I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang (1932)

After the end of WWI, a returning war hero (Paul Muni) finds there's no meaningful work for him. Unable to find a job, he sinks into poverty and when he accompanies an acquaintance to a diner, the companion robs the place but it is the war vet who is caught and sentenced to prison hard labor. Based on the autobiography by Robert Elliott Burns and directed by Mervyn LeRoy (QUO VADIS). In the 1930s, Warner Brothers was the studio for socially conscious films and this Oscar nominated (best picture) film is one of the very best and ninety years later, it's as powerful as ever. Unrelenting in its brutality and portrait of a corrupt prison system, its final closing line and image is still startling. Paul Muni (in an Oscar nominated performance) is superb and almost unrecognizable from the hammy actor he would later become. With Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Preston Foster, Noel Francis and Allen Jenkins.