40 Fun Facts About Escape From Alcatraz

In Escape from Alcatraz, which real gangster does Litmus claim to be when he meets a new inmate?

Al Capone is the name Litmus gives the newcomer Charley Butts, who is not sharp enough to doubt it. The real mob boss spent years as a prisoner on the island.

In Escape from Alcatraz, which mess-hall utensils do the inmates use to dig through cell walls?

Spoons from the dining hall did the digging in the real 1962 breakout too, helped by discarded saw blades found on the prison grounds.

What do the escapees in Escape from Alcatraz glue together to build their raft and life preservers?

Raincoats were the real material too: the 1962 escapees gathered more than fifty of them and stitched the seams of their six-by-fourteen-foot raft by hand.

Escape from Alcatraz reunited Clint Eastwood with the director of which 1971 police thriller?

Dirty Harry was the fourth film the pair made together. The prison thriller eight years later was their fifth and last.

Which future Lethal Weapon star made his film debut as an inmate in Escape from Alcatraz?

Danny Glover is credited simply as an inmate. Eight years later he became Sergeant Murtaugh opposite Mel Gibson.

Which TV show tested the 1962 Alcatraz escape in 2003 by paddling a homemade raft across the bay?

MythBusters hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage reached the Marin Headlands on their replica raft and ruled the breakout possible.

The Anglin brothers of Alcatraz fame claimed the one weapon they ever used in a heist was what?

A toy gun was all they admitted to carrying. Convicted of a 1958 bank raid in Columbia, Alabama, the brothers landed on the island after trying to break out of other prisons.

Where did the 1962 Alcatraz escapees get the real hair for the dummy heads left in their bunks?

The barbershop floor supplied the clippings, and paint from the maintenance shop made the heads lifelike enough that nobody noticed the men were gone until 7 a.m.

In Escape from Alcatraz, what kind of pet does the dessert-loving inmate Litmus keep?

A mouse is his companion. Litmus, played by Frank Ronzio, is among the first prisoners Frank Morris gets to know in the dining hall.

Which US Attorney General ordered Alcatraz closed in 1963, less than a year after the famous escape?

Robert F. Kennedy shut the prison because salt water had eroded its buildings and each inmate cost about three times as much to hold there as in Atlanta.

In Escape from Alcatraz, which flower does the inmate painter Doc treat as a symbol of freedom?

Chrysanthemum blooms appear in the portraits Doc paints. The flower motif was invented for the film, including the one the warden finds after the breakout.

In Escape from Alcatraz, which tool does the painter Doc use to cut off his own fingers?

A hatchet in the workshop does it after the warden takes away his painting privileges. The scene echoes inmate Rufe Persful, who cut off four fingers in 1937 hoping for a transfer.

Where is Frank Morris sent in Escape from Alcatraz after his yard fight with the bully Wolf?

Solitary confinement in D Block holds both men once the guards break up the fight. Wolf's release from it near the end of the film pushes Morris to bring the breakout forward.

What title did the future director of Escape from Alcatraz give his 1966 treatment of the story?

The Rock, the island's nickname, was the name he gave his version twelve years before filming began. It later titled a 1996 film set there.

Which craft material do the Escape from Alcatraz inmates sculpt into fake heads for their beds?

Papier-mâché heads painted in flesh tones lie on the pillows during the night counts. The film's last shot lingers on the decoy made for Frank Morris.

Agents who rejected the Escape from Alcatraz script said the story lacked which Hollywood staple?

A love interest was one complaint, along with poor dialogue and a belief that the public did not want prison stories. The writer went around them, straight to a filmmaker.

Why did the Escape from Alcatraz crew shoot most of the real cell-house interiors at night?

To avoid tour groups: the island was already open to visitors, and the production had agreed with park officials not to get in their way.

What does Frank Morris steal from the warden's desk at their first meeting in Escape from Alcatraz?

A nail clipper vanishes while the warden boasts that nobody has ever broken out. Morris later uses its file to start chipping at the wall around his cell's air vent.

Which star of the 1960s TV series The Prisoner plays the warden in Escape from Alcatraz?

Patrick McGoohan had created that series and played its lead, Number Six. Here he switches sides as a jailer who is never given a name.

Which director made Escape from Alcatraz, his fifth and final film with Clint Eastwood?

Don Siegel bought the script himself for $100,000 so the film would be his own production. The move caused a rift with his star, and they never made another picture together.

