The Big Pride

Three convicts escape from prison in British Guyana but cannot find personal freedom.

British Guyana, 1961: three convicts escape from prison but their botched plan immediately alerts the authorities to the breakout. Leader Sutlej (William Marshall) takes teenager Smallboy Dowling (Johnny Sekka) under his wing, but they soon find that pride and family ties threaten to ruin their desperate bids for freedom.

The Big Pride is a bold single drama made for ITV’s challenging Drama '61 slot. The writers, Guyana-born novelist Jan Carew and Jamaican critic Sylvia Wynter, were among the leading Caribbean authors of the 1950s and 1960s. Star William Marshall would later find movie fame as William Crains' Blacula (1971).