In Stir

Things have changed up the river. Lenny Bruce was fond of casting the typical oldtime prison flick with little-known B players: "Charles Bickford, Barton MacLane, George E. Stone, Frankie Darro, Warren Hymer, Nat Pendleton, and the Woman Across the Bay, Ann Dvorak." But now, judging from Riot, the big house has gone mod, and there is no need for such durable old stereotypes. Riot concocts a fresh new batch all its own.

As usual, the inmates are restless. They gripe endlessly, snarl out of the sides of their mouths and generally brood up a storm. Finally, the boys in isolation decide to do something about it. They bust out, take over the cell block and hold the guards as hostages. The object of the whole thing is to stall for time so that a few of the riot ringleaders (Jim Brown, Gene Hackman, Ben Carruthers) can tunnel under the wall and make a break for freedom.

Queens Row. Unlike the relatively benign characters in the Warner Bros, pen epics, however, the cons in Riot are a pretty unattractive bunch. They talk dirty and act even worse: they make squealers run a gauntlet, brew up a batch of raisin jack and get high and try to seduce one another in a cell block called Queens Row. The character that Bruce called "the handsome but mixed-up prison doctor, H. B. Warner," has been replaced by a sissified head-shrinker whom the men lovingly refer to as "that faggot psychologist." The warden, usually portrayed as tough but sympathetic, is played as a brutal martinet by Frank Eyman, who is a real-life warden.

Despite all this realism, Riot is about as convincing as 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. Jim Brown is becoming a strong, silent screen presence, but that is not acting. Gene Hackman, a fine character actor, deserves better parts than the one he is given here, and audiences deserve better than the careless ease he brings to it. Although the year is still young, Ben Carruthers contributes what will surely stand as one of its worst performances. As a homicidal schizo, he twitches, shakes and gyrates like a dwarf holding a trip hammer.

Even in these bloody times, the violence in Riot is rather extravagant: when cons are shot in the chest, gore gushes from their mouths, and throats are slit with slashing abandon. Director Buzz Kulik shot the film entirely in the Arizona State Prison, more for the sake of novelty than authenticity. He never once manages to capture the claustrophobic frustration of prison life. Although Riot aspires to be reformist social criticism, it is about as effective--and moving--as a convict chorus of Don't Fence Me In.

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