The alure of true crime eludes me. At the present time, it thrives in podcasts about serial killings solved and unsolved. In the first noir age, you had magazines like Detective and movies such as 1955’s Cell 2455, Death Row.
The picture is based on the memoir of Caryl Chessman, who was waiting on California’s death row at that time for an assorted of sordid crimes. Largely, this film will portray him as a gangster. Curiously, it will also change his name to Whit Whittier, a name which sounds like it could be in a nursery rhyme. In my head, I can hear it to the tune of “Red Rover”.
Whittier is played by William Campbell. We first see him in his cell and his voiceover includes the solidly noir line of “50 times I’ve seen that elevator take men on their last ride and I’m next.” In a conversation with warden Harvey Stephens, he muses, “What starts a man on the path to death row?” I thought we would next see Suge Knight and Dr. Dre decide to start the record label of that name but, alas, we don’t.
Instead, we begin the flashback that will occupy the vast majority of the runtime, starting with a young Whittier (R. Wright Campbell, the lead’s younger brother in real-life) at the zoo with his parents where he observes, “Everything dangerous has to be caged.” Seems that is a lesson he should have filed away as a reminder to not engage in any activities would put him on the path to death row.
Immediately after the zoo trip, a car crash paralyzes his mother from the waist down, when a merciful God would have paralyzed Campbell from the neck up. Maybe that is what happened, because his performance is rather stiff. The patriarch of the family becomes so depressed he tries to commit suicide via the gas oven, which had me wondering if anybody has ever looked into the poor influence Sylvia Plath might have had on people.
We quickly move on to the elder Campbell’s teenage years, with this admittedly solid line: “At what stage does a teenage boy turn into a delinquent? I guess you don’t suddenly turn. You curve in.” It begins with stealing milk from the dairy, and I’m going to blame the “Got Milk?” ad campaign for inspiring people to do such things. Intent on impressing Kathyn Grant’s bad girl, he steals a car. She encourages him to drive fast and recklessly. It is obvious she finds this stimulating. I wondered why these two couldn’t just have normal, healthy sex like teens have had since days immortal (which I accidentally typed initially as “days immoral”—hmm). Another driving sequence later will have Campbell fleeing police while at the wheel of a car in flames, a moment is the most exciting in the runtime.
Anywho, the plot goes on to hit the usual beats, almost like the advertisements on TV in the 70’s and 80’s for those K-Tel compilations which were filled with the latest hits. Akin to those, you get “joining a gang”, “petty theft”, “full-on heists”, “juvenile hall”, “prison”, “honor farm”, “robbing other gangs” and much, much more!
Where the movie makes an unexpected turn is when a serial rapist begins preying on couples parked at various lovers’ lanes. It is that for which he is finally sent to prison, despite his protests this is the one crime for which he is accused which he didn’t do. Even Marian Carr as the woman he’s been keeping in luxury suspects him, and his reaction is to slap her. Wow, that’s a brilliant comeback, given the accusations of brutalizing women.
I found this to be an odd picture, as it is about two-thirds gangster noir boilerplate until the change to the rape plotline shifts the tone to something darker and more unpleasant. And I say that even when our narrator’s previous activities were all appalling.
As for the look of the film, this is a largely a set-bound affair, with the lighting done with little style. Perhaps the best-shot moment is when we first see death row in a long pan across the cells, even if those cags are, frankly, unrealistic in appearance. The soundtrack in that camera move is nothing but narration and the occasional drum hit, which is effective at conveying the feeling of impending death.
The performances are unremarkable, though each is functional. One thing I found strange is Campbell’s line readings are often hilariously flat, especially in such moments where he tells Grant she has pretty legs, and his lack of enthusiasm is like he is reading the ingredients off a box of cereal. He’ll be better when the performance allows for more physicality. There is one moment where he is struggling against four cops, and I swear he is really fighting against them with all his might.
The dialogue is largely surprisingly sharp, but even that is odd, as that makes a story based on real life appear more artificial. Characters says things like: “I was married once. The trouble $2 can get you into…” Or there’s this exchange regarding prison: “Did you meet any dames in that country club? “ “Eh, they all had beards.” I guess being clever sets up at least one person for fate to pull the rug out from under them, with wanted criminal Paul Dubov telling Campbell, “I’ll be back in two shakes of a cocktail shaker.” He’ll return faster than that, as the police apprehend him immediately.
Despite the snappy banter, there isn’t much humor. Once again, that would be appropriate for a true-crime picture. One of the few moments intentionally going for a laugh is pairs of cops planted on various lovers lanes to catch the serial rapist, and at least one of those male officers is in drag: “Four nights in these clothes. I wish they’d picked you to wear this girdle.” I chuckled at this while also wondering why the department doesn’t have any female officers.
Typical of movies based on real-life people and events, it is all too easy to know how Cell 2455, Death Row will end. Chessman was a minor celebrity of sorts in his time, so audiences at the time of the picture’s initial release already knew whether he was still among the living. Today, a quick search reveals his fate. Aside from being a quick cash-in on the condemned’s fame resulting from his book, it is hard to say what the point of this merely serviceable noir might be.
Dir: Fred F. Sears
Starring William Campbell, R. Wright Campbell, Mirian Carr, Kathryn Grant
Watched as part of Powerhouse/Indicator UK (region B) box set Columbia Noir #1