Hollywood Stretches the Truth!

Murder in the First was aired on Friday, 2 August 2002 at 11.30 pm on Star Movies. Christian Slater looked cute without his glasses.
The story went thus:
A prisoner named Henry Young (Kevin Bacon) is jailed at Alcatraz Prison (in San Fransisco bay) for a petty crime. When he tries to escape, the warden punishes him by keeping him in solitary confinement for three years. When he comes out from the dingy cell, he kills a fellow inmate, Rufus McCain. And then begins a court trial, United States vs. Henry Young. Christian Slater (his lawyer) saves him from execution by proving that it was the solitary confinement that drove him crazy enough to kill someone. He finally gets manslaughter, imprisonment for only 3 years.

All this sounded so amazing. And I thought of how brutal the Americans were at the time. And how touching it all was….

Until I read up a few things on the Internet which left me absolutely confused.

Here goes:

Henry Young was not a petty criminal, who stole $ 5 to feed his starving sister. He was a bank robber who had assaulted a hostage on at least one occasion and committed murder in 1933--some 3 years before being locked up at Alcatraz.

It is true that Young tried to escape in 1939, but it is not true that he was kept in solitary confinement for 3 years. Instead, he was kept in a disciplinary segregation unit (a normal cell, and not a dungeon) for only a few months. The cell had plumbing, a light, a cot, and other appropriate cell furnishings.

He did murder a fellow inmate in December 1940, but more than a year after returning to the general cell.

The movie claims Young committed suicide in Alcatraz in 1942 (after being convicted for manslaughter) after scrawling VICTORY on the floor/wall of his cell. Again, not true. He remained at Alcatraz till 1948. After that, he was transferred to another prison, and then another, and was freed in 1972. His whereabouts are unknown today.

So there you are, the truth and the myths. What I thought was true (because it was a Hollywood movie), was actually an exaggeration by film-makers in order to make more money.

Can’t say Hollywood is much different from Bollywood in his aspect, heh?

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