Fortune and Men's Eyes

Smitty, a young man sentenced to six months for possession of marijuana, falls under the domination of an inmate named Rocky and is subjected to sexual violence. The film does not present this as a relationship; it tells how hierarchy and the need for protection build a system of coercion. The disproportion between the shortness of the sentence and what happens inside is the story’s point of departure. The account was adapted from a play and takes place in a single setting, the cell block. Nobody emerges as a rescuer and no help comes from the institution. How Smitty changes over time is the film’s real subject. It is one of the few works of 1971 to take up this subject openly. Wendell Burton and Zooey Hall appear in Harvey Hart’s hundred and two minute Canadian film, completed in 1971.