If one is not familiar with the story of Dr. Mudd, I’d recommend seeing The Prisoner of Shark Island but make sure to follow it up with some research afterwards.
The Prisoner of Shark Island, despite its sensational title, tells the story of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd (Warner Baxter), the doctor who helped John Wilkes Booth (Frances McDonald) by setting his broken leg mere hours after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. The film opens as the Civil War ends. Booth guns down Lincoln at Ford’s Theater and breaks his leg jumping from Lincoln’s box seat above the stage. Booth escapes Washington D.C. and chances upon Dr. Mudd’s home as he tries to make it to Virginia.
Seeing his leg, Mudd urges Booth to spend the night and rest — unaware that he is speaking to Lincoln’s assassin. Booth lies and tells Mudd that, despite his injury, he must continue traveling to see his dying mother in Virginia. Mudd sets his leg, for which he asks payment of two dollars. Booth pays him $50 and quickly leaves. Mudd and his wife, Peggy (Gloria Stuart,) smile at their good fortune.
The next day, Mudd gets arrested for aiding Booth’s escape. After a hasty trial, Mudd narrowly escapes being hanged. He is sentenced to life imprisonment at Fort Jefferson on the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico. It would be a short movie if that was the end of Mudd’s story and it’s not. Mudd endures mistreatment at the hands of the sadistic Sargent Rankin (John Carradine.) Meanwhile, Peggy arranges a daring plan for her husband to escape to Key West. She is advised that he would be able to get a fair trial if he can make it.
Director John Ford (Stagecoach) and screenwriter Nunnally Johnson (The Dirty Dozen) take sizable liberties with the facts in this biographical drama. From the perspective of a moviegoer, the changes make for a much more exciting story. While interesting, the true story is not quite as gripping as the film.
The biggest problem with The Prisoner of Shark Island is its use of racial stereotypes and pro-slavery undertones. They take the sheen off what would otherwise be an easy film to recommend. For example, the audience is expected to believe that Mudd’s former slave, Buck (Ernest Whitman,) would be so committed to his owner that he would volunteer to serve in the Army in order to help Mudd escape. In another scene, Mudd’s Confederate father-in-law, Colonel Dyer (Claude Gillingwater,) unnecessarily gives a states’ rights lecture to his young granddaughter at the breakfast table. I completely understand that Mudd and his family were pro-South and pro-slavery, but the script casts most Northern characters in a negative light. The black soldiers at Fort Jefferson are portrayed as buffoons easily swayed by the words of a Southern man.
Despite its flaws, the film is worth seeing on a technical level. Baxter and Carradine give outstanding performances and the Dry Tortugas prison set is impressive. Bert Glennon, the director of photography, makes excellent use of shadow and light in the prison scenes, especially during the escape sequence.
If one is not familiar with the story of Dr. Mudd, I’d recommend seeing The Prisoner of Shark Island but make sure to follow it up with some research afterwards. You’ll be surprised how much was changed for the movie.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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