In Escape from Alcatraz, where do the three escapees aim their raft after leaving the prison shore?

Angel Island lay about two miles to the north, and the real escapees planned to land there before heading to the mainland to steal clothes and a car.

Which actor plays the painter Doc in Escape from Alcatraz and Old Man Marley in Home Alone?

Roberts Blossom was a poet as well as a character actor, with three Obie Awards for his stage work. After retiring he moved to Berkeley, California, to write poetry.

Which Marvel series revealed that its character Casey is a variant of Alcatraz escapee Frank Morris?

Loki travels back to the night of the 1962 breakout during the show's time-slipping second season, with the episode's two directors playing the Anglin brothers.

Which magazine gave Frank Morris the life-vest design used in the 1962 Alcatraz escape?

Popular Mechanics ran the design in its March 1962 issue, three months before the breakout. Morris also read a Sports Illustrated article about channel buoys.

Which instrument did Frank Morris play to mask the digging noise before the 1962 Alcatraz escape?

An accordion did the job during the prison's music hour. A second squeezebox, a concertina taken from another inmate, became the bellows that inflated the raft.

The 1962 Alcatraz escapees built a makeshift electric drill from the motor of which appliance?

A vacuum cleaner motor powered the drill, and for months the men hid the widened vents under their sinks behind painted cardboard.

In Escape from Alcatraz, how does the inmate Litmus die after the warden crushes Doc's flower?

A heart attack strikes Litmus as he lunges at the warden in fury. Frank Morris had placed the bloom on the dining table to honor Doc.

Which future star of Tremors and The Right Stuff plays John Anglin in Escape from Alcatraz?

Fred Ward had his first major role here. He went on to play astronaut Gus Grissom and Earl Bassett, the hero of a 1990 monster movie.

How did Richard Tuggle first see Alcatraz before writing the script for the Clint Eastwood film?

As a tourist in the mid-1970s he became intrigued by the 1962 breakout. After being laid off from a job in health publishing, he spent six months researching and writing the script.

Which agency took over the hunt for the Alcatraz escapees after the FBI closed its file in 1979?

U.S. Marshals Service deputies inherited the evidence in the same year the Clint Eastwood film reached cinemas, after a seventeen-year FBI investigation.

Which real inmate was left behind in his cell on the night of the 1962 Alcatraz escape?

Allen West could not shift the grille over his vent in time, and when he finally reached the roof the others had gone. The film renames him Charley Butts.

Which actor, later Mr. Heckles on Friends, plays Charley Butts in Escape from Alcatraz?

Larry Hankin plays the one conspirator who loses his nerve and misses the breakout. He later appeared in Breaking Bad and as the actor cast as Kramer on Seinfeld.

Which Hollywood studio released the Clint Eastwood prison thriller Escape from Alcatraz in 1979?

Paramount approved the project swiftly once the director, who owned the script, brought it in. After seven weeks on location, filming finished on its Hollywood soundstages.

Which Clint Eastwood company, named after a California creek, produced Escape from Alcatraz?

Malpaso means bad step in Spanish, which is what an agent reportedly called the star's decision to make A Fistful of Dollars.

Escape from Alcatraz is based on a 1963 book by J. Campbell Bruce, a reporter for which newspaper?

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Bruce covered the prison's whole history, with the 1962 breakout as only one part. The publisher gave up the film rights in a simple letter.

The Escape from Alcatraz director shot 1954's Riot in Cell Block 11 inside which California prison?

Folsom let him film with real inmates and guards in the background, a taste for authentic locations he brought to the bay a quarter of a century later.

A 1975 photo from the Anglin family claimed to show the Alcatraz escapees alive in which country?

Brazil is where a family friend said he met the brothers and photographed them beside a termite mound. Investigators were split on whether the two men were really the Anglins.

Where was Alcatraz's real warden, Olin Blackwell, when three inmates broke out in June 1962?

On vacation in Napa County, he had left an acting warden in charge. The film keeps one unnamed, fictional warden in command throughout.

Which famous film critic gave Escape from Alcatraz 3.5 stars out of 4, praising its storytelling?

Roger Ebert admired how little the characters say while the camera does the explaining. His one complaint was the ending.

In Escape from Alcatraz, what weapon does the bully Wolf pull on Frank Morris in the yard?

A knife comes out after Morris beats him in the showers. On the last day Wolf tries again, and another prisoner's gang steps in to stop him.