The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains

The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains

VHS cover
Screenplay by Michael Campus
Directed by Daniel Mann
Starring Val Kilmer
Charles Durning
Sônia Braga
Kyra Sedgwick
James Keach
Elisha Cook, Jr.
Clancy Brown
Theme music composer Charles Bernstein
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Producer(s) Yoram Ben-Ami
Michael Campus
Cinematography Mikael Salomon
Editor(s) Diana Friedberg
Walter Hannemann
Noel Rogers
Running time 115 minutes
Distributor HBO Films
Release
Original network HBO
Original release
  • October 31, 1987 (1987-10-31)

The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains is a 1987 American drama film directed by Daniel Mann and written by Michael Campus. The film stars Val Kilmer, Charles Durning, Sônia Braga, Kyra Sedgwick, James Keach, Elisha Cook, Jr. and Clancy Brown. The film premiered on HBO on October 31, 1987.[1][2][3]

Plot

It is 1922. Robert Elliot Burns is having flashbacks of the horrors of the World War and is on the streets protesting for himself angry at his inability to find a job and society's apathy towards veterans. The next day, he is at his parents home and his brother Vincent, a minister, tries to console him. Elliot wants to go down to Florida to find work.

Elliot is heading to Florida by train and by the time he stops outside of Atlanta, he is now a penniless vagrant. He joins a group of vagrants around a campfire that intend to rob him, but another man saves him from it. He offers Burns to help make some money and rob a country store. He wants to back out, but the man holds him at gunpoint to rob the cash register, which contains only $5. After knocking Burns out with his weapon and running away, Burns is apprehended by local police. He is taken to court and his lawyer tells him he should plead guilty. The judge gives him a trumped up sentence of six to ten years on the county chain gang.

Burns is taken to the Fulton County chain gang to a foul camp of wooden shacks, stocks, sweatboxes, and pure filth. He has leg chains attached and meets the warden, Harold Hardy, a fat, angry, and spiteful man of Irish descent. Hardy tells him to feel guilty and get used to chain gang life to make it easier on himself. He has one of his guards, Mr. Trump, to escort Burns to his quarters. Burns is introduced to a foul shack of filthy, exhausted men and meets an elderly prisoner, Pappy Glue. He is introduced to an inedible meal of pig fat, bitter corn pone, and sorghum molasses and gags trying to eat it and gives his plate to a veteran prisoner enjoying and devouring it.

The next morning, the men are awakened at 5:00. Burns sleeps through the removal of the chains and is thrown on the floor by Trump. The men are taken to a quarry to dig rocks out with a pickaxe for 15 hours a day, with only a short lunch break of cowpeas and corn mush. A fellow prisoner, Seals, falls over from exhaustion. Trump kicks him in the face and Seals pleads for water and to not be hit.

That night after work, Seals is hung upside down and beaten five times with a leather strap by Trump and left there overnight. By dawn, he's died from the beatings and overwork and placed in a pine box

The men are now digging out dirt with a pickaxe and struggling to "keep the lick" towards the end of their shift. A black prisoner sings "There's Gold in the Ground" to help the men keep working.

That night, the men are having their chains checked and Warden Hardy wants to smell the men to make sure they put in a good days work. He taunts Burns, asking how much he likes the chain gang, and Burns smarts off to him about Southern hospitality. He is taken by Hardy and two guards and put into a sweatbox until the next night.

Burns is removed from the sweatbox and thrown onto the floor of the sleeping cabin. He declares to Pappy Glue he's leaving, and Pappy Glue tells him he needs to get used to the life on the chain gang unless he wants to end up dead.

Sometime later during lunch break of working on the railroad, Burns tries to talk Big Sam, a towering black prisoner, into bending his shackles with a sledgehammer so he can hang it on a limb. Sam does it with the guards backs turned and Burns is in extreme pain from it.

That night, the men return to camp and Burns has his chains checked by Trump, and they are checked out fine. Hardy is now asking Burns if he likes the chain gang, and Burns obediently answers yes. In his bunk, Burns removes the shackles and Pappy Glue gives him $5, wishing him luck.

The next day, Burns asks to "get out here", to relieve himself in the woods. While out, he removes his shackles, then makes a run for it. The guards and dogs run after him and he takes a boat in the swamp. Warden Hardy is furious, screaming out to Burns that he promises to find him.

Burns is at a train station in Marietta and just before boarding, he thinks the police are about to catch him. But instead they catch a vagrant. He boards the train and makes it across the Tennessee border.

