Last Mile, The

Last Mile, The (1930), a drama by John Wexley. [Sam H. Harris Theatre, 285 perf.] The prisoners on death row at Keystone State Penitentiary help Richard Walters ( James Bell) sit out his last moments. Two weeks later it is Eddie Werner's turn to die. But as a guard comes to give Eddie ( George Leach) his final meal, the other prisoners, led by the hardened, ruthless John Mears ( Spencer Tracy), seize the guard and kill him. A bloody mutiny has begun, which for a time appears to be succeeding. However, the odds against the prisoners ultimately prove irresistible. Realizing the futility of his uprising, Mears walks out to surrender and is gunned down. Noting that it had been many years since a play caused so much excitement in theatrical circles, Burns Mantle found the Herman Shumlin production “a tragedy so tense, so stripped of theatrical artificialities, and emotionally so moving that even calloused reviewers of plays were frank to admit its disturbing and unsettling effect upon their nerves.” The first act was derived largely from a short play written by an inmate, Robert Blake, who had been executed shortly afterward. He claimed his dialogue was mostly verbatim transcriptions of actual conversations. The New York–born John WEXLEY (1907–85) was a nephew of Maurice Schwartz and was also an actor. He wrote numerous one‐act plays as well as two other full‐length plays that were presented in New York: the labor drama Steel (1931) and They Shall Not Die (1934), a dramatization of the Scottsboro case. Spencer TRACY (1900–67), a native of Milwaukee, had appeared in a number of Broadway plays during the 1920s, but only achieved major attention with this performance. His distinguished film career began when he re‐created this role on screen. Except for starring in the short‐lived Robert Sherwood drama The Rugged Path (1945), the remainder of his career was in films.