Brubaker - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[phyllis]

The character played by M. Emmet Walsh, has the last name of Woodward. Perhaps a nod to Redford's character Bob Woodward in All the President's Men (1976), a film also co-starring Jane Alexander and John McMartin.

[kenzi]

The film's closing epilogue states: "Two years after Henry Brubaker was fired - 24 inmates, led by Richard "Dickie" Coombes, brought suit against Wakefield Prison. The court ruled that the treatment of prisoners at Wakefield was unconstitutional, and ordered the prison be reformed and closed. The governor was not re-elected." In real life, the Arkansas prison scandal became the subject of the common law case of Holt v. Sarver, filed by inmate Lawrence J. Holt against Robert Sarver, Arkansas Commissioner of Corrections. In 1969, the courts ruled that the punishment, conditions, corruption, and violence at Tucker and Cummins State Prison Farms violated inmates' constitutional rights. However, the two prison farms were not closed, and both are still used as prisons today. Also, Winthrop Rockefeller, the Arkansas governor involved in the scandal, was re-elected in 1968, but was defeated for re-election in 1970 following the Holt vs. Sarver ruling.

[jeffrey]

One of two Robert Redford movies released in 1980 that were Oscar-nominated. This film was an Academy Award nominee for Best Original Screenplay, while the other movie Ordinary People (1980), received six Oscar nominations.

[kristen]

The "warden impersonating a prisoner" story element, was fictionalized, and was not derived from Thomas O. Murton's experiences. It has been suggested, that this plot device was inspired by Sing Sing Prison Warden Thomas Mott Osborne, who, in 1913, under an assumed name, had had himself committed to New York's Auburn State Penitentiary.