to his diminish mental capacity to guilty of first degree murder. Young was more then willing to risk his life, in the San Quentin gas chamber, in order not to be put back in the hole. The movie ends with the sad statement that Young was found dead three months later, were not given the cause of his death, with the word "Victory" scrawled in his cell. A final act of defiance on Youngs part to those in the prison system who so brutally abused and tried to break him.

The fact is that Young never died or killed himself and was finally released from prison in 1972 some 30 years after his presumed death, in the movie, with 27 years added on to his light three year sentence, for involuntary manslaughter, due to his bad and unruly behavior behind bars. Young a free man after some 40 years behind bars then immediately broke his parole and was never seen or heard from again! For all we know Henri Young is still around with us, he would by now if alive be 97 years old on June 11 2008, since his death, natural or otherwise, was never reported or confirmed!