Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

zetes Not among Ford's best films, unfortunately. Warner Baxter is excellent as Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it jumping from the balcony in which he shot Abraham Lincoln. Like most Hollywood films, it completely ignores history. It's not generally believed that Mudd was a conspirator against Lincoln, but the truth was a lot murkier than this film presents. The beginning of the film is pretty good, with the assassination and Mudd's arrest and trial. Strangely enough, I thought it got much less interesting when it moved to the titular island, Dry Tortuga in the Florida Keys. I don't exactly know why, but I lost interest during the latter half of the movie, despite the wonderful presence of John Carradine at his hammiest. Love that guy. The bug-eyed Negro characters are pretty annoying in this one, although I thought the character of Buck, a former slave of Mudd's who aids him in prison, was one of the more positive characters of that type I've seen. Not that the depiction isn't fairly racist, but at least he's kind of a hero.

bkoganbing In today's police jargon, Dr. Samuel A. Mudd would be referred to as a 'known associate' of presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth. What or how much he knew of Booth and his schemes is still a matter of interpretation. It is certain on that night that Booth and accomplice David Herrold came knocking at his door to mend Booth's broken leg as a result of jumping off the balcony at Ford's Theater after shooting Abraham Lincoln, Mudd had no way of knowing what had just happened.He was acquainted with Booth, it was no accident Booth stopped by that night, he knew where a doctor was. Mudd obfuscated the facts and that might just have earned him the trip to the Dry Tortugas.The Prisoner of Shark Island overlooks these details. What it does not do is overlook the complete disregard for due process. Booth, his confederates in the assassination plot against top government officials, and those like Mudd who got drawn into the orbit of Booth were tried by drumhead military tribunals as is shown. It's also to be remembered that we were five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Other armies like Joe Johnston's, Richard Taylor's were still in the field. Confederate elected officials like Jefferson Davis were also at large. It was by no means an easy time for the justice system. Abraham Lincoln himself had suspended habeas corpus during the war and Dr. Mudd got caught in that order.Warner Baxter and Gloria Stuart make a fine Dr. and Mrs. Mudd. Baxter articulates well the man caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Also note some fine performances that John Ford elicited from Claude Gillingwater as Baxter's unreconstructed rebel father-in-law, Harry Carey, Sr. as the prison commandant, and John Carradine as the stockade sergeant who has a burning hatred for Mudd the man accused of complicity in Lincoln's death. Such was the public opinion of most in the north.The Prisoner of Shark Island also graphically illustrates Mudd's heroism in fighting the yellow fever epidemic in the Dry Tortugas prison. That part is completely factual and did win him a pardon in 1869 from outgoing President Andrew Johnson. That by the way is no accident. Johnson by that time had broken with the Radical Republicans and had escaped removal from office via impeachment by one vote in the Senate. The power to pardon however remains the sole property of the president and I'm sure that was Johnson's way of thumbing his nose at incoming President Ulysses S. Grant. There was no love lost between those two. We've recently seen an example of the abuse of the pardoning power with Bill Clinton's last days in the White House and I'm sure Scooter Libby will get a similar pardon from George W. Bush as he leaves office.Dr. Mudd however really earned his and if you watch The Prisoner of Shark Island, I'm sure you'll agree.

manuel-pestalozzi This moving story does have some actuality. One of the interesting details is some legal argument about the place of residence of doctor Mudd. The lawyers argue that if he could be transported from Shark Island, the prison on Dry Tortugas, to a place where normal US legislation is applied, then a writ of habeas corpus could be served and he would go free. Therefore Mudd's supporters launch a failed rescue attempt to that effect. On Dry Tortugas, an island off the Floridy Keys, the prisoner has no chance to appeal for territorial reasons. In my understanding (I am no lawyer, however) this pretty much reflects the Guantanamo situation of today and one just hopes that no doctor Mudds are holed up there and that all open legal questions in that context can be resolved satisfactorily.I am always amazed how outspoken movies of the great Hollywood Studios could be on political issues or social or legal injustice. This movie is an important product of this tradition. The Prisoner of Shark Island is almost an Anti Yankee-movie. The soldiers are uncouth and brutal, the carpet baggers sleazy double talkers. The authorities panic after President Lincoln's assassination. Somebody, anybody has to hang for the crime. And fast. One of the memorable moments of the movie has one of the military judges in charge say something like „we owe it to the people", clearly meaning the enraged mob in the square below. Thinking of who else claimed to fulfill the wishes of „the people" around 1936 this could also be an appeal to legal authorities to serve the written law and not give in to those who shout the loudest.Director John Ford certainly knew how to stir up emotions, some of the pathos might be regarded as slightly overwrought by contemporary viewers. However, The Prisoner of Shark Island certainly is one of the most beautiful and memorable movies of his.

FilmFlaneur Mmm… just saw this and noticed that there's an eerie correspondence between John Ford's slightly dated, but still superior, The Prisoner of Shark Island and some events today. Those unfortunates accused of Lincoln's murder are given a show trial (in which the judges are briefed to avoid such annoying legal niceties as considerations of guilt being 'beyond reasonable doubt'), as they shuffle, chained, hooded, and without rights, from hearing to internment and back again. Railroaded on the back of belligerent public opinion after an outrage that shocked a nation, guilty by association in the hasty eyes of the establishment, Dr Mudd is denied true process of law in the special military court hearings and ends banged up on the far edge of the States, just outside of the place where the presentation of a Habaeus Corpus would, we are told, ensure a fair reassessment of his case.. Ford couldn't have known of course, but as a study of a controversial case from the past his film is somewhat prescient of the Guantanomo Bay shame, a current and larger stain over the face of American justice