Metallic sounds are a prominent feature in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Rattling, clanking, clanging, and drilling sounds fill the soundtrack from almost beginning to end. The message coming from a social realism perspective seems clear, these are the daily sounds that fill the ears of the working class. The working class goes to war. The working class is building the skyscrapers for the “robber barons” to live and work in. These are the type of sounds that would ring through the streets of workers. I the film, similar metallic sounds are heard during scenes of hope as well as scenes of doubt and fear. Even the title of the film itself evokes thoughts of metallic sounds. The word chain said aloud closely resembles the sounds of the object swinging to and fro.
James Allen returns from the great war physically unscathed. He is ready to return to the real world and has new hopes and aspirations for his life and career. Working for the engineering core has given him new ideas about what he would like to accomplish in his life. Coming home from the terrors of war, the sounds of bombs, gun shots, the rattling of the trench walls as the enemy moves in, Allen is eager to return to a world where these sounds are about creation, not destruction. It wasn’t the sounds that bother him about his experience in the military, it was being told what to do, having limits put on him, and finding himself under orders. He wanted to start a new life, be free. He said the army was a drab routine, cramped, mechanical. Even Allen refers to the life of a solider as mechanic. The sounds something mechanical are the sounds of slavery.
When Allen is caught up in a botched robbery and ends up on the chain gang. The judge sentences Allen for hard labor. This time he will not be paid. The next cut is a scene of a man being paid to put Allen in chains. The loud shock of rhythmic clangs as hammers hit steel cuffs surround the prison. The chains rattle loudly, but not loudly enough to rattle Allen out of bed in his first morning on the chain gang. When slapped suddenly out of bed and his chain thrown in his face he realizes how important these sounds will become to him. He needs to learn these chains are something he always has to hold on to, even when they are no longer attached to his body.
The portions of the film when Allen is in the chain gang are dominated by metal on metal sounds. The clanking of iron, hammering of sledges on metal rails and jangling of chains from limb to limb. When he escapes and works his way up the capitalist ladder, the sounds change to more drilling, mechanic, and pneumatic. The sounds of creation. In the time between Allen’s rise to prominence and his re capture, the metallic clinking has all but disappeared. When the sounds that surround are metal, it is the sound of monotony and routine. The film embraces the rhythm from mechanic to clanking to silence. The film does not have a huge score behind it, music generally only plays during scenes in bars or clubs. The score is made up of these sounds, driving each section of the film. In the chain gang the metal clinks and jangles fill the air during those scenes and the scenes of upward mobility the sounds are that of building. When a scene calls for tension and uncertainty, the film goes silent. These sounds sum up a theme of social realism well. If you’re on the way up it sounds like the world is being built around you. When you’re trapped, it sounds like a prison.
Allen is eventually sent back to the chain gang, back to his working-class roots. In capitalism, there doesn’t seem to be much room to move up. Even if you do, when they catch you, it’s back down to where you belong. Allen wanted to build physical bridges. He was building a metaphorical bridge between the class divide and it would be built by a lower-class man in society. When Allen makes his last escape attempt, on the way out he blows a bridge up. It brings the story full circle. A man who wanted to build bridges is forced to destroy one in order to be free. In the war he went through hell, probably saw many explosions during his service. There isn’t any escaping from the position he’s been cast in. The explosion at the bridge is last metallic or mechanical sound we hear. The film ends in silence, Allen fading into the darkness. How will he survive? He’ll have to steal from people like him because the system rewards those who steal labor.
Movie Blind Spot 
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