Alcatraz Island in popular culture
Alcatraz Island has appeared many times in popular culture. Its appeal as a film setting derives from its isolation and its history as a prison from which, officially, no prisoner ever successfully escaped.
Prisoners
Most appearances of Alcatraz in popular culture are related to its former status as a federal prison. Both real life and fictional accounts of imprisonment on the island have been popular.
One of the most well-known of Alcatraz's historic inmates was Robert Franklin Stroud, known as "The Birdman of Alcatraz". His biography was written by Thomas E. Gaddis and then adapted into a film in 1962, with Burt Lancaster playing the lead role.
The 1995 film Murder in the First depicts a man who spends three years in solitary confinement at the prison.
Escape and attempted escape
In film and television
Many films and television series have exploited Alcatraz Island's reputation as being a prison from which it was almost impossible to escape.
Don Siegel's 1979 thriller Escape from Alcatraz chronicles the story of Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin, who successfully escaped from Alcatraz in 1962, although it is unknown whether they survived the trip across the bay. There is some hint at the end of the film that they did survive. The film portrayed both the conditions of life in the prison and the difficulty of escaping from it.
In the episode #20 (The Power of Two, 1999) of the 1st season of the American television series Charmed, the evil spirit of a serial killer escapes from Alcatraz Island seeking revenge on his judge and jury. Phoebe and Prue must figure out how to vanquish this evil spirit and stop him from killing again without their sister Piper, who's visiting on the island of Hawaii.
The 1996 action film The Rock with Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris takes place at Alcatraz Island with the theft of dangerous missiles and the threatening of eradicate large parts of San Francisco.
In video games
A computer video game was based on, but not directly referencing, some famous escapes from the prison facility. The video game, entitled Alcatraz: Prison Escape, was released worldwide on November 23, 2001. It was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Activision Value.
The island was also featured as a playable level on the 2002 video game, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4.
The storyline of the Ghostlight game, Shadow Hearts: From The New World, takes the player to Alcatraz in order to bust out Al Capone, who was formerly a real-life prisoner of the island.
Hostages
Alcatraz's isolated and fortified image has meant that it has been used as a location for fictional hostage scenarios in various instances. The most successful of such films was The Rock (1996), in which a group from the United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance holds 81 tourists hostage, demanding monetary reparations. To defeat the hostage-takers, the Navy SEAL team enlist the help and knowledge of John Patrick Mason, the only inmate of Alcatraz who ever successfully escaped.
Terrorists also use Alcatraz as a hiding-place after taking the Mayor of San Francisco hostage in the 1976 film The Enforcer.
Film and television
- Ghost Hunters 100th episode; season 6 episode 1 - Alcatraz paranormal investigation (March 3, 2010), a 2 hrs premiere special.
- MythBusters Alcatraz Escape (December 12, 2003) Discovery Channel
- King of Alcatraz
- So I Married An Axe Murderer
- Escape from Alcatraz
- Birdman of Alcatraz
- Murder in the First (1995) fictionalized drama film.
- The Rock (1996) action film.
- Half Past Dead (2002) action movie starring Steven Seagal.
- Point Blank (1967). This was the first major motion picture to be filmed on location at Alcatraz Island after the closure of the Federal prison in 1963.
- Charmed. Episode "The Power of Two" 1x20. Prudence Halliwell and her sister Phoebe Halliwell vanquish the ghost from a murderer that was enjailed in the Alcatraz prison.
- X-Men: The Last Stand features Alcatraz as the development center for a "cure" for mutants.
- The Enforcer The third Dirty Harry movie climaxes with a shoot-out on Alcatraz.
- On The Othersiders series series finale, they investigated the Alcatraz Prison
- The Book of Eli (2010) post-apocalyptic film.
- Discovery Channel's paranormal show, Ghost Lab did an investigation of the prison.
- Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010) Mr Tinkles was locked up in a hidden prison on Alcatraz Island.
- The Simpsons episode "Bart-Mangled Banner": After the Simpsons get ostracized due to a misunderstanding, they get arrested and locked up in Alcatraz, along with people like Michael Moore and Bill Clinton.
- Producers J.J. Abrams and Elizabeth Sarnoff are developing a pilot called Alcatraz for Fox, starring Sam Neill, Jorge Garcia, Parminder Nagra and Sarah Jones.[1]
- Alcatraz, a 2012 TV series on Fox.
- Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" filmed an episode of paranormal ongoing's at Alcatraz.
- The Fairly OddParents features a prison in Fairy World called Abracatraz, based off of Alcatraz.
Books and comic books
- Al Capone Does My Shirts, a novel about a boy and his autistic sister living on Alcatraz Island
- Al Capone Shines My Shoes, a novel about a boy and his autistic sister living on Alcatraz Island. Same author as Al Capone Does My Shirts.
- In the first four Percy Jackson books, a Labyrinth entrance is located in one of the cells on Alcatraz Island and the worst nightmare of the Cyclopes, Kampe is a prison guard at Alcatraz.
- In Michael Scott's the Magician, Perenelle Flamel is held prisoner on Alcatraz Island
- in Baccano!, the hitman Ladd Russo is imprisoned in 1932 and subsequently transferred to Alcatraz in 1934. The story arc 'Alice in Jails' focuses on this and other inmates of alcatraz prison.
- Alcatraz: The True End of the Line, an autobiography by former inmate Darwin Coon
- Escape from Alcatraz (1963) by J. Campbell Bruce
- In an issue of Psi-Force, the group takes a sightseeing tour to Alcatraz and wind up getting attacked and temporarily imprisoned there.
Games
- The computer platforming game Alcatraz involves US Navy SEALS rescuing hostages from a terrorist-occupied Alcatraz. The game is also known as Hostages.
- There is a game about the prison called Alcatraz: Prison Escape.
- Alcatraz is a playable level in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 and has many features of the real Alcatraz.
- There are two chapters (five levels) that take place in Alcatraz in Hulk.
- In the video game Shadow Hearts: From the New World, the party travels to Alcatraz to save Al Capone.
- In the video game San Francisco Rush: The Rock, Alcatraz is the main setting. Players race cars on, above, and through the prison and the island.
- The video game Urban Strike features Alcatraz as one of the secret bases of main antagonist H. R. Malone.
- In the game Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, several hostages must be rescued from Alcatraz Prison.
- The game RuneScape sends the player to an "escape-proof" island known as The Rock.
- In the simulation game SimCity 3000, players can build Alcatraz Complex as their city's landmark.
- Manhunter 2: San Francisco from Sierra On-Line (1989) was set in San Francisco, and featured a visit to alien-occupied Alcatraz.
- In the RTS video game Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, Alcatraz is featured in the introduction video setting up for its single-player campaign. Yuri, the villain in the game, secretly established one of his "psychic dominators" and power plants on the island as part of his global mind-controlling device network.
- The game RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 has an scenario setting on the island, some time after the prison was closed down and abandoned.
- In Homefront, during the mission on the Golden Gate Bridge, it is mentioned that the US Army has taken control of Alcatraz. It can also be seen in the distance.
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Music
References