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20,000 Years in Sing Sing

 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
type
TVTItem
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
label
20,000 Years in Sing Sing
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
page
TwentyThousandYearsInSingSing
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
comment
20,000 Years in Sing Sing is a 1932 film directed by Michael Curtiz.The setting is, no prizes for guessing, Sing Sing Prison in New York. Tommy Connors (Spencer Tracy) is a hoodlum who is well-known enough to attract a throng of reporters when he goes to Sing Sing to do a 5-to-30 stretch. He acts like a big man, spitting defiance, but Warden Long, through some canny psychology, more or less breaks Tommy and makes him into a model prisoner. Meanwhile, Tommy's faithful moll, Fay Wilson (Bette Davis) waits for him on the outside. Fay has a half-baked idea that she will use her feminine charms on Joe Finn, one of Tommy's gangster partners, in order to get Tommy released.The warden gets news that Fay has been badly injured in a car accident. Having used the stick he offers the carrot and allows Tommy an evening on furlough to go see Fay. It turns out to be a bad idea.The only film Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis ever appeared in together. Loosely based on a memoir of the same title by Lewis E. Lawes, the Real Life warden of Sing Sing prison.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
fetched
2023-03-27T18:13:04Z
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
parsed
2023-03-27T18:13:04Z
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
isPartOf
DBTropes
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_207e000c
type
Reveal Shot
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_207e000c
comment
Reveal Shot: The payoff for Tommy's refusal to wear a prison uniform. The warden says sure, Tommy doesn't have to wear a uniform—he can just go around in his union suit (one-piece full-body underwear). Then the warden sends Tommy to work, and the camera pans up to reveal that Tommy's been sent into the ice house. In the next scene Tommy's wearing a uniform.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_207e000c
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_207e000c
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_237a1777
type
Exploding Calendar
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_237a1777
comment
Exploding Calendar: Pages fly off a page-a-day calendar as time ticks down to Tommy's execution while his last unsuccessful appeals are heard.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_237a1777
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_237a1777
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_3dfdc686
type
Time-Passes Montage
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_3dfdc686
comment
Time Passes Montage: Tommy refuses to work, so the warden, using psychology again, lets him stay in his cell. A montage shows all the other prisoners playing baseball in the yard, marching in a band, and simply eating together. Finally Tommy breaks and agrees to work.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_3dfdc686
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_3dfdc686
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_44fc28e8
type
Honor Before Reason
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_44fc28e8
comment
Honor Before Reason: Tommy returns to jail, and to a certain death sentence, because he promised Warden Long that he would.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_44fc28e8
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_44fc28e8
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_4e3d253b
type
Downer Ending
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_4e3d253b
comment
Downer Ending: Tommy is executed, for a crime he didn't commit.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_4e3d253b
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_4e3d253b
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_5313c266
type
Bookends
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_5313c266
comment
Book Ends: The opening shot shows inmates moving around in Sing Sing as the years of their sentence float over their heads as onscreen graphics—"5 Years", "25 Years", "40 Years" and such. That cuts to the title card that says "20,000 Years in Sing Sing." At the end, after Tommy's execution, that shot is repeated.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_5313c266
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_5313c266
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_61356a74
type
Almost Dead Guy
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_61356a74
comment
Almost Dead Guy: Joe Finn, shot in the back by Fay, lives long enough to say that "Thomas" did it when the cop busts into the hotel room.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_61356a74
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_61356a74
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6439de78
type
Heroic Sacrifice
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6439de78
comment
Heroic Sacrifice: It was actually Fay who shot and killed Joe Finn, but Tommy takes the blame and goes to the electric chair to spare her.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6439de78
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6439de78
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6d332aea
type
Driven to Suicide
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6d332aea
comment
Driven to Suicide: After the jail break has failed, Bud leaps to his death from a top row in the cell block rather than surrender (he'd just get executed eventually after two guards were killed).
