control of inmates (1965)

legit one of my fav images of him - the framing is so interesting and also fuck he's super cute. so cute. also. the eroticism of that pose..... hfdhgfjkd

the "is this worth watching for lawrence dane" rating: 4/5

ohhh my god he is so young in this. this was made three years after "lion of quebec" so he wouldn't have even been 30 yet.... this is a short film, around 25 minutes, and he's what amounts to the lead character inasmuch as training videos can have a lead. he's super handsome and tall and he smiles a bunch in this and you can see him singing! in a group so you can't make out his voice, but still.... one point off since it's a video by and for cops - even worse, prison guards specifically lmao.

the plot: as noted above, this doesn't really have one in the typical sense. apparently it's based on a true escape story, according to a guy who worked on the production. we follow dane's character from intake through his attempts to ingratiate himself with the officers and then his escape. it's a bit funny how lax/incompetent the security would have been at the time compared to current understandings of prison practices, and it's interesting in a depressing way to see what hasn't changed at all.

at the time of my writing this post, "control of inmates" isn't listed on his wikipedia or imdb pages. but digging into the bowels of an internet search for larry zahab led me to that letter linked above and i knew i had to see if i could find it since the NFB also produced "lion of quebec" and the surprisingly good 1975 tv movie "the heatwave lasted four days". earlier this year i emailed them and did my best to describe the movie based on the information given in the guy's letter, and they said they had a 1965 police training film by douglas jackson under the title of "control of inmates". i promptly checked to see whether it had an imdb entry to potentially cross-check any acting credits and the answer was yes but the only credits are director douglas jackson and the narrator. since jackson worked with dane again for "heatwave" that made me sure this was the movie i was looking for. (heatwave will get a review eventually, don't worry lol.) still a bit of a gamble, though, so it was super exciting when the dvd arrived and i could prove myself right!! there were no actor credits in the film itself but my man is unmistakable.

highlight: waist................................. the only time i've wanted to be a cop


you can view a version with autocaptions here. and now for the selected screencaps! none of them has been altered.

( since it's so short there's not a ton of screencaps here. could have done more but i did try to exercise some restraint. enjoy the treat! )