The Prisoner of Shark Island

The Prisoner of Shark Island

Infobox Film
name = The Prisoner of Shark Island


image_size =
caption =
director = John Ford
producer = Nunnally Johnson
Darryl F. Zanuck
writer = Nunnally Johnson
starring = Warner Baxter
Gloria Stuart
Frank McGlynn
Francis McDonald
music = R.H. Bassett
Hugo Friedhofer
cinematography = Bert Glennon
editing = Jack Murray
distributor = Twentieth Century Fox
released = August 5, 1936
runtime =
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:106712
imdb_id = 0028141

"The Prisoner of Shark Island" is a 1936 film, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, directed by John Ford, and starring Warner Baxter and Gloria Stuart.

Plot

A few short hours after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr.), Dr. Samuel Mudd (Baxter) gives treatment to a man with a broken leg who shows up at his door. Mudd does not know that the president has been assassinated and the man who he is treating is John Wilkes Booth (Francis McDonald). Mudd is arrested for being an accessory in the assassination and is sent to prison on the Dry Tortugas in the West Indies, referred to in the film as "America's own Devil's Island".

After a period of ill treatment due to his notoriety, his skills as a doctor are requested by the Commandant of the prison. The island has been in the grip of a yellow fever epidemic and the official prison doctor has fallen ill. Dr. Mudd takes charge with the blessing of the Commandant and the cooperation of the soldier guards, and the yellow jack epidemic subsides.

In the end he receives a pardon and is allowed to return home.

Cast

* Warner Baxter - Dr. Samuel Alexander Mudd
* Gloria Stuart - Mrs. Peggy Mudd
* Claude Gillingwater - Col. Jeremiah Milford Dyer
* Arthur Byron - Mr. Erickson
* O. P. Heggie - Dr. MacIntyre
* Harry Carey - Commandant of Fort Jefferson
* Francis Ford - Cpl. O'Toole
* John McGuire - Lt. Lovett
* Francis McDonald - John Wilkes Booth
* Douglas Wood - Gen. Ewing
* John Carradine - Sgt. Rankin
* Joyce Kay - Martha Mudd
* Fred Kohler Jr. - Sgt. Cooper
* Ernest Whitman - 'Buck' Milford
* Paul Fix - David Herold

Historical accuracy

The film portrays Dr. Mudd as an entirely innocent victim and scapegoat, while the actual historical details of the case and his ties to Booth cast a shadow on his true innocence.

The historically accurate parts of the movie are (1) that President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, (2) by John Wilkes Booth who sought help for a broken leg from Dr. Samuel Mudd, (3) who was subsequently tried before a military commission, found guilty of aiding Booth, and sent to an island military prison, and (4) was a hero in treating those felled in a yellow fever epidemic.

Other than this, the movie is historically inaccurate from beginning to end. Dr. Mudd's wife was named Sarah Frances, not Peggy. They had four children at the time, none of whom resembled in any way the one cute little daughter in the movie. Mrs. Mudd's father was dead, not alive and kicking as in the movie. None of the trial testimony is accurately portrayed. There is no Shark Island. Dr. Mudd was imprisoned at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas islands, Florida. One of Dr. Mudd's slaves did not follow him to prison, and try to help him escape from there. Dr. Mudd's wife and her father did not command a boat in an attempt to rescue Dr. Mudd from prison. Dr. Mudd did not engage in a running gun battle while trying to escape to his wife's fictional boat. He did try to escape a couple of months after arriving at Fort Jefferson by hiding aboard a visiting ship, but he was quickly discovered and returned to the fort. He was not placed in an underground pit as punishment for trying to escape. His punishment for trying to escape was 3 months in a large empty ground level gun room with four other prisoners. The men were allowed out of the gun room every day to work around the fort, etc.

Adaptations

*The film inspired a radio adaptation on the "Encore Radio Theater" in 1946.
*The film also inspired the western film, "Hellgate" (1952).
*A television adaptation "The Ordeal of Dr. Mudd" was released in 1980.

ee also

* Harry Carey filmography

External links

* [http://www.samuelmudd.com samuelmudd.com]
*imdb title|0028141


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