Robert Redford is in reformist mode here as a progressive warden, determined to oust brutality and corruption from a state prison farm. Director Stuart Rosenberg (Cool Hand Luke) piles on the agony with sequences of bleak action, while the acting - especially from Jane Alexander and Yaphet Kotto - is formidable enough to take on all that social responsibility. It's a touch downbeat, and at times ponderous and sanctimonious, but this prison drama still sounds a shrill warning and sends out an ominous message to those who care about what society does with its misfits. Watch out, too, for an early pre-stardom appearance by Morgan Freeman as a fearsome inmate.

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.