Birdman of Alcatraz (film)
- Burt Lancaster: Robert Stroud
- Karl Malden: Harvey Shoemaker
- Thelma Ritter: Elizabeth Stroud
- Neville Brand: Bull Ransom
- Betty Field: Stella Johnson
- Telly Savalas: Feto Gomez
- Edmond O'Brien: Tom Gaddis
- Hugh Marlowe: Roy Comstock
- Whit Bissell: Dr. Ellis
The Prisoner of Alcatraz is an American feature film about the life of Robert Stroud criminal violence, which is during his more than fifty years of imprisonment in the penal institutions of Leavenworth and Alcatraz recognized for birders. John Frankenheimer filmed Thomas E. Gaddis ' novel Behold the birds of the sky. The Prisoner of Alcatraz ( Birdman of Alcatraz ) in 1962.
Action
The murderer Robert Stroud comes to the prison in Leavenworth, bringing there a guard to that harassed him. He should be hanged for it. However, his mother sticks up for him and can reach, that he may serve the remainder of his sentence in solitary confinement. Thus his social contacts are reduced to his keeper and his cellmates.
Stroud discovered one day in a prison yard a bird he aufpäppelt and eventually trained. The new warden allowed the captives aviculture. Stroud has thus a new meaning to life and also invents a cure for a fever, to which the animals often fall ill and die. About this means he made the acquaintance of the widow Stella, whose purpose in life is aviculture since the death of their spouses. Finally, he married Stella in his prison. Stroud's mother dislikes this connection, because she wants her son all to herself. It broke with the mother, resulting in a further bitterness Stroud result.
According to a new regulation from the Federal Office for the prison warden must then also the bird breeding ban. Stroud is literally taken everything and even his pardon remains off. Instead, he was transferred to Alcatraz, where his hateful enemy is now the new director. Stroud writes a book about the prison system, which denounces the harsh conditions. He has changed a lot after the long years imprisonment in his being for the better.
Reviews
" In sober reportage style scale movie, which offers despite several hardships with a profoundly humane and life-affirming message. Convincing and intensive: Burt Lancaster in the title role of " lexicon of international film " (CD -ROM edition ), Systhema, Munich 1996..