History Film / EscapeFromAlcatraz

* AirVentPassageway

* [[NeverFoundTheBody Never Found The Bodies]]: Stated in the footnotes of the film. Whether because the men drowned and were swept out to sea or survived and there were no bodies to be found in the first place will probably never be known.

* OddFriendship: Morris and English.
* TheOldConvict: English.

* TheStoic: Morris again.

* GreatEscape

* {{Jerkass}}: The ControlFreak Warden of Alcatraz. While it is his job is to ensure the prisoners are in their best behavior and learn from what they have done, he goes way overboard to the point where the prisoners are "confined alone." He's even reluctant to fund good conduct programs or counseling, leaving the prisoners to have to deal with their problems themselves, and the results are disastrous. In a modern-day context, he would represent everything ''wrong'' with prisons today.

* {{Jerkass}}: The ControlFreak Warden of Alcatraz. While it is his job is to ensure the prisoners are in their best behavior and learn from what they have done, he goes way overboard to the point where the prisoners are "confined alone." He's even reluctant to fund good conduct programs or counseling, leaving the prisoners to have to deal with their problems themselves. In a modern-day context, he would represent everything ''wrong'' with prisons today.

The good guys are the bad guys, and the bad guys are the good guys. This is Hollywood's version of the story of, in case you couldn't tell by the title, the Great Escape from Alcatraz.

* SleepingDummy: The escapees put decoy dummy heads in their beds so their escape won't be noticed.

* ShownTheirWork: It's considered one of the most accurate Alcatraz movies ever made. One of the few mistakes: the cots used in the prison are [[WorldWarII WWII]]-era cots that don't resemble what was actually used in Alcatraz. Another is Eisenhower's photo in the warden's office in 1962.

-->'''English''': I was in a bar in Tennessee. Then these two dudes start hassling me. That was their first mistake. They pulled knifes. That was their second mistake. They didn't know how to use them. [[DeadlyEuphemism That was the last mistake they ever made]].

->''"No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz... [[TemptingFate and no one ever will]]."''
-->-- '''The Warden'''

!Tropes that apply to the movie include:

How much of the Clint Eastwood film can you trust? Well, Alcatraz really was a harsh prison off the coast of San Francisco. Frank Morris and John and Clarence Anglin really did cut the vents out of the walls in their cells using spoons and really did trick the guards using the old [[SleepingDummy dummy-head-in-the-bed trick]]. They really did escape, leaving behind a fourth prisoner (named Alan West, not Charlie Butts), and really did disappear without a trace.

* DeadpanSnarker: Frank Morris. Being played by ClintEastwood, this is practically a given.

* HeyItsThatGuy: In one of the great casting gags of all time: [[ThePrisoner Patrick McGoohan]] as TheWarden.

* CrimeOfSelfDefense: English is a veteran inmate in Alcatraz prison in 1960. He tells Frank Morris his story how he wound up in there. He was harassed by two men, who tried to attack him with knifes. English killed them both. The reason why he got two life sentences, back-to-back? [[DeliberateValuesDissonance The two men were white, and he was black]].

* {{Fingore}}: Doc protests the revocation of his painting privileges lopping off three of his fingers with a hatchet. On-Camera.

** Downplayed for the most part. Most of the guards are just doing their jobs. If violence is shown it's to stop a fight in the yard or to discourage a con from starting a fight again.

->"''No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz... and no one ever will.''"

!!Tropes that apply to the movie include:

* ShownTheirWork: It's considered one of the most accurate Alcatraz movies ever made. One of the few mistakes: the cots used in the prison are [[WorldWarII WWII]]-era cots that don't resemble what was actually used in Alcatraz.

* HeroAntagonist: The guards in Alcatraz.

* PoliceBrutality: Downplayed. Most of the guards are just doing their jobs. If violence is shown it's to stop a fight in the yard or to discourage a con from starting a fight again. Subverted with the warden. He's depicted as a sadist, especially when he [[MoralEventHorizon revokes the painting privileges of a sweet old prisoner]] whom he finds out painted an unflattering portrait of him.

* VillainProtagonist: Frank Morris.

* AntiHero: Frank Morris was a bankrobber, but it's hard not to admire him for escaping this supposedly escape-proof prison.

* TheEndOrIsIt: Did Morris and the Anglin brothers really escape?
** The film has the warden finding a flower on a nearby island where the gear is found, hinting that Morris might have gotten that far. He crushes the evidence in his hands and insists "They drowned."
** In RealLife, there hasn't been a sign of any of the escapees in over 45 years. If even one of them survived, he'd kept one of the biggest secrets of all time with him, possibly to the grave...

-->'''English''': I was in a bar in Tennessee. Then these two dudes start hassling me. That was their first mistake. They pulled knifes. That was their second mistake. They didn't know how to use them. That was the last mistake they ever made.

* PoliceBrutality: Downplayed. Most of the guards are just doing their jobs. If violence is shown it's to stop a fight in the yard or to discourage a con from starting a fight again.
** Subverted with the warden. He's depicted as a sadist, especially when he [[MoralEventHorizon revokes the painting privileges of a sweet old prisoner]] whom he finds out painted an unflattering portrait of him.

* ShownTheirWork: It's considered one of the most accurate Alcatraz movies ever made.
** One of the few mistakes: the cots used in the prison are [[WorldWarII WWII]]-era cots that don't resemble what was actually used in Alcatraz.

* NWordPrivileges: Clint has 'em, but only because he and English quickly figure each other out.

* PrisonRape: Wolf is looking to make Frank his newest punk. He tries to force the issue in the showers, but [[GroinAttack four or five punches to the balls]] later, he decides he'd rather just stab Frank in the courtyard. This doesn't go any better for him.