How sad is this?

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The Prisoner of Shark Island is directed by John Ford and written by Nunnally Johnson. It stars Warner Baxter, Gloria Stuart, Harry Carey, John Carradine, Ernest Whitman, Francis McDonald, Joyce Kay, Claude Gillingwater and Frank McGlynn. Music is by R.H. Bassett and Hugo Friedhofer and cinematography by Bert Glennon. After setting the broken leg of John Wilkes Booth (McDonald), Dr. Samuel A. Mudd (Baxter) is tried as a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln (McGlynn). Sentenced to life imprisonment at the military prison of Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, Mudd desperately tries to stay sane and fight a vicious regime in the hope of one day proving the unjust nature of his sentence. A personal favourite of Ford's, it's not hard to see why given that The Prisoner of Shark Island is supreme film making. Based on the true story of Samuel Mudd, there is perhaps unsurprisingly some little fudging of the facts, but this in no way detracts from the truthful basis of this incredible human interest story. Time is afforded to the joy at the end of the Civil War, Lincoln's weariness (McGlynn classy as usual), the assassination on that desperate day April 14th 1865, Mudd's family life and moral fibre and then the night he abided by his Hippocratic Oath and administered medical aid to the man who had just murdered the president. These are all delicately handled scenes by Ford, who aided by Johnson's screenplay manages to hit home to us the fragile nature of the Mudd incident that is harnessed by a country grieving with anger. Once the trial arrives, the film shifts to another level, the delicacy of Ford's framing of characters and Johnson's rich dialogue passages are replaced by striking imagery and an impassioned performance by the wonderful Baxter. The hooded prisoners on trial for their lives and the wooden gallows outside the court chill the blood, then Baxter delivers his heart tugging three pronged defence monologue that is as good a piece of acting as was given in the 30s. Sentenced passed, execution off camera strikes a chord and then Mudd sits alone and forlorn in a darkened cell, filtered light shards imprison Mudd and let us know that Glennon has arrived to takes us up yet another notch. What then unfolds is a superb depiction of the horrors of prison life, Fort Jefferson is a dank and desperate place, a place of misery for the prisoners, especially for Mudd, who has the patriotic but sadistic Sergeant Rankin (Carradine brilliant) after his blood. Ford is alive to the benefits of Carradine's nasty performance, so has him lighted as malevolent and angled like a horror movie protagonist. Some of the shots during the prison sequences are clinical on impact value, such as Mudd on his cell window sill or one capture as he stares down through a floor grate, shadows and light showing Glennon at his best and giving us a shot fit to grace the best film noirs of the 40s. The rest is history as written, the desperation of an escape attempt, the yellow fever outbreak and his eventual pardon by President Andrew Johnson (this would be 1869 in reality). Nicely packaged by Ford who closes the picture down by having Mudd and Buck (Whitman an impressive presence throughout the picture), his one time black slave and loyal friend, return home to their families, harmony restored after such hardships. There is inevitably some annoyance by critics and film fans alike that the black characters are racial stereotypes, but this is a 1936 film depicting a story unfolding in 1865/67, Ford and Johnson's work here is representative of its times. And in no way, to my film loving mind, hurts this picture in any way. Classic cinema in its purest form from the writing table to finished product, it's highly recommended viewing. 9.5/10

Not among Ford's best films, unfortunately. Warner Baxter is excellent as Dr. Samuel Mudd, the doctor who set John Wilkes Booth's leg after he broke it jumping from the balcony in which he shot Abraham Lincoln. Like most Hollywood films, it completely ignores history. It's not generally believed that Mudd was a conspirator against Lincoln, but the truth was a lot murkier than this film presents. The beginning of the film is pretty good, with the assassination and Mudd's arrest and trial. Strangely enough, I thought it got much less interesting when it moved to the titular island, Dry Tortuga in the Florida Keys. I don't exactly know why, but I lost interest during the latter half of the movie, despite the wonderful presence of John Carradine at his hammiest. Love that guy. The bug-eyed Negro characters are pretty annoying in this one, although I thought the character of Buck, a former slave of Mudd's who aids him in prison, was one of the more positive characters of that type I've seen. Not that the depiction isn't fairly racist, but at least he's kind of a hero.

