Making a Mann: Revisiting Michael Mann’s Feature Debut, The Jericho Mile

The Jericho Mile opens in montage, with rhythmic cutting juxtaposing a muraled wall of faces with the activities of Black, white and Latino prisoners as they largely self-segregate in the yard. Running between them all, quite literally, is Murphy and Stiles (Richard Lawson). The two operate as natural foils, with Murphy literally running away from his thoughts, while Stiles is always too aware about the family life he is missing in the outside world. The friendship between the two in their adjacent cells exists beyond the socially segregated reality of the prison, where Murphy (white) and Stiles (Black) as individuals can be good friends, although that doesn’t give either a foot-in to each other’s groups. This, too, is borrowed from Bunker, where Dembo is only briefly able to say goodbye to his best friend in Folsom, Aaron, because neither are comfortable hanging around groups of people of different races with how high-tension the ‘60s had become. 

While the race dynamics of prison life are omitted from Straight Time, those conflicts are examined at length in The Jericho Mile (interestingly, neither work attempts to adapt Bunker’s shockingly frank depictions of prison sexuality). Early in the latter film, Murphy finds out his wife just gave birth to a daughter, although he has to turn to the leader of the white gang, Dr. D (Brian Dennehy), to try to finagle a conjugal visit. When a woman he’s never seen before shows up instead of his wife, Stiles realizes he’s been set up by Dr. D to mule drugs into Folsom. Furious, Stiles backs out and the woman gets pinched. Murphy tries to warn Stiles to get himself into confinement, away from Dr. D’s gang, but it turns out to be too late. The hit is already out. 

It’s an unending series of retaliation after retaliation. Stiles walks off on Dr. D, Dr. D has Stiles killed, Murphy gets back at Dr. D by getting him the only place it hurts: Dr. D’s stash of cash. While his men hold him back as he watches his money literally burn away at Murphy’s hands, Dr. D swears put an end to Murphy’s last bit of hope: He’s going to stop the inmates from building a track that Murphy can run an OAU-sanctioned (the film’s stand-in for the United States Olympic Committee) race on in his journey to qualify for the Olympics .

When Murphy’s running grabs the attention of Warden Gulliver (Billy Green Bush), seeing an opportunity for a glint of glory in trying to get Murphy the Olympics, Murphy initially turns him down. Like so many anti-institutional Michael Mann protagonists that came after him, Murphy doesn’t bite—he doesn’t run for anyone or anything. Things change after Stiles is killed. He leverages the warden’s desires to get access alone to the metal shop, which he rips up both in anger and to find Dr. D’s stash. Dr. D’s revenge on Murphy doesn’t work out—he first tries to pin Stiles’ death on Murphy, but Cotton Crown (Roger E. Mosley), one of the Black leaders, quickly finds out this wasn’t the case. This attempt at inflaming racial hatred backfires on Dr. D, as the Latino gang finds out he wasn’t striking against the track as a political action, but as a personal vendetta against Murphy (interestingly, one of the Latino inmates Mann hired to act in the movie was played by Gilbert Tewksbury, Danny Trejo’s uncle). This turns the struggle between Murphy and Dr. D from a personal battle into a fight between Dr. D’s white gang and the rest of the prison population. The violence that ensues gives way to mutual labor and newfound solidarity amongst the prisoners—they’re building the track for Murphy, and Murphy now understands he’s running for them. 

During an exercise run ahead of the race, Murphy’s trainer, Jerry Beloit (Ed Lauter) passes along a gift from Murphy’s psychologist at Folsom, Dr. Janowski (Geoffrey Lewis). It’s a stopwatch with an inscription on the back. “To ‘The Jericho Mile.’ What’s that mean?” Murphy asks. “Maybe it’s got something to do with the walls come tumblin’ down.” There’s the obvious double-edged intent to the message, where running can bring down the literal walls of the prison but also the psychological ones that Janowski has been so desperately trying to break through. There is, however, a cruel irony to it too, maybe lost on all those involved: The walls of Jericho were brought down by people screaming from the outside, not the voices trapped within. 

When Mann was at the London Film School in the late ‘60s, it’s possible that he might have seen Tony Richardson’s kitchen sink realist classic The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, about a teenage inmate who is offered favoritism by the borstal’s governor because he believes that the boy could win races for him against real boarding schools, bringing prestige to his carceral institution. During the heartwrenching finale, the runner quits in protest just a yard or two before winning—he’ll throw everything away just to prove to himself he won’t be used by anybody. 

There’s an interesting connection to be drawn between the two films, in that Murphy starts off from that position, but slowly builds up to the idea that he can play the system, and that there is a fulfilling communal exercise in doing so. Murphy wins the race, but he still won’t get to qualify for the Olympics—the OAU doesn’t think it would be a good look to have someone who murdered their father running with them. They’re a private institution reliant on donors, after all, and people don’t care if Murphy had a good reason for doing what he did. He’s a societal reject, an outcast, and nothing he can ever do will allow him to re-enter the conservative society outside the walls. 

With Murphy arriving back at Folsom, everything seems just as it started: Inmates working out in the yard, people shooting the shit in their respective corners. Over the radio plays a report of the OAU Nationals, with one runner setting a 3:50.6 in the mile. Murphy changes into his running shorts and grabs his stopwatch. As he starts his mile around the yard, the other inmates slowly start to take notice. As he comes around the final stretch, one inmate grabs his hand and checks the time: “You did it man!” In triumph, Murphy throws the stopwatch, exploding it against the unphased walls of Folsom. The physical walls don’t come down, but he did finally break the walls in his mind.

Alex Lei is writer and filmmaker currently based in Baltimore. He can usually be found on Twitter.