Prisoner Of Shark Island – DVD

John Ford's classic drama about Dr Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter). When President Lincoln (Frank McGlynn Sr) is assassinated, the killer John Wilkes Booth (Francis McDonald) is injured in the attack and is treated by Dr Mudd, who is unaware of Booth's guilt. Mudd himself is arrested on suspicion of being involved with the assassination, and although he is given a last minute reprieve from the firing squad, he is sentenced to hard labour at the notorious Fort Jefferson in the Gulf of Mexico, an island prison surrounded by shark-infested waters. There, brutalised by vicious prison guard Sergeant Rankin (John Carradine), Mudd begins his struggle to overcome inhuman justice and reaffirm the unquenchable human spirit.