This film, coming out at a time when the nation as a whole and Hollywood in particular tended to be sympathetic toward the South, presents a one-sided account of the events surrounding the Lincoln assassination of 1865. This was due to some extend by the visual impressions created by D. W. Griffith of Kentucky, especially his seminal "The Birth of a Nation" which made heroes out of the clandestine hate organization, the KKK. From a political standpoint, the South had become important as a result of many powerful congressmen and senators being from that region which by now had become the stronghold of the Democratic Party, "The Solid South." Pecuniary matters are usually the deciding factor for Hollywood, and there existed a large ticket-buying public in that part of our nation. The Civil War became The War Between the States or the War of Northern Aggression. The volatile issue of slavery was replaced with the states rights rationalization, forgetting that South Carolina and the other ten Confederate slave states withdrew from the Union so their right to own chattel would not be bothered. The right to own slaves became one of the main planks in the Confederate Constitution."The Prisoner of Shark Island" presents the Southern view of history. It also conveniently omits the incriminating evidence against Dr. Mudd, that he knew Booth well. In fact, he was the one who had introduced Booth to a leading conspirator, John Surratt. After setting Booth's leg, Booth did not leave the Mudd house but stayed the night and was ably assisted by Dr. Mudd. Evidence indicates that Mudd knew much more than he ever admitted about Booth and the assassination conspiracy. The murder of Lincoln occurred in the federal district of Washington, D.C., not in a state, hence the reason for the military tribunal. Needless to say, the conduct of the trial would have been much different had it been a civilian rather than a military one. The fact that the one who pulled the trigger, Booth, was killed before coming to trial also muddied the water.The part of "The Prisoner of Shark Island" that sticks with history best is Dr. Mudd's heroic efforts to combat disease at the prison. This justifiably led to his pardon by President Andrew Johnson.The acting, direction, and cinematography are first rate. Written by a Southerner, Nunnally Johnson, the historical facts are a bit skewed but otherwise the script is a good one. If the viewer keeps an open mind, this is a very entertaining picture.

**SPOILERS** A bit inaccurate version of the life of Dr. Samuel Mudd in regards to his knowledge of President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilks Booth. It's been brought out that Dr. Mudd did know Booth before he treated his injured leg after he escaped from the Union troops, during the confusion at the Ford Theater. After he shot and killed Pres. Lincoln on the evening of April 14, 1865.Booth did know and met with Dr. Mudd three different times during social occasions on Nov. 13 Dec. 18 & 23 of 1864 so it wasn't ,like the movie made it out to be, that Dr. Mudd met Booth only after he's escape from the Union Army after shooting Pres. Lincoln. Besides that inaccuracy the rest of the film "The Prisoner of Shark Island" honestly tells the story of the tragic saga behind Dr. Mudd's incarceration in the yellow fever and mosquito infested island prison Fort Jefferson or as it's also known as the notorious Shark Island.Taking in an injured John Wilks Booth and his fellow conspirators David Herold Dr. Mudd treats his broken leg and before you know it the two take off and travel south towards Virgina. Booth's Gunned down a few days later and anyone who had anything to do with him was quickly arrested and sentenced to be hung by a military court with the exception of Dr. Mudd. Dr. Mudd given a life sentence at the infamous Fort Jefferson of the Florida Keys where he's treated worse then the worst criminals on the island for his involvement in the Lincoln assassination which he had nothing to do with.Being a man of medicine Dr. Mudd felt it was his duty as a doctor to treat Booth even though at the time he had no knowledge of his murder of the president. At Shark Island Mudd is treated as an outcast even among his fellow prisoners and after an aborted escape attempt Mudd is thrown into solitary confinement, or the hole, that almost cause him to lose his mind and go insane.After two years at Shark Island the prison population, as well as the military personnel guarding and controlling them, is hit by a plague of Yellow fever that cause the island to be quarantined. Both the inmates and guards are struck down by the hundreds and with no medical man wanting to go on the island to help it's left up to prison inmate Dr. Samuel Mudd to do the job. In the end Dr. Mudd not only saves over 1,000 lives,mostly prisoners regardless of what crimes that they committed, but after four years behind bars Dr. Mudd is given a full and complete pardon from the them President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, on March 8, 1869.Fine performance by Warren Baxter as Dr. Samuel Mudd. There's John Carridine as the vicious Sgt. Rakin who after treating Dr. Mudd with sadistic brutality he in the end repents from what he did to the good doctor after Dr. Mudd saved his life as well as over a thousand others on the mosquito infected isle from Yellow Fever. Dr. Mudd himself got infected by what he called the "Yellow-jacket" that almost ended up killing him as well.Dr. Mudd was a real man of medicine as well as man of kindness as he showed, like in the case of John Wilkes Booth, that he didn't care what a person did even though he had no idea of Booth's actions at the time. He not only treated him but helped anyone else, to the best of his ability, regardless of what they did like the many prisoners that he save from the jaws of death on "Shark Island".