Brubaker (1980) on Netflix
In 1969, Henry Brubaker arrives at a small Arkansas prison farm posing as an inmate and sees the abuse and graft inside. He reveals himself as the new warden.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.2/1021,711 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
Henry Brubaker goes into Wakefield State Prison in Arkansas as an inmate in 1969. Inside he sees the graft, torture and fraud that the guards and prison officials have run for years. He then declares that he is the new warden and sets about reforming the farm, bringing in longtime prisoners to help, among them Larry Lee Bullen, Richard "Dickie" Coombes and Roy Purcell, the warden's former clerk. The state prison board, whose members profit from the graft, and local businessmen who benefit from the arrangement resist him. Lillian Gray, who handles public relations for the governor, wants the reforms shaped to the governor's advantage.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Brubaker (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Brubaker was originally to be based on Louisiana's Angola prison, but the State of Louisiana successfully sued to block publication of the novel and screenplay if they referenced conditions at Angola; violence and slavery-era treatment of inmates there continued until lawsuits were filed in 2013.
- The screenplay is a fictionalized version of warden Thomas Murton's book with Joe Hyams; Governor Winthrop Rockefeller hired Murton in 1967 to reform Arkansas' Tucker State and Cummins State Prison Farms, and he was dismissed within a year because his work created bad publicity, notably the discovery of graves of killed prisoners.
- Bob Rafelson was removed as director early in production and replaced by Stuart Rosenberg; Rafelson then sued Fox in May 1979 for $10 million, claiming the studio had promised him complete autonomy and had implied he was incompetent, emotionally unstable and unqualified to direct a major motion picture.
- The squalid conditions, violence and corruption depicted in Brubaker were the subject of the 1970 federal court case Holt v. Sarver, in which the court ruled that Arkansas' prison system violated inmates' constitutional rights and ordered reform.
