Brilliant little prison film from the late 70’s. There’s so much great tension in this. The pacing is excellent and it has Clint Eastwood doing what he does best, glaring, looking cool, and spouting great one-liners.
I remember watching this as a friend and many of the scenes still stuck with me 20+ years later. It’s even better than I remembered it. I love all the eerie little music queues. They still work today at building tension and suspense.
Stephen King said that his Shawshank Redemption was a collection of all the prison movies he ever watched and you can definitely tell that Escape from Alcatraz was a big influence.
This script is so well done. Dialogue is really strong, the warden is a great bad guy, so many iconic scenes. The acting is superb throughout as well. One of the better prison films I’ve seen.