THERE WAS A CROOKED MAN

US, 1971, 26 minutes, Colour.
Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith, John Randolph, Lee Grant, Arthur O’ Connell, Martin Gabel, Alan Hale Jr, Claudia McNeill?.
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

There Was A Crooked Man is a fable about greed. Kirk Douglas portrays an outlaw from the west who is imprisoned for ten years. Henry Fonda plays the rather straitlaced warden. However, Douglas intends to escape because he has half a million dollars stashed away and encourages the collaboration of characters like Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates and Burgess Meredith to help him escape.

The film is a fable about the confrontation between good and evil. There is a witty script and good direction from Joseph L. Mankiewicz. The screenplay was written by David Newman and Robert Benton who collaborated on the screenplay for Superman the Movie. Benton was to go on to an Oscar-winning career with such films as Kramer vs Kramer, for which he won an Oscar for best director, Still of the Night, Places in the Heart, Billy Bathgate, Nobody’s Fool, Twilight and The Human Stain.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz was a Hollywood writer from the 1940s who achieved great success and reputation for his work on A Letter to Three Wives as well as the Oscar-winning All About Eve. He also directed Julius Caesar, Guys and Dolls and Suddenly Last Summer. He spent the first part of the 1960s on the ill-fated Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. He later made The Honey Pot and There Was a Crooked Man.

Kirk Douglas had been in films for many decades by There Was a Crooked Man as had Henry Fonda. They had become icons of Hollywood films and the Hollywood west. The supporting cast is a vintage group of character actors.

1. The meaning of the title? Its reference to Paris, to Lopeman? To the ending of the film? The indication of themes of human nature? The irony of the title?

2. The use of colour, Panavision? The background music? The opening song and its irony? Its reference to the characters?

3. How realistic a picture of the west? The use of western conventions of robbery, prison, escape, chase? How were these conventions upset? Audience expectations about character? Comment on the film as a prison film, with prison conventions about interactions, wardens and punishment, escape?

4. How humorous was the film? The strengths and quality of the dialogue? The quips and the irony?

5. The film as a western comedy of manners? The detail of presentation of the manners of people in the west? The morals that corresponded with the manners? Or not? The characters representing types? 'Humours'? How moralizing was the amoral look of the film?

6. What was the main purpose for making the film? Entertainment? Moralizing Instruction? Which aspects predominated? Comedy or serious?

7. The impact of the opening robbery, its style, the humorous comments, the characters of the villains, the character of the family, the detail, the maid smiling as she went in with the meal? Audience ambiguous response to this robbery?

8. The robbery turning nasty as Pitman killed his henchman? The change in audience response?

9. Pitman's escape and enjoying himself in the brothel? The irony of the robbed man as a 'Peeping Tom' leading to Paris's arrest?

10. Why did the film spend so much time on the comic details of the arrest of each character? The detailed presentation of each character and his crime? Indicating his guilt and justice? What did it indicate about Lopeman and his attitude towards justice? Comment on each of the arrests in its serious and comic tones.

11. The film's focus of attention on Paris? His ingratiating manner? His cool and calculating evil? Comment on the pleasantness of his manner and the impression that it made, even on the audience. And yet his role as a robber, a killer, a betrayer? The irony of his hiding the money with the snakes? The anticipation of the ending? How ironic that he should be caught and imprisoned?

12. How well did the film communicate the atmosphere of the prison? Its look, the tyrannical style, the work that the men had to do, the pressures, the bullying? Did this change audience response to the prisoners?

13. The crookedness of the warden, his involvement in the plan, putting Paris in solitary? The comment on legal justice and corruption?

14. The film spent a lot of time on each prisoner. How well was this done? The relationship between Cyrus and Dudley? Their religious confidence tricksterism? Their bickering with each other? The hold that Paris had over them? Moon and his gunning down of Lopeman? His loyalty to Paris? Lopeman's inability to corrupt him? The irony of the Missouri Kid, as being old, living on his legends, being in prison for so long, The irony of the west in his character? Coy, the young man and victim? The irony of his crime? His loyalty to Paris? Ah Fing and his silent loyalty?

15. The revolution in the prison and the death of the warden? How understandable? The irony of Paris's watching it from solitary? Especially the death of the warden?

16. Audience response to the re-entry of Lopeman as the Prison Governor? Having known him in the past? His aims and goals? His success in making the prison a model one? His motivation for this? His trying to get control of Parts? Using Moon etc.?

17. How did Paris keep his hold over the other prisoners? How did he exercise his control? Their involvement in his plan?

18. The importance of Paris's saving Lopeman's life when threatened by Ah Fong? The bond between the two men? Paris's hold over Lopeman? The bath sequence? The mutual outwitting of each other with the guns? Lopeman and his response to Paris's plans? The irony of Cyrus pretending?

19. The comedy involved in the dedication of the prison? The important visitors? The meal? The poetry recital? The humour about prisons, justice, manners?

20. The staging of the riot? Its timing, the preparations? All of Paris's friends involved? The effect on Lopeman and the shattering of his dreams? How seriously did it disillusion him?

21. The importance of Paris's escape? The cruelty of his killing all his associates? Cyrus and Dudley returning to prison? Audience feeling for the death of the men, especially Cavendish and Moon?

22. The scene with Mrs Bullard? As a lull in the proceedings? A preparation for the ending? The comedy and irony? Lopeman's pursuit?

23. Was it inevitable that Paris should die, bitten by the snake? The moral of the story? All the preparation for nothing? Crookedness and futility?

24. The irony of Lopeman taking the body back? Heading for Mexico? What motivated him?

25. How well did the film explore the themes of law, justice, morality, human nature?

26. Is this the proper function of westerns?