JohnHowardReid Copyright 17 February 1940 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Globe: 3 March 1940. U.S. release: 15 July 1940. Australian release: 18 April 1940 (sic). 77 minutes. Censored to 58 minutes in Australia.U.K. and Australian release title: YEARS WITHOUT DAYS.SYNOPSIS: Mobster Tommy Gordon is not worried about being sentenced to Sing Sing because he believes his political pals will get him a fast parole. He tells his girlfriend, Kay, not to worry. He makes no effort to reform in prison, and after causing a near-riot is given three months in solitary confinement by Warden Long, a dedicated prison reformer. After the ninety days in solitary, Tommy concedes that his friends have deserted him, and he joins a group of convicts planning to escape. NOTES: A re-make of 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (1932). John Garfield was extremely popular in Australia when this film was released, but close to 20 minutes of censor cuts put paid to any hopes that Warner Bros entertained for big money at Oz ticket windows. Instead the movie had to be released at flat rates as a "B"-grade support. COMMENT: It's hard to believe that Anatole Litvak had anything to do with this limp re-make, let alone direct it. Great cast too. But despite forceful playing by the charismatic Garfield and personable Sheridan, the characters never really come across. As a result, the story has little impact. Weak support playing by Pat O'Brien (especially) and Jerome Cowan doesn't help. True, part of the problem lies in the script. O'Brien's role is not built up sufficiently to make him a sympathetic figure. He's always just a minor character. This lack of audience empathy with Warden Long robs the climax of much of its drama. Of the big support cast, only Burgess Meredith really makes an impression, though Guinn Williams has some effective moments. Technical credits are smooth, but undistinguished. Like the script, the film editing tends to be flaccid, with scenes held too long and then faded out in a somewhat old-fashioned way that militates against the realism so vital to this story. Production values do not impress half as much as Twenty Thousand Years

edwagreen John Garfield was at his best here in this 1940 prison drama. He is a cocky individual, too sure of himself due to political ties, who soon finds himself in prison for robbery.He thinks he can play the system but soon finds out otherwise by Warden Pat O'Brien. Garfield is tough, but also quite realistic.Burgess Meredith plays a college graduate also in prison who leads an ill-fated escape attempt which the Garfield character refuses to participate in due to his fear that bad things always befall him on Saturday.Ann Sheridan plays the faithful girlfriend, and pulls out all the stops in the death scene with Garfield.This film subtly is anti-death penalty. It brings out how a dimwitted person was executed for a police killing during the attempted breakout. It also showed how Garfield paid the ultimate price for a murder he didn't do. He just wouldn't be believed as circumstances warranted that.

Robert J. Maxwell A young John Garfield leaves his girl friend, Ann Sheridan, and is sent to Sing Sing, assured by his lawyer, Jerome Cowan, that he'll be gotten out shortly. Unfortunately, Jerome Cowan, whatever else he may be, is a lawyer and has his own agenda. The cocky Garfield makes light of his tribulations in the slams while Cowan pursues Sheridan.Garfield begins to get smart under the tutelage of the tough but fair warden, Pat O'Brien. (John Litel is the priest in this one.) He behaves himself. And when the warden receives a telegram informing Garfield that his girl may not live through the night, O'Brien gives him a brief parole to visit her.Things go wrong. While visiting Sheridan at the hospital, Garfield runs into Cowan, whose treachery is now revealed. Sheridan shoots and kills Cowan to save Garfield from being beaten to death. Garfield escapes and is blamed for the death. (I forget where that gun came from.) But he mans up and turns himself in anyway. He shouldn't have.It's an odd, play-like movie, with good performances, inexpensive sets, one location shot of the exterior of Grand Central Station in New York, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams doing his best to act, Sheridan looking good, and eliciting myriad unspoken questions about capital punishment. It's so terribly irreversible.But the climax is unusual. Here is Garfield, a protagonist, not a bad guy, loving and in his own way honorable, yet he marches off with a smile, a wisecrack, and a cigarette to the electric chair. I kept waiting for the last-minute phone call from the governor. But no. All that fades in after his retreating figure is "The End."

dougdoepke Cocky gangster (Garfield) goes to prison where he gradually reforms until given a break by the prison warden (O'Brien). Then problems ensue.Typically gritty Warner Bros. fare from the pre-war era. Garfield shows he's in the same gangster class as Cagney and Robinson. Watch him spit out dialog faster than a machine gun burst while doing a tough-guy routine. And who better to double-cross him than that slippery lounge lizard Jerome Cowan who could machine gun his own dialog as a reporter in dozens of period films.But the real scene stealer is scrawny, athletic Burgess Meredith, a brainy con who outwits the prison head-doctor (Grant Mitchell) in the movie's best scene. He may be the least-likely looking con I've seen; still, he and Garfield make a dynamic leadership team (as long as it's not Saturday!). On the other hand, goofy Big Boy Williams strikes me as a matter of taste.It's a compelling, if not original, plot that redeems Garfield without whitewashing him. Still, I'm not sure what his actual capital crime is when they lead him away, especially when the all-powerful Production Code insisted that justice be served on this side of the pearly gates. Nonetheless, his scenes with the warden (O'Brien) are nicely shaded gems of growing respect, while a lovely Sheridan is affecting as the luckless girlfriend. As this gutsy little programmer shows, star-studded MGM may have had the gloss, but plebeian Warner's had the grit.