Riot In Cell Block 11, a somewhat early directorial effort in Don Siegel's filmography, began life when the film's producer, Walter Wanger, went to prison for four months in 1951 for shooting Jennings Lang, a man that he believed was sleeping with his wife, the beautiful actress Joan Bennett. Wanger was distraught over the conditions that he witnessed firsthand during his incarceration and decided to bring attention to the issue by making a film inspired by his time locked away from society. He came to Don Siegel to direct, while Richard Collins handled writing duties on the project.

Shot on location in California's infamous Folsom Prison and using a whole lot of the actual inmate population as extras in the picture, the story begins with an introductory scene that tells us about the plague of prison riots erupting violently across the United States. The prisoners are unhappy with the conditions and treatment doled out by the state and they're angry enough to do something about it. From here, we voyage into Cell Block 11 where the situation is just starting to approach boiling point. When they don't improve, James Dunn (Neville Brand) and the other inmates trick a guard named Monroe (Paul Frees) and wind up snagging his keys. From here, they take out the other guards and quickly secure command of the block.

The warden, Reynolds (Emile Meyer), is sympathetic to the cause and believes that for the betterment of society the prison population deserves better than what they're getting. For this reason he agrees to read the list of demands to the media circus but the Governor and Commissioner Haskell (Frank Faylen) are less than sympathetic. They intend to crack down on the rioters and use this to send a message to other facilities where similar problems could easily come up. Things aren't exactly coming up roses inside Cell Block 11 though, because ‘Crazy' Mike Carnie (Leo Gordon) is just itching to lay some hurt into the captive guards. Dunn doesn't want to play things that way and he allies himself with The Colonel (Robert Osterloh) to hopefully keep Mike in check. A few of the other inmates want to just give this all up out of fear of retaliation and a power struggle amongst the men ensues while outside forces and the powers that be conspire to blow up the cell block altogether.

Fast paced, gritty and authentic this is a tense film that sometimes feels more like a documentary than a work of fiction. Shooting the picture inside Folsom Prison helps a lot with that as does the inclusion of so many actual prisoners, but on top of that we get a topical story that manages to deal with some important social issues without resorting to heavy preaching or ham-fisted melodrama. This is entertainment first and foremost, but in raising the issues that it does it makes for some solid food for thought. A lot of what gives this movie some appreciable depth stems from the way in which Warden Reynolds is portrayed. Where many prison films are content to simply paint the warden character as sadistic or unfeeling, Reynolds knows that if his inmates are mistreated on the inside they'll just bring the hatred, bitterness and resentment they feel with them upon their eventual release. As such, he sees the value of treating these men better not just from a bleeding heart humanitarian angle but from a socio-political angle as well. And indeed we can and do see the inmates' frustrations play out in front of us. Cell Block 11 is overcrowded, it's dirty and the guards often times take out their frustrations on the incarcerated men.

The acting here is strong. Meyer and Brand get most of the screen time as it's their negotiations that propel the plot along so effectively. You can sense the tension that exists between the two men thanks to the fine performances and so too can you sense a begrudging sort of respect just beneath the surface. This makes for interesting contrasts against the scenes of the actual rioting that take place, many of which are quite intense and absolutely give off the feeling of unpredictability and violence which helps to make for some pretty riveting viewing.

Video:

Riot In Cell Block 11 arrives on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed in its original 1.37.1 fullframe aspect ratio. In short, this is a top notch transfer. Though the film is fairly grainy, there's no actual print damage to report outside of a few really tiny specks here and there. Detail would seem to be as strong as the source material will allow. Although the camera moves around a lot and often fairly quickly at that, the picture still shows impressive detail and texture. Contrast looks good, whites never bloom too much, while black levels stay strong but not at the cost of shadow detail. There are no compression artifacts to note nor are there any obvious issues with either edge enhancement or noise reduction. All in all, this is crisp, clean and an authentic film-like presentation, the movie looks great.