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6d332aea
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_6d332aea
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7bd44eb9
type
Smart People Play Chess
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7bd44eb9
comment
Smart People Play Chess: A chess set is shown in the warden's study, reinforcing the idea of him as a serious person.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7bd44eb9
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1.0
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7bd44eb9
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7d53bc0b
type
Hollywood Silencer
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7d53bc0b
comment
Hollywood Silencer: The standard, ridiculous silencer on a revolver, which Bud makes in his cell when he's putting together a gun for his jail break.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7d53bc0b
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1.0
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_7d53bc0b
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_9d5a2cdf
type
Intimidating Revenue Service
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_9d5a2cdf
comment
Intimidating Revenue Service: Played for a gag. As Tommy sits on death row, awaiting execution, a letter arrives for him from the IRS. It threatens him with arrest if he doesn't pay his income tax from 1926.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_9d5a2cdf
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1.0
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_9d5a2cdf
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a73c667a
type
Captivity Harmonica
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a73c667a
comment
Captivity Harmonica: Hype, who is already on death row when Tommy is sent there, plays "Happy Days Are Here Again" and other tunes on his harmonica. As he's being taken away to the chair, Hype laments that he was finally getting good on the harmonica and could make his way through tunes without making mistakes.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a73c667a
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a73c667a
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a8556a04
type
Video Credits
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a8556a04
comment
Video Credits: Of all the main players at the beginning of the movie, as was Warner Brothers house style in the early 1930s.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a8556a04
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1.0
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a8556a04
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_a8556a04
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_af70c7b0
type
Prison
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_af70c7b0
comment
Prison: An inmate and the warden earn each other's respect in Sing Sing prison.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_af70c7b0
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 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_af70c7b0
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_af70c7b0
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b70b1e3b
type
Institutional Apparel
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b70b1e3b
comment
Institutional Apparel: This promotes Tommy's first act of defiance in jail, when he is brought into Sing Sing and given a prison uniform that is far too big for him.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b70b1e3b
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1.0
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b70b1e3b
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b8dbe475
type
Blood from the Mouth
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b8dbe475
comment
Blood from the Mouth: How the film lets the viewer know that Joe Finn is a goner after Fay shoots him In the Back, even though he isn't quite dead yet.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b8dbe475
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_b8dbe475
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_ed503b22
type
Match Cut
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_ed503b22
comment
Match Cut: From the window where the warden's looking out, contemplating the ruin of his career, to the window where Tommy's looking out as he waits for night and the ship that will take him to freedom.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_ed503b22
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 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_ed503b22
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_ed503b22
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f142296a
type
"Get Out of Jail Free" Card
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f142296a
comment
"Get Out of Jail Free" Card: The warden agreed to furlough Connors from the prison for 24 hours to visit his dying girlfriend, on his honor that he'd come back to Sing Sing. While on the furlough, he is accused of killing his old partner Finnspoiler actually, his girlfriend did it, and the warden is blasted by the newspapers and is about to resign when Connors returns to Sing Sing and willingly faces the chair for his alleged crime. The newspapers treat the Warden as completely vindicated by this, even though he's still responsible for letting a convicted armed robber out on furlough in the first place to shoot someone.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f142296a
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f142296a
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f36c4f98
type
Easily Forgiven
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f36c4f98
comment
Easily Forgiven: It seems that Tommy coming back is viewed as a vindication of Warden Long's furlough policy, and the warden gets to keep his job. The fact that Tommy committed murder while on furlough (or at least, that's what everyone thinks) is in itself no big deal.
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f36c4f98
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 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f36c4f98
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_f36c4f98
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_fcd9b657
type
Gallows Humor
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_fcd9b657
comment
Gallows Humor: As Tommy is brought to death row after his conviction for murder, the other death row inmates greet him with a sing-along of "Happy Days Are Here Again".
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_fcd9b657
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing / int_fcd9b657
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ItemName
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20,000 Years in Sing Sing

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
hasFeature
Captivity Harmonica / int_84504150
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
hasFeature
"Get Out of Jail Free" Card / int_84504150
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
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Intimidating Revenue Service / int_84504150
 20,000 Years in Sing Sing
hasFeature
Prison Films / int_84504150