Hellgate

It is an old theatre adage that a gun which appears in the first act is sure to shoot someone by the end of the third. So when Gilman Hadley proclaims his belief in the ultimate justice of the law, the audience is well prepared to watch him suffer a fate just slightly better than death.

Hadley was a real person, a southern veteran of the Civil War who went to prison in 1867 for aiding guerilla raiders to escape capture. Hadley, played by Sterling Hayden, served time in Hellgate Military Prison near Copper City, New Mexico. The Hellgate of the movies, called America's Devil's Island, includes a subterranean series of barred caves, a tender hearted commandant, a sadistic sergeant, and enough tortures to send chills along the spine of Charles Addams.

The picture has good, straightforward, and above all, spontaneous dialogue. Unlike many prison pictures with cruel guards and an innocent prisoner, Hellgate does not try to make the prisoners seem long suffering, bean geste heroes.

Hayden is very good as the martyred Hadley. He underplays a part that would tempt a lesser actor to pour on the bathos with one eye on the camera and the other on the Academy Award. Ward Bond is in the unlikely role of a soft-spoken but venomous prison commandant. Bond is usually loud-spoken, and someboy's best cavalry sargent. But he does not become rank conscious, and his promotion suits him.

Since it is obvious that things are going to come out all right in the end for Hanley, and that the others deserve what they get, it is pleasant to sit back and watch such bagatelles as prison breaks, beatings, plots, and the other paraphcualia of this grme. Hellgate, it not amusing, is enjoyable.