Mrs. Soffel

Mrs. Soffel is set in Pittsburgh around 1901, where Kate Soffel, the wife of a prison warden, lives with her husband and their four children. Kate visits the jail to read the Bible to the inmates and becomes acquainted with Ed Biddle and his brother Jack, who are held on death row after being convicted of murder. She grows increasingly drawn to Ed, and their relationship leads her to help the brothers break out. She then travels with them toward Canada, leaving her husband and family behind.

The film was directed by Gillian Armstrong and written by Ron Nyswaner. It followed Armstrong's earlier features My Brilliant Career and Starstruck, and came before the films she made in later decades, including Little Women, Charlotte Gray and Death Defying Acts. Diane Keaton plays Kate Soffel, with Mel Gibson and Matthew