Zeus

Experiment Alcatraz (1950)

• Director
  • Edward L. Cahn
• Writers
  • George W. George(story)
  • Orville H. Hampton(screenplay)
  • George F. Slavin(story)
• Stars
  • John Howard
  • Joan Dixon
  • Walter Kingsford

  Experiment Alcatraz stars John Howard as a doctor who develops a serum to cure radioactive poisoning. He tests it on several Alcatraz "lifers," who have volunteered for the experiment on the promise of freedom if they survive. A murder within the group casts aspersions on the doctor, but the mystery is solved before the allotted hour's running time is up. While hardly a surefire candidate for box office success, Experiment Alcatraz was purchased for release by RKO for a sum of $100,000. The film had been independently produced a year before its distribution, its lack of production polish betraying its shoestring origins. Coincidentally, leading man John Howard "continued" in the medical profession as the star of the mid-1950s TV series Dr. Hudson's Secret Journal.