Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #57237 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-03-20
• Rating: Universal, suitable for all
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

DVD Description
Based on the true-life case of the incarceration of Dr. Samuel Mudd (Oscar-winning Warner Baxter), The Prisoner of Shark Island is a fast-moving and gripping drama — rarely seen and remarkably timeless — following Mudd through a calamitous series of brutal encounters. Regarded as a personal favourite by the director, it was also the film he was said to be most happy with. Written by Nunnally Johnson (The Grapes of Wrath, Tobacco Road), The Prisoner of Shark Island dramatizes the fatal shooting of Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn, Sr.) and the subsequent visit by the assassin John Wilkes Booth (Francis McDonald) to Dr. Samuel Mudd's house to fix his broken leg. Unaware of Booth's treason, Mudd is later arrested — narrowly escaping execution after a one-sided military trial — and sentenced to a life of hard labour at Fort Jefferson in Dry Tortugas (an infamous prison in the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by shark-infested waters). Featuring a blistering, muscular performance by John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard, The Prisoner of Shark Island is a tautly scripted, vividly directed examination of Dr. Mudd's struggle to overcome inhuman justice. Nominated for Best Picture by the American National Board of Review, the film has been rarely screened over recent decades. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present The Prisoner of Shark Island for the first time on UK home video in the 70th-anniversary year of its original release.

Special Features
• Newly restored high definition transfer • Full-length audio commentary • New video interview with film critic David Ehrenstein • Promotional material gallery • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing • 24-page booklet — with writings by Lindsay Anderson, and others

Customer Reviews

Emotive Mid 30's Docu Drama Style Film
Shot by John Ford in an almost docudrama style, this film portrays the goings on when Abraham Lincoln was shot. Panic amongst the American people, folks locked up for no good reason at all, scapegoats found and executed, it all seems far too real for comfort in the current era. Warner Baxter plays the eponymous prisoner, Dr. Samuel Mudd, a man who inadvertently aids assassin John Wilkes Booth after Lincoln's shooting. The fact that he is a Southerner leads to an instant assumption of guilt, and here the story does go into predictable territory.
A prison island with a sadistic guard, outbreaks of illness with the only doctor locked up and reviled, stormy weather, the whole works are thrown on by Ford, no doubt stretching the truth where he can to make a good story. And why not.....
The cinematography is superb, captured by a superlative transfer, the acting (mostly) understated enough, and the film makes a terrific addition to Eureka's Masters Of Cinema series.
The DVD adds an incisive commentary, a rather stilted interview and a collection of promotional martial from the films original release. A 28 page book makes excellent reading, with essays and interviews and more stills of promotional posters and the like.