Proof that Stanley Kramer's decision to idealise the Sidney Poitier character in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" was a conscious, thought-out move (some would say it was a mistake for all that, but that's another matter), and not a cowardly or patronising one. Poitier's convict here has streaks of nobility - Curtis's does too - but the aggression for which he was jailed is real enough.
For the first half, everything is firmly screwed in place: the black and the white convict chained together, the local volunteers tracking them down, the humane sheriff trying to keep his forces in check. Things started to shake themselves loose when the woman makes an entrance. The story had worked well so long as the two convicts were estranged from civilisation, with only each other to fall back on, and it might have continued to work, if the woman had been interesting in some other way than as a plot device. In fact things got better again as soon as she vanished from the screen.
Solid and intelligent, but the other well-known Kramer films, considered as films, are better.
For the first half, everything is firmly screwed in place: the black and the white convict chained together, the local volunteers tracking them down, the humane sheriff trying to keep his forces in check. Things started to shake themselves loose when the woman makes an entrance. The story had worked well so long as the two convicts were estranged from civilisation, with only each other to fall back on, and it might have continued to work, if the woman had been interesting in some other way than as a plot device. In fact things got better again as soon as she vanished from the screen.
Solid and intelligent, but the other well-known Kramer films, considered as films, are better.