Way before Thief and Heat, Michael Mann’s career-long interest in criminals began with first feature, The Jericho Mile (1979), a television movie made for ABC. Based and shot on location in Folsom Prison, with real life inmates as extras, this is both a prison drama and a sports drama. Focusing on Murphy (a taut, muscular Peter Strauss), a lifer who prides himself on “doing his own time”, keeping mostly to himself, and finding purity in running everyday around the prison yard. However, his sense of isolation is tested by his only friend Stiles (Richard Lawson) whose dreams of seeing his wife and kid lead to getting involved in the deals between the segregated gangs that run things. Running alongside this in the story is the prison’s interest in Murphy’s running ability and the possibility of him being furloughed as a competitor in the upcoming Olympics. As with Mann’s later films, a big theme here is the tension of the individual trying to remain true to their values while facing off against interpersonal systems and politics. Though not without markers of its era and TV movie style, the film is a solid, often moving study of the inmate community and the hopelessness felt in prison life (gritty, though reined in by TV standards). Strauss is excellent in the lead, and there’s great support from Brian Dennehy (as the leader of the Arayan gang), playwright/poet Miguel Pinero (as the leader of the Chicanos), Geoffrey Lewis (as the prison counsellor), and Ed Lauter (as the track and field coach). An instrumental version of The Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy For The Devil’ is used throughout as score, and there’s a rugged gracefulness to the way the running is filmed. Quite an absorbing first step in Michael Mann’s epic career; the sense of atmosphere, research and setting is quite clear in the film. There’s a copy available to watch on YouTube if you search for it. Recommended.
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