"You have to pay dues for living," he insists. "Those who have many talents have to do more. It's always a risk but systems only change if you take a risk. If nobody ever tried we'd still be getting our meat by clubbing a saber-toothed tiger every night."

For all the good he did the prisoners at Tucker, and for all the good he might have done at Cummins, Murton still has no regrets about revealing the murders, the incident that led to his dismissal. "Murder is non-negotiable," he says passionately. "Inmates don't care what you say, they watch what you do. Once I knew about those murders, I was an accomplice unless I made some effort to unearth them, even if that meant losing my job. They couldn't have trusted me anymore."

Trust was an essential part of Murton's reform program. "Animals respond as addressed. Other organisms do too. Some of those prisoners--most--had more integrity than the officers." Murton insisted on eating with his prisoners, dressing in work clothes and supervising them personally in the fields, even encouraging his wife to work as a volunteer among the inmates.

But the success was short-lived and Murton remains bitter about the state of American prisons. "You don't put a duck in a sandbox to improve his swimming. You can't reform with this system. How is a prisoner supposed to learn democracy and decision-making in a totalitarian, fascist system? And then everyone's surprised when an ex-con fails and winds up back in prison."

Murton hopes Brubaker, which fictionalizes his experiences in a prison that represents a composite of Tucker and Cummins, may help his crusade. With his story "immortalized on screen by Big Bob," he thinks more people may act to promote prison reform. He notes that the film makes a 4-1 reduction in the pressures and horrors of a warden's job.

He calls Brubaker the best film about a plantation prison, comparing it to Cool Hand Luke, about a chain gang, and Papillon, which showed life in a penal colony. Redford, he says, seems deliberate and intelligent, perfect for the role of the good guy, the renegade hero.

In fact, Redford plays Murton with quiet aplomb. It is not a particularly demanding role; anyone can look horrified by the abuses at the Arkansas prison. And the abuses reel by in living color: whippings, rapes, tortures and murders, all preparation for the true-to-life discovery of coffins in the prison field.

Brubaker is a difficult film to dislike, and for that reason it may accomplish part of its goal, which is to educate audiences to the bloody reality of prison existence. But as entertainment, it remains somewhat bland and predictable. Redford--Murton--drives off into the sunset, leaving behind a plantation of untamed men whose personal well-being he has sacrificed to protect his moral principles.

This I'd-rather-be-right-than-warden attitude is noble but frustrating. Murton ahs made no effort to break with the Democratic system he extolls while trying to improve it; yet he refused to compromise when it came to working within the Arkansas prison system. It's hard to break with a system. It's harder to be right all the time. But it's even harder to change the system, instead of simply revealing its failures.

Murton's reforms worked for a short while. "You could argue that I made things worse for the inmates," he says, "lighting a candle to have it blown out. As people said, start a band, then they want dances. Let 'em out of their cells, they want out of prison." But ultimately the reforms upset the politicians and exposed the system." As Murton says, smiling, "It worked. That's why it failed."