Claim: Clint Eastwood played a role.

Escape from Alcatraz is a 1979 American prison thriller film directed by Don Siegel . It is an adaptation of the 1963 non-fiction book of the same name by J. Campbell Bruce and dramatizes the 1962 prisoner escape from the maximum security prison on Alcatraz Island . The film stars Clint Eastwood , Jack Thibeau and Fred Ward as prisoners Frank Morris , Clarence Anglin and John Anglin . Allen West was played by Larry Hankin ; his character 's name was changed to Charley Butts . Patrick McGoohan portrays the suspicious , vindictive warden and Danny Glover appears in his film debut . Escape from Alcatraz marks the fifth and final collaboration between Siegel and Eastwood , following Coogan 's Bluff -LRB- 1968 -RRB- , Two Mules for Sister Sara -LRB- 1970 -RRB- , The Beguiled -LRB- 1971 -RRB- and Dirty Harry -LRB- 1971 -RRB- .