I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

Warner Bros. | Release Date: November 19, 1932

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

87	METASCORE Universal acclaim based on 11 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

EmpireKim Newman

Suprisingly no-holds-barred portrait of institutional bullying for such an early film. Read full review

Mordaunt Hall

Several sequences are worked out with genuine suspense, and, although one might be justified in presuming that some of the cruelty is exaggerated, the sight of scores of men working with shackled ankles is enough to make much of the narrative seem credible. Read full review

James Berardinelli

Flaws aside, this is both an important and an engaging motion picture. Read full review

Jeremiah Kipp

Only with a character as noble as Oliver Twist or David Copperfield are people able to endure such misery, and Paul Muni plays a character so single-minded in his pursuit of freedom, so damned anxious for even the smallest victory, that he makes Fugitive absolutely riveting. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

I Am a Fugitive features one of the bleakest endings of its era, one that hasn’t lost its ominous power. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a picture with guts. It grips with its stark realism and packs lots of punch. Read full review

100

Michael Wilmington

A stinging indictment of official injustice, done with muck-raking urgency and timeless compassion, adapted from Robert E. Burns' autobiographical novel (set in Georgia). With Paul Muni, superb as the fugitive. [25 Jul 1997, p.J]

100

David Sterritt

There's still incredible power to this real-life story of a decent man tricked into assisting a crime, sentenced to hard labor on a Southern chain gang, and betrayed into further misery after he escapes and rehabilitates himself. Paul Muni is superb as the tortured hero. [18 Feb 1994, p.14]

Susan King

With masterly directing by Mervyn LeRoy of "Little Caesar" fame, the film sparked protests against prisoner abuse and actually led to changes in the penal code. [15 May 2005, p.E10]

Crosby Day

An uncompromising and frightening film that depicts the sadistic brutality and dehumanizing violence with which chain-gang inmates were treated in the South. [21 Nov 1993, p.59]

Pauline Kael

One of the best of the social-protest films--naive, heavy, artless, but a straightforward, unadorned story with moments that haunted a generation.