The Jericho Mile
contains a straightforward story about a complicated man. This makes it one of the most difficult films
to make. To be successful, it requires
realistic dialogue, good characterization, a grim and tough setting, and solid
acting. And as the makers of this movie
went to the trouble to achieve these things, the final result is an honest film.
Larry Murphy (Peter Strauss) is serving a life sentence in
Folsom Prison for the murder of his father.
The way Murphy tells it, he killed him because he raped Murphy’s
sister. Murphy wants to now bide his
time in prison not bothered by staff or the other prisoners. Murphy only has one friend in prison – a
young black husband and father by the name of Stiles (Richard Lawson). He spends his time running around the prison
yard trying to rid himself of his demons.
This earns him the nickname “Lickety Split.” As it turns out, the pace he’s running during
his very short workouts in the prison yard put him in the class of Olympic
runner.
A Dr. Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis), who would like to reach and
help Murphy, discovers Murphy’s ability as a long-distance runner. He arranges for a trainer to coach Murphy on
his running in hopes that Murphy will obtain an Olympic bid. Murphy only reluctantly agrees to
cooperate. To him, it means dwelling on
the possibility of achieving travel in the outside world and possible freedom –
a freedom he knows to be a pipedream.
Stiles, honest to a fault, is unwittingly drawn into a
drug-trafficking scheme by the prison drug king, Dr. D (Brian Dennehy). Because Stiles thought he was going to meet
his wife and child rather than one of Dr. D’s drug mules, he refuses to
cooperate with the drug mule and ends up getting her busted. Ultimately, this leads to Stiles’ murder at
the behest of Dr. D.
As Dr. D tries to pin the blame for the murder on Murphy,
neither black nor white prisoners will cooperate with prison authorities to
complete a track that would allow Murphy to train and try out for the
Olympics. Eventually, the black
prisoners figure out what is going on, that Murphy was Stiles’ friend, and they
help complete the track.
Unfortunately, Olympic officials do not want a felon running
on the Olympic team. They devise a
scheme that will keep him away. Murphy
than runs his own trial solo with no one to observe but the other prisoners,
and it turns out that Murphy ran a faster time than any of the American
athletes that do qualify for the Olympics.
Perhaps because The
Jericho Mile was a television feature, maybe I’m the only one who remembers
it. Based upon a story by Patrick Nolan,
Nolan also took on the role of co-directing the film with Michael Mann. At 97-minutes in length, a tough storyline,
an excellent cast, and the recipient of several Emmy Awards, the film deserves
greater attention. Too bad so few people
will ever take the time to watch it.
The Jericho Mile
is not a movie that follows a tried and tested formula like most of today’s
blockbusters. Whatever you say about
Hollywood, its studios know how to bring in money. They do it by spending money on special
effects and advertising and have no interest in making a decent film that will fail
to draw an audience. And that’s the
issue with The Jericho Mile. The only way viewers knew about it was through
perusing the TV guide.
Some of today’s movies often have budgets well over $100
million. But I suspect it’s difficult to
create a film containing character development when spending that sort of
money. Directors and producers are more
concerned with showing off the special effects at that point. Otherwise, why spend $100 million?
This made-for-television film, on the other hand, probably
had little budget. Even in today’s
dollars, The Jericho Mile might have
a budget that is about one percent of the size of today’s typical movie. But whatever its spending limitations, The Jericho Movie is a quality movie. Thankfully, it is not typical in any way. Filmed inside Folsom Prison, the atmosphere
in the movie is real. So is the emotion.
July 27, 2019
© Robert S. Miller 2019
