Posted: 08/07/2001

Birdman of Alcatraz

(1962)

by Chris Wright

Classic cinema and a tale of triumph for freedom of the spirit.

I have a friend who says he has a playful side and a serious side. Shot in claustrophobic black and white, Birdman of Alcatraz is definitely on the serious side of things. Not much in the way of comic relief for two and a half hours, but your time is well spent with this tense and compelling prison drama.

Birdman Of Alcatraz is the inspiring true story of convicted murderer Robert Stroud who used his 43 years in solitary confinement to become the world’s foremost authority on bird diseases. As the movie opens, Burt Lancaster’s Stroud is a snarling, menacing presence at Leavenworth around the time of the First World War with a chip on his shoulder the size of Texas. In a key scene, he kills a prison guard who reported him for an earlier incident which led to the cancellation of a visit from his mother.

He is initially sentenced to death but his mother saves his neck by campaigning in Washington for President Woodrow Wilson to intervene. Instead of twisting in the wind, Stroud suffers a cruel twist of fate—the Attorney General of the United States interprets the presidential order to mean the reimposition of the original sentence: “solitary confinement until hanged by the neck.” No hanging, thus no lounging about with the other prisoners, the A.G. figures. You kill a prison guard, the system strikes back. Like something out of the pages of Les Miserables, the warden (Karl Malden) becomes Stroud’s lifelong nemesis who just won’t let go of vengefulness. He tells Stroud, “If I can find a way to punish you further, I will.” Stroud replies, “A man isn’t broken until he quits.”

This leaves Stroud with seemingly nothing to do but pace his cell interminably and “count the hours, the days and the years.” Then one day, a baby bird drops into the exercise yard during a bad storm. Who knows what impulse causes Stroud to rescue the bird and carry it inside—sheer boredom? The tiny tender spot holding the love for his mother? Stroud catches bugs for the bird, teaches it to fly and even to do tricks for the new warden. In the meantime, the old warden (Malden) goes to Washington to the new Bureau of Federal Prisons, a development which is to continue to have momentous consequences for Stroud later on.

Other inmates in solitary get birds of which they tire and give to Stroud. And thus begins the complete transformation of Stroud’s personality as he cares for what is now a cell full of birds and as he witnesses extraordinary events like the birth of new chicks.

One day, the birds get sick and start to die. Stroud sets out to devise a cure, reading everything he can on the subject and experimenting with chemicals his mothers sends. He publishes articles about his cures in bird magazines, but readers don’t realize he’s in prison. He gets a visit from a female fan and they launch a business together selling his cures to the public.

Things are looking up when the Bureau of Prisons, undoubtedly prompted by the Malden character, issues new directives—no pets and no commercial enterprises. The story goes on from there with quite a few more twists and turns including a marriage and a betrayal before it’s all over.

Despite the grimness, the essential message is one of hope that will resonate with anyone who has ever gotten in trouble or done something they regretted. It shows that, no matter how far down you go, there’s still a way back, still a way to rise above your circumstances and make something of yourself. An aging Stroud tells a young inmate, “you’re just a kid, you got your whole future ahead of you, how dare you lie there and talk about dying at your age.” Stroud found that life has endless possibilities, that “life is a precious gift,” and that, no matter your outward circumstances, it’s still possible to “soar like a bird.” The movie shows that arrogance and defiance are indications of a strong will that can accomplish great things when channeled constructively.

Stroud apparently killed two men in prison, not one.

Burt Lancaster (1913-94), a self-taught actor portraying a self-taught bird expert in this film, played in nearly a hundred other films including Field of Dreams and Seven Days in May. Director John Frankenheimer, whose other credits include the The Manchurian Candidate, another 1962 film exploring the dark side, is still producing. Birdman also stars Telly Savalas.

Birdman of Alcatraz can be mined for still more lessons pertaining to penology, theaging processand people who only like you when you’re down and want to help you for their own selfish reasons. If you don’t have a serious side, the eminently watchable Birdman is agood place to start acquiring one.

Chris Wright is a freelance writer and composer in the Washington, D.C. area. Email Chris at cwdirect@wizard.net.

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