M&M: Murder In The First

The movie from the year 1995 is based on true events. More later on just how true those events really are.

The plot begins in 1938. It tells the story of Henri Young (wonderfully played by Kevin Bacon), who is imprisoned as a criminal in Alcatraz, the famous prison on the island off San Francisco. The first 20 minutes are not necessarily easy to watch. Because Young is in solitary confinement after an attempted escape and is treated really badly, if not to say tortured. After several years in solitary confinement he's released to the general population again. At lunch time he meets another prisoner, Rufus 'Ray' McCain (David Michael Sterling), who had been with Young at the attempted escape back then. Young lunges at McCain with a spoon and eventually kills him, which in return leads him back to solitary confinement again.

The young attorney James Stamphill (Christian Slater) is supposed to defend Young at court for the murder of McCain. The story is actually told from his point of view. The case seams clear and nothing special at first. But it takes Stamphill a while to get Young to open up and in fact speak at all. The dialogue between the two, especially when Young is called a witness and forced against his explicit wish, to answer questions, are wonderful dialogues with much fun and humour, which speaks to me a lot personally. A beautiful interaction between Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater.

After Henri Young spent years in solitary confinement, it's hardly possible to speak of resocialisation, and in the end not only Henri Young has to explain himself at court, but also the guards and especially the warden have to justify themselves.

In the movie Henri Young is depicted as almost innocent, caught when he stole 5 dollars to provide for himself and his sister and otherwise, apart from the murder of the fellow prisoner, not a criminal. The reality is a little different.

Henri Young really existed. As well as the fellow prisoner Rufus McCain. Together with others they did attempt to escape the prison. That much is true. (Although according to wikipedia it was a year later than in the movie, namely in 1939.) But Henri Young was far from innocent. Even before he came to Alcatraz, the “real” Henri Young was a convicted bank-robber, who in fact was known to be aggressive with hostages. So there can be by far no talk of just stealing 5 dollars to provide for himself and his sister and being caught.

The argumentation in the movie is that it wasn't Henri Young, who was responsible for McCain's death, but the detention conditions and prolonged isolation, was really the argumentation of the defence. I won't anticipate the end of the court case in the movie, but will say this much: that Henri Young's life did not end the way Stamphill (Christian Slater) tells. The truth is that Henri Young was transferred to another prison in 1948. Henri Young's wikipedia entry talks about him “jumping parole” in 1972. Which means that he was allowed to leave the prison for while and under certain conditions. But he never came back from that release and his whereabouts to this day are listed as “unknown”. Having been born June, 11^th 1911, Henri Young would be over 100 years old, if he is still alive today.

The movie is really good and worth watching. Even though, as stated above, the first 20 minutes are not nice to watch. It's to be expected that a movie “based on true events” is often told fairly freely. However I find the very bold deviation quite frustrating. Especially since the end tells something that is absolutely not the truth, namely that Henri Young was in part responsible for Alcatraz being closed. The truth is that Alcatraz was closed in 1963, which was a good 20 years after Henri Young had spent time there. Also Alcatraz wasn't closed because of dubious detention conditions and/or in the end no longer allowed solitary confinement. There are many documentaries from 2000 or later about solitary confinement. Even though such detention conditions are just as dubious as they are depicted in the movie back then. By the way, it is just as wrongful depicted in the movie and stressed several times that the purpose of Alcatraz was resocialisation. In the German wikipedia-article there is the following note (my own translation):

“Alcatraz had 2 purposes:

1. Transfer of troublemakers from other prisons, to prevent escape, violence and suicide attempts.
2. Transfer from prisoners, to send them back to another prison with better behaviour. There was never talk of resocialisation.” (Emphasis mine.)

By the way, the reason to close Alcatraz, among others, was that the salt water affected the building over the years and the maintenance and repair was simply too costly and extensive. The reason was not at all the conduction of the prison.

With this generally good movie, I find it's a pity just how much the facts are twisted, Henri Young's life as well as the history of Alcatraz. I personally would have liked the note of Henri Young's disappearance without a trace, most of all because it would have been closer to the truth and in my opinion also more positive for Henri Young in the movie as well. Maybe it wasn't heroic enough for the movie makers. Then again, the real Henri Young was never a hero from the very beginning anyway.