| Director | Millard Kaufman |
|---|
It is Christmas, 1931, and John Resko wants to give his baby daughter a new teddy bear. He goes, without money, into a shop and tries to get the shopkeeper to give it to him saying he will pay him later. The prosperous shopkeeper, who cleans his eyeglasses with a dollar bill, refuses. Resko grabs a gun he saw in the till and points it at the man. The shopkeeper lunges at Resko and is shot. Resko is condemned to the electric chair at the age of eighteen.
Pardoned by the governor at the last minute, Resko is sentenced to life imprisonment, and he has difficulty adjusting to life behind bars. It becomes even less bearable after hearing that his wife has left him and that his father has died while rescuing a drowning child to make up for the life that was lost.
Resko attempts to escape twice, and does long stretches in solitary confinement. But he is befriended eventually by fellow convicts like Iggy and Wino who help him to pass the time. When he takes up art as a hobby, Resko's work is seen by an art critic, Carl Carmer, who believes him to have promise.
In 1949, after 18 years in prison, Resko is released. His daughter and granddaughter are waiting when he gets out.