Escape from Alcatraz (film) Escape from Alcatraz (film) Escape from Alcatraz is a 1979 American prison thriller film directed by Don Siegel. It is an adaptation of the 1963 non-fiction book of the same name by J. Campbell Bruce and dramatizes the 1962 prisoner escape from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island. The film stars Clint Eastwood, Jack Thibeau and Fred Ward as prisoners Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin and John Anglin. Allen West was played by Larry Hankin; his character's name was changed to Charley Butts. Patrick McGoohan portrays the suspicious, vindictive warden and Danny Glover appears in his film debut. "Escape from
Recreation Yard (Alcatraz) his later years in the penitentiary as his mind deteriorated. Edwin B. Swope, Warden of Alcatraz from 1948 to 1955, once said, in response to an inmate who complained to him on the yard about his term of 199 years, which was really a life sentence, "My boy, we're all doing life. Every one of us is doing life." The Alcatraz recreation yard has been a setting for scenes in numerous films and novels. Scenes have featured prison inmates hatching schemes or being involved in bloody conflicts. The yard featured several times in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from