Carbine Williams (1952)

Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Lack of good storyline.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

44 year-old James Stewart plays a man in his early 20's through his mid-40's (and beyond?), something he was asked to do quite often throughout his career. His characterization is good, though he is clearly not youthful enough physically to play the title character in the first third of the film. Chameleon actress Jean Hagan, on the other hand, ages much more believably (perhaps because she was only 30 at the time;-)In any case, the film is about a young man, "Marsh" Williams, who returns home after two "hitches" in the Navy to find that he must earn his eighth of the family farm by working it for two years, before his father (Carl Benton Reid) will give him the deed to it. That's what his other seven brothers, including the oldest (James Arness), are doing, or plan to do when they're old enough. Marsh isn't interested, though, because he's impatient to marry his childhood sweetheart Maggie (Hagan). So, he gets a job laying track for the railroad that pays him 40 cents an hour for a 10 hour day. However, wanting to have "more" sooner, he decides to join a couple of still makers (one of which is the recognizable character actor Porter Hall) and creates a growing business making moonshine, all without his wife's knowledge. When his operation is raided, a man is killed and Williams is sentenced to 30 years of hard labor (the good old days;-)In prison, he becomes associated with "Dutch" Kruger (Paul Stewart) which leads to trouble when Kruger and some other inmates knife a squealer. Even though Williams didn't participate, he's caught with a knife in his possession and gets sent to work on the chain gang with the other perpetrators. After a while of this arduous work, and having to spend some time in the infirmary when his appendix burst, he and his "group" are transferred to another prison run by Warden Peoples (Wendell Corey). Peoples discovers Williams is a hard case with a strong will who won't even read his wife's, let alone write her or his family back, because he wants them to forget about him. But he gains some respect for him when Williams kills a rattlesnake that might have bitten the warden. However, when Williams shows disrespect to him before the rest of the inmates, Peoples decides that he'll break Williams' will by putting him in "the box". But the warden must release Williams after a record 30 days, no one else had ever lasted more than a week, at the prison doctor's insistence.It turns out that Williams was able to withstand eating no more than bread & water while sitting in a dark crate for a month by thinking of a new way to design guns, ones which are lightweight and can fire multiple rounds before having to be reloaded.The rest of this most interesting story is about how this man came to earn his name, which is the title of the film, while he was a prisoner that was allowed to make a gun!

This movie is a great movie for those who are into guns. Weather it be gun collecting, or just history. This movie portrays the actual real life story of how the winchester carbine was brought about. It is correct in it's history, and very interesting. Jimmy Stewart does an excellent job of portraying the feelings of a prisoner who may be wrongly convicted. It was never determined who actually killed the agent. This man made a rifle to help the American fighting man of the armed forces. Lighter, faster and more reliable than anything up to it's time. This was done inside a prison, with nothing but a file. When it was found out what he was doing, the warden of the prison eventually stands behind him and helps him in his efforts. If you are not interested in guns it is still a informative movie with a great human interest story!

As other reviewers mention, this is a very good portrayal of one of the most interesting and talented men to ever serve time for murder. Unlike "Birdman of Alcatraz," which portrayed one of the most revolting murderers in history as some sort of a saintly scientist, this film accurately describes Carbine Williams' transformation from a rebellious moonshiner (who may or may not have killed a Fed in self-defense) into an admirable and very valuable citizen.Williams' brilliant innovations in weapons design made a significant contribution to the Allied victory in WW2. I carried an M-1 carbine (essentially his design) in the Army and still own several of them -- perhaps the best all-purpose firearm in history.This movie isn't shown often and most people are unaware of it, but it deserves a wider audience.

As an actor, James Stewart seems to have hit his stride in the fifteen years or so after the Second World War. Known up to this point as a gee-whiz, gulp-and-golly, boy-next-door Everyman type, Stewart took on roles of increasing complexity, most notably in the psychological "adult" westerns of Anthony Mann. Even his famous and much loved role as George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life" contains a dark brooding undercurrent which belies its sunny reputation as a feel-good family Holiday film. All of which goes to show that Stewart could bring something unexpected to even the "corniest" movies.In "Carbine Williams", Stewart plays the title role, a moonshiner who is convicted of murdering a Federal agent, and who then gets sent to a chain gang after being implicated in a prison murder. His rebellious nature brings him into conflict with the warden at the prison farm, Captain Peoples (Dracut MA's own Wendell Corey), until he discovers a means of channelling his anger and bitterness.The real-life David Marshall Williams did indeed invent the improvements in firearms which led directly to the development to the M-1 carbine, the weapon which helped to win World War II. And he did it while serving a long prison sentence for murder. The story is interesting enough on its own, but Stewart brings an intensity and heart to the role which makes it even more fascinating than a mere telling of the facts would be.One of many excellent films James Stewart made during the 1950's, this one is somewhat obscure, not particularly well-remembered today. But it deserves to be.