Cell 2455 Death Row

“That gun made me ten inches taller.” Director Fred Sears carved a niche for himself in genre B films, including low-budget noirs like Chicago Syndicate (1955) and Inside Detroit (1956), but Cell 2455 Death Row strives to be a bit more than genre fare: based on the autobiography of real-life Death Row inmate Caryl Chessman, the film emphasizes drama and life story as much as crime and thrills. Sears and cinematographer Fred Jackman Jr. don’t skimp on the noir aesthetics either: much of the action takes place under the cover of night or shadows, and the variety of camera angles (extreme close-ups, deep focus, oblique compositions) are impressive for a low-budget pic. Recounting his descent into violent crime from his Death Row prison cell, Whit Whitter — played by William Campbell, whose real-life younger brother and Oscar-nominated screenwriter R. Wright plays his younger self in flashbacks — blames his poverty and social disadvantage for just about everything wrong with his life: his mother’s disability, his father’s suicide attempt, and his own feelings of inadequacy, which drove him to get involved with a gang of thugs and commence a life of thievery, assault, and murder, recalling that “you don’t suddenly turn to delinquency, you kind of curve into it.” (Whether he was also the anonymous Lovers Lane sex fiend and serial rapist dubbed “The Red-Light Beast” remains inexplicably unresolved.) Finally incarcerated for a minimum of 26 years and a maximum of five lifetimes, Whit will come to realize the error of his ways and teach himself the law so he can represent himself to avoid execution; t0 the screenplay’s credit, the film doesn’t offer an obvious redemption arc or rely on mawkish pleas for forgiveness. In an early supporting role, Vince Edwards plays Whit’s charming comrade Hamilton, while Marian Carr plays Doll, Whit’s put-upon, goodhearted girlfriend back home.