YMMV / I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang

• Award Snub: This film, along with such other worthy contenders as 42nd Street and Lady for a Day, lost the Best Picture Academy Award to the now-mostly-forgotten Cavalcade.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Sebastian, the powerful black prisoner who never misses a hit with his sledgehammer, and takes part in helping Allen escape from prison the first time.
• Evil Is Cool: James Allen's official turn to darkness and being a fugitive is nothing short of gripping and captivating, considering all of the trauma he's had to go through to reach that point.
• Funny Moments: "What would I say to a hamburger? Boy, I'd take Mr. Hamburger by the hand and say, 'Pal, I haven't seen you for a long, long time.'"
• Memetic Mutation: Allen slowing backing away often shaking his head as a fugitive at the end of the movie.
• Moment of Awesome: Both of Allen's escapes, but the second one more.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Allen himself starts crying when he's told the '90 days and we'll let you go' was just a scam, and he'll have to spend 9 years there. He barely survived ONE.
  • The lengths Allen is willing to go to get free can count. The scene where he has another worker slam his sledgehammer on his ankle chains HARD so he can get them off is worth noting.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Helen's "I'm free, white and twenty-one." was a common expression during the 1920s, '30s, and much later, when racism was not only socially acceptable but the law in many parts of the country. The use of this line lasted into the '60s and even '70s.

---