Movie Plots
Based on the life of Robert Stroud, a convict who, while in solitary confinement, began a menagerie of birds. When they begin to mysteriously die he educated himself about bird disease, publishing his findings in periodicals, until at one point he was considered the foremost authority on the subject. -- phantom
As an inmate at Leavenworth prison, Robert Stroud has a series of
confrontations with the guards and with the other convicts. When Stroud
kills a guard, he is sentenced to be executed, and only his mother's
impassioned intervention gets his sentence commuted to life
imprisonment, which he must serve in solitary confinement. As he serves
out his sentence in boredom and despair, one day he finds a helpless
baby sparrow in the exercise yard. Stroud soon takes a deep interest in
caring for birds, which gives him a new purpose in life, but which also
brings new conflicts with prison authorities.
