Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) Epitomizes the Paradoxical Genius of Burt Lancaster

Burt Lancaster had a unique ability among his peers to be both soft and hard in the same moment. It’s a paradoxical statement, but the tension of this paradox is central to so many of Lancaster’s best performances. While there are better films starring Burt Lancaster than Birdman of Alcatraz (1962)—both in his youth and in his elder years—no film embodies both the sensitivity and brutality of Lancaster better than the biopic of Richard Stroud, the notorious murderer who became a world-renowned ornithologist while incarcerated in the US penal system.

Directed by The Manchurian Candidate’s (1962) John Frankenheimer—who took over from the original director Charles Crichton (who’d eventually go on to direct A Fish Called Wanda [1988]) and who would go on to direct Lancaster in Seven Days in May (1964) and The Train (1964)—the film begins with Edmond O’Brien addressing the camera on the docks of San Francisco while looking across the water at Alcatraz. O’Brien plays Thomas E. Gaddis, who wrote the nonfiction book upon which the film is based. Gaddis was a renowned supporter of prison reform and the film takes up this tactic as well, right from the get-go. However, as Gaddis tells us, he is not intent to lie to us. Richard Stroud was a murderer, and a brutal one at that.

We first meet Stroud as he’s being transported to prison after having murdered a man in Alaska. Stroud was working as a pimp, and after a john roughed up one of his girls, he killed the man. Once he reaches Leavenworth Prison, he comes into conflict with the authoritarian warden, Harvey Shoemaker, played by Karl Malden. Stroud refuses to acquiesce to strict prison regulations and rebels at every opportunity. When his mother, Elizabeth Stroud (Thelma Ritter), makes the trip from Alaska to visit him, she is refused visitation as it’s a Saturday. Incensed by being denied access to his mother, Stroud murders the guard who gave him the news, landing a life sentence in solitary confinement after having his execution stayed.

From there on Stroud has to adjust to isolated life. At first, he resists authority however he can and keeps an emotional distance from the guards and other prisoners in “the hole.” We’re reminded of past Lancaster roles in these early scenes of a rebellious Stroud, particularly his film noir performances in the likes of The Killers (1946) and Brute Force (1947), another prison film. Although Lancaster was nearly 50 when shooting Birdman of Alcatraz, he captures some of his youthful vigour in the early scenes; it wouldn’t take much to convince you the first 45 minutes were shot during the 1940s instead of the early 1960s.

But in his early years, Lancaster didn’t convey the gentle wisdom necessary for the role of Richard Stroud. He could play tender, as was essential in films like From Here to Eternity (1953) and The Rainmaker (1956), but it was more often vocal than physical; he would look tough, but talk softly. It took years of experience and maturity for Lancaster to learn to harness his physicality in both directions. Thus, the timing of Birdman of Alcatraz turns it into a bridge for Lancaster as a performer; it connects his past as a Hollywood tough guy to his coming years when he’d become more of a contemplative hard-ass, even an oddball, most notably in Frank and Eleanor Perry’s The Swimmer (1968).

In Birdman of Alcatraz, the transformation from tough guy to intellectual occurs when Stroud finds a baby sparrow injured in the yard and takes it back to his cell with him to nurse it to health. That small act of mercy awakens a calling within Stroud. He successfully gets the new warden to allow him to collect more birds and reads every book in the prison library on the subject of ornithology. As the years pass, he becomes an expert in the field and amasses a following outside the prison bars, which turns him inadvertently into a figurehead for prison reform.

Like many past Hollywood biopics or films about historical figures, Birdman of Alcatraz has a political message, particularly, a message about the need for prison reform. Viewed purely through this lens, the film becomes a curiously persuasive argument for the rehabilitative potential of incarceration. But despite the political avenues you could explore by examining the film in this light, I find it far more rewarding to examine the film through the lens of its charismatic star, Burt Lancaster. Because you need only watch two scenes in Birdman of Alcatraz to glimpse the chaotic allure of Lancaster as an actor. The film epitomizes his strengths as a performer.