A year later, Burns is now living in Chicago and rents a room from Emily Pacheco, a Portuguese divorcee. She is a very nice and courteous but overly possessive woman. He types a letter to his brother Vincent about his work status and trying to get authorities to convince them of his innocence. She tells Burns to stop writing and typing so much and they go to a movie together. She keeps trying to get Burns' interest, but he's not head over heels with her and just doesn't feel the chemistry, but nevertheless, they sleep together after he reveals to her about trying to start a magazine business and be a statesman. He moves forward with starting the business.

Burns receives a letter from his brother Vincent that their father is dying. He goes back to New Jersey to attend the funeral afterwards. His mother is very upset that he wasn't ever able to come back to visit. Burns arrives home and Emily is all over him begging him to marry her, but he wants alone time.

One day while cleaning Burns' room, Emily comes across some papers he's been typing and there are flashbacks to his time on the chain gang being put in a sweatbox and treated like an animal. Emily is disturbed at the writing. Burns makes it home that night after a very successful day of selling his first magazine subscription and she reveals the papers he's written. He's very distressed, but she consoles him and asks him to make love to her and blackmails him into marriage.

By 1929, Burns is making it big in Chicago as a magazine publisher and motivational speaker. He's working long hours and Emily is becoming increasingly possessive and jealous. He's now fallen in love with another woman named Lilian Salo, much to Emily's dismay. He wants an amicable divorce, but she is furious and refuses.

The next day at work, Burns is apprehended by police. Georgia authorities want Burns extradited back and leave it to Burns to decide to go back with the possibility of a pardon in 90 days, per visiting prison commissioner. And if he refuses, the authorities can extradite him back to Georgia with him serving the remainder of his sentence, plus additional time for escaping.

Burns is returned to the Fulton County camp with Warden Hardy greeting him. It turns out he was duped and will have to serve out his sentence. Hardy berates Burns for his success and tells the prisoners that they are not to ever talk to him, and if Burns runs away again for the guards to kill him.

A month later, Burns is out working and secretly asking prisoners of the whereabouts of Big Sam, the black prisoner, the helped him get away, and Pappy Glue. Big Sam clubbed a guard and escaped and Pappy Glue died from beatings soon after Burns escaped. Burns is angry and pauses for a few seconds and does not work, and Trump detects him not working for a few seconds.

That night at dinner, Hardy reads out a list of men not doing a hard days work and for them to get their whipping. Burns is included. Burns declares it's a lie, but none of the guards or Hardy defend him. He is tied to a tree and given ten lashes.

Some time later, Lillian comes to visit Burns assuring him of clemency, parole, or pardon. They embrace and the guards try to remove him, but he resists it and is placed in the stocks. Warden Hardy assures Burns he won't live to see himself get out despite people from up north trying to do so, and that the parole board turned him down.

Burns' brother comes to visit sometime later and tells him that his business is gone, but indirectly signals to him that there is money left from his business hidden inside a package of Lucky Strike cigarettes to help him get out. A guard detects Vincent giving Burns a package of cigarettes and wants to check it, but just takes a few of them for himself and gives Burns the package back. Later on, Burns finds over $100 in cash in it and feels it will be his ticket to freedom.

Burns is back working and Boss Trump has made him a trustee. He orders him to fill up the water pail while he goes in a country store to get a soda pop. While in the store, Burns talks to a local man that approaches him, telling he's had the short end of the stick on what has happened to him and that he would get him out if he could. Burns shows him a $50 bill and asks him to meet him the next day with his car, a hacksaw, and a change of clothes to get him out of state.

The next day, Burns is working diligently and the man shows up. He asks to "get out" to relieve himself, but the guard tells him to not go so far. He's running toward a car and the guard shoots at him for trying to escape. Warden Hardy is more furious than ever, telling the guards they will lose their jobs if they don't catch him.

Some time later, Burns is living anonymously typing a letter that he moves all over and can't keep jobs for long and a fugitive. He is writing a book about his time on the chain gang and it's horrific conditions.

Burns briefly visits his brother about his situation, then visits his former love Lilian, who is now married. He later goes to a local library to read his published book and hears on the radio that it will be made into a movie.

Burns anonymously attends a screening of the movie I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang and has flashbacks to his time there. He is satisfied to find there has been made of movie of what he has been through.

At the end of the movie, it is noted that Robert Elliot Burns finally received a pardon after many years of struggle in 1944 and that the Georgia chain gang system was abolished.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ "The-Man-Who-Broke-1-000-Chains - Trailer - Cast - Showtimes". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
  2. ↑ "Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, The (1987) - Overview". TCM.com. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
  3. ↑ "The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains - Movie Reviews and Movie Ratings". TVGuide.com. Retrieved 2016-01-27.
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