My Six Convicts

Donald Powell Wilson spent three years as the San Quentin resident psychologist; the place was a clinician's paradise. In this period Powell found numerous father complexes and gave the "California Test of Mental Maturity" to every convict who wanted a short vacation from arduous tasks. The tangible evidence of Wilson's tenure are a large graph of San Quentin's I.Q.s and, much more valuable and interesting, the prose and film account of his personal experiences within the prison walls.

The Doctor Wilson of My Six Convicts isn't really a busybody. In fact, he is conscientious, unassuming individual, who believes that a clinical psychologist can benefit a prison. Not discouraged by an uncooperative group of prisoners, he proves himself to them by keeping secret knowledge of a proposed prison break. Wilson's reward is the friendship of six convicts (his staff of testers) and a shiny new convertible -- delivered by the boys on the outside.

Whether or not Wilson actually improved prison morale, he finally did succeed in administering his tests and observing many of the convicts at close range. He found that the criminal inside prison walls acts quite differently from his erstwhile companions; without the pressure of the competitive world he may be a valuable and efficient worker. This is especially true of the more intelligent, like Wilson's six.

Wilson's reminiscences of his work with them is an unspectacular, but realistic and amusing story. Millard Mitchell and Gilbert Roland competently act out two of the more stereo graphed convicts, but the large majority of the convicts fall into no common types. Alongside the hardened multiple-offenders there are the nondescript little men -- seldom closely examined in prison movies -- who have cheated on their income tax or juggled the books; consequently, although it remains doubtful what significance Wilson's "California Test" had, his stay at San Quentin is material enough for a unique motion picture.