Watch Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison For Free

I wanted to but couldn't!

Great Film overall

Good movie but grossly overrated

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

With the exception of Steve Cochran who did do some leads Inside The Walls Of Folsom Prison is a film Warner Brothers did with a whole lot of their supporting players. Both as convicts and guards they tell a gritty tale about Folsom Prison the place where all the really bad apples in the California Penal System go. Plus others when the system has no room elsewhere. Ted DeCorsia got the career role in this film as the sadistic warden who takes real pleasure in meting out punishment. He has it arranged so he's like Pavlov conducting experiments with rodents all to give him maximum jollies. Some of the cons are people like Cochran, Philip Carey, Paul Picerni, Michael Tolan and William Campbell. Carey's case is a particularly tragic one. He's due for parole and becomes enmeshed in some of the warden's games. Dorothy Hart has a tragic role herself as the expectant wife just waiting for her man to come home.David Brian plays a guard who is sent by the prison board to help bring about some changes. He does to a limited extent, but he's defeated with a combination of DeCorsia's game playing and the fact that he's dealing with some really desperate characters.Inside The Wall Of Folsom Prison is a gripping prison drama that does not let up in tension or drama. A great film about desperate men.

If you see the name Crane Wilbur in the credits, either as writer or director, especially if it is a crime picture, you can be sure that it will be above average. Wilbur used his skills as a veteran actor (going as far back as the silent Perils Of Pauline serial) as an author and later as a director to deepen the quality of the genre work he took on, often through research before shooting, so that the results had more unusual dialogue and a richness of realistic detail. Here he starts off what is basically a standard movie formula by having the prison itself, in this case Folsom, narrate the story! The plot pivots on the contrast between sadistic warden Ted De Corsia who wants to restrict the menu his inmates can eat ("Beans three times a day") and a well meaning new captain of the guard David Brian who believes in psychology and compares the De Corsia character to history's dictators (" You're as much a psychopathic case as any man in here") The treatment also benefits from use of the real Folsom location, touted in the opening (it would later be used again in such as Revolt In The Big House) some nice lensing (the scene where 5 convicts in a cell make plans, after the lights have been turned off early, their faces glimpsed in the dark) and effective musical underscoring by William Lava. If there is a big flaw in the film it's the decision to portray the brutal conditions as something way in the past- the turn of the century, in fact- and to assure the audience at the end with the return of narration that things have now improved, a somewhat false sweetness and light conclusion. If you want to learn more about Wilbur's fascinating career I recommend the biographical article by scholar Brent Walker in the Spring 2011 issue of the publication Noir City. Walker says that Inside The Walls Of Folsom Prison "may be Wilbur's signature work."

The narrator of this film is William T. Woodson. He's done a lot of narrating and voice-overs down through the years, particularly the miniseries THE WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE.Woodson narrated the opening credits of THE INVADERS ("David Vincent knows..."). He also narrates the opening credits for THE ODD COUPLE: "Can two divorced men share the same apartment without driving each other crazy?"He can also be seen in episodes of such varied television series as PERRY MASON, F TROOP, THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW as well as many others. According IMDb, his last known credit is for an episode of DUCKMAN in 1995.

Who narrates? A snippet of this film is played in "Walk The Line", and the snippet has turned me into a whirling dervish. The narrator voice I CANNOT get out of my head. I have been on the main message board already. Any help would be appreciated. The narrator sounds like the burning bush voice in The Ten Commandmants. I know it is supposed to be Heston as the God voice in the Ten Commandmants, but ......I am not sure. The two voices, narrator Inside Folsom Prison, burning bush Ten Commandmants sound the same to me and I Do not think it was Charlton Heston. I don't know how much can be done with sound manipulation in the 50's. Is anyone else hearing what I am hearing or am I just crazy? Please see main message board, Trivia for thread of answers. Thanks for any help.