Murder in the First (film)
Murder in the First is a 1995 American legal drama film, directed by Marc Rocco, written by Dan Gordon, and starring Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman, Embeth Davidtz, Brad Dourif, William H. Macy, and R. Lee Ermey.Young is put on trial in San Francisco for first degree murder in what district attorney William McNeil and the public defender's office run by Mr. Henkin believe is an open-and-shut case.Glenn denied any mistreatment of Young claiming that he's not the villain here as Stamphill mentioned that anyone who went mad at Alcatraz was removed and never made it to the asylum.Stamphill's narration states that this would be the last time he saw Young alive as he would later be found dead in his cell where he had "victory" written on the walls and he did not die in vain.As Young is taken to "the hole", Stamphill's narration states that the Supreme Court agreed with the facts of the trial six month later which led to the dungeons of Alcatraz being closed forever.The men on the street were portrayed by Bill Barretta, Randy Dudly, William Hall, Sheldon Feldner, Fred Franklin, and Joseph Lucas.In reality the real Young remained on Alcatraz until 1948 before he was moved to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri where he stayed until 1954.Many of the ideas in the movie were taken directly from newspaper articles of the trials, including the ending scene where the jury only convicts Young of manslaughter, and requests that Alcatraz be investigated."[14] Though Bacon received praise for his performance,[15][16] critics negatively cited the film's handheld camera shots, scenes of brutality, and underdeveloped characters."[15] Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, and said Slater "is an actor with talent, but he is too young for this role, and not confident enough to dial [his performance] down a little".[19] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote, "when Henri’s moment in court finally arrives, Murder in the First denies us the one thing we most want to hear: an account of how his ordeal felt from the inside out.[18] Screenwriter Dan Gordon, who was unhappy with the film version of his script, wrote a novelization of his screenplay and later adapted it into a stage play.