ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ: The Story 6: A Film Without Women

[KC]

By the nature of its subject matter, Escape from Alcatraz is a film almost devoid of the presence of women. We glimpse Charlie Butts's wife and English's daughter in two brief, poignant scenes, but that is all. Did the lack of women in the story make it less enjoyable for you? Can you name some other Eastwood films in which women are absent, or nearly so? How do you feel about their absence in those films?

[Bronco_Billy]

Take away beauty and compassion from the equation  and you magnify the reality of prison I guess, the loneliness and isolation is the punishment . In this respect I agree  with the filmmakers choice of a no women zone .
 
I enjoy women in films but I enjoy and need them more in reality because they are what make life tolerable to me , even if in some circumstances you can only look and not touch . In films you can make choices that dont effect you  personally so im alright with that.

[Brendan]

I don't think it matters really if the film had or didn't have women. It's a prison movie so you kind of expect it not to have women in it anyways unless they come to visit the inmates or it's an all female "women behind bars" movie. 

There's been plenty of war films where women never even factored in and it didn't make them bad. There's also been a lot of action flicks as well hwere there's no women. However there are the ones where the girls just tag along and are made to get in the way and look pretty.

So I guess what I'm saying is is that there was really no place for any women in this story. It was a male prison so of course there would be no women in it. I suppose the warden could have been a women but how would that have affected the story? And were there actually female wardens back then? I suppose we could have seen Frank's wife (let's say he had one) show up and tell him how much she misses him but we got that already from Butts and English.

There have been quite a few Eastwood movies that haven't featured women predominately. Dirty Harry comes to mind. Yes there was Chico's wife but she never had a big role. The lack of women in that film didn't stop me from enjoying it.

[Chessie]

I don't think the film and it's story lent itself to having women in it.  The movie is all about the men and how prison life affects them and their escape.  To have more women then the two who are briefly shown wouldn't be real.  It just wouldn't work.   

I like that there's no women in this one actually because it gives Clint a chance to portray a character that doesn't have a romantic interest.  Alot of his films prior to this one Clint had a romantic interest, unfortunately most of the time it was Sondra Locke but regardless still an interest.  It's nice to see Clint play a character that isn't the most sensitive person, and the lack of female characters helps with that.

[dane with no name]

To put a woman in a male prisonmovie would be just plain weird,unless  if she was a guard which meant she would have to be  hard as nails and probably not the most femine...
So it doesnt really matter that there´s no woman with a big part in it. The only other clintmovie i can think off right now without any women would be Kellys Heroes, and it doesnt really matter that there´s no women there. It´s all about the setting, and if the setting needs to be without women in order to create a true or beleivable story then so be it...   

[KC]

Thanks to everyone for participating in this discussion. This topic is now closed, please post any additional thoughts in the General Discussion forum.