I’ve mentioned one of the scenes already: the event of Stroud’s second murder, which occurs after a guard denies him a visit from his mother while he’s at Leavenworth. When the guard gives him the news that his mother was turned away, Stroud reacts instinctively and grabs the lapel of the guard’s shirt through the bars. The guard merely sneers and tells him that touching a guard is an infraction that’ll have to be written up. Stroud begs for the guard not to write him up so he can see his mother, but the guard doesn’t care. At that point, the guard’s fate is written for him.

Next we see Stroud eating in the mess hall with all the other prisoners. Frankenheimer and his cinematographer, Burnett Guffey (who won Oscars for Bonnie and Clyde [1967] and the Lancaster-starring From Here to Eternity), shoot the scene from a corner high above the room, capturing all the tables as diagonal lines running through the frame. The skewed angle is similar to the framing in Orson Welles’ adaptation of The Trial (1962)—which came out the same year as Birdman of Alcatraz—but is much less subdued than the visual experimentation on display in Welles’ film. 

Next we see Stroud at one of the tables in a conventional close-up. He refuses to eat and watches someone else in the room. Lancaster’s intense eyes are hard at work surveying the room; we know he’s on the hunt. We cut to a wide shot and notice the guard who denied him his visit from his mother. Frankenheimer cuts to a floor-level angle and trucks the camera to the left parallel with the tables as Stroud gets up and goes to the guard. We cut to a close-up and see Stroud’s face: pure fury. And then we see the knife and the blow. The guard falls. The room remains silent and we go back to the high angle wide shot of Stroud as the only person in motion; the rest of the men remain at their tables.

There is no dialogue, but Lancaster doesn’t need it to convey Stroud’s rage. All we need to see are his eyes and the furious movement of the knife to comprehend what a cold-blooded killer Stroud is capable of being. Frankenheimer helps Lancaster out by using the staging and framing to isolate him on screen. The silence of the others is also key, as it makes it seem like Lancaster, as Stroud, has stunned them into silence through his anger. But it’s Lancaster’s sheer brutality that makes the scene so convincing. He was one of the most physical actors of his generation and this scene captures just how well he could portray violence on film.

But Lancaster was not only skilled at portraying violence. He could also be sensitive and gentle in ways that no other actors of his generation could portray. The scene where Stroud begins to nurse the baby sparrow back to health portrays this softness. It’s demonstrated in the way that Lancaster strokes the bird with his fingers and wraps his heavy hands around it. It’s also in the way that his piercing blue eyes seem clearer than normal as he watches the bird, as if anger and rage have left them behind to be replaced by curiosity and empathy. Lancaster had a fascinating voice with an almost lyrical quality to his line readings—you need only watch The Rainmaker or Elmer Gantry (1960), for which he won Best Actor, to comprehend what a gift for oratory he had. But Lancaster didn’t need any dialogue to convey the truth of a scene. These two moments in Birdman of Alcatraz prove just that.

Apparently, the real Richard Stroud was not similar to how he is depicted in the movie—fellow inmates spoke of his anger and vindictiveness, while others thought that he was more devious than depicted as well. In this respect, perhaps Birdman of Alcatraz is not an instructive film about Stroud as a person. But the performance and the transformation over the course of Birdman of Alcatraz is not so much about Stroud, but about Lancaster, showing his ability to embody both the inward spirit of creativity and freedom, as well as man’s outward brutality.

Over the course of Birdman of Alcatraz, Frankenheimer makes a lot of the metaphor of a bird in a cage. He doesn’t put the words directly into a character’s mouth, but develops it as a theme through staging and other cinematic elements. It’s easy to connect the bird to the prisoner and the cage to the prison. Following this rhetorical line of thought, it’s useful to think of Lancaster himself as a bird, specifically a bird of prey, capable both of soaring high with majestic beauty, imparting wisdom from a distance, but also brutality and violence when dispatching his prey. He’s one of several superstars from Hollywood’s Golden Age with an enigmatic charm, but the beguiling paradox of his performance style is all his own. Watch Birdman of Alcatraz to comprehend this paradoxical genius for yourself.

Birdman of Alcatraz (1962, USA)

Directed by John Frankenheimer; written by Guy Trosper, based on the book by Thomas E. Gaddis; starring Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Thelma Ritter, Neville Brand, Edmond O’Brien, Telly Savalas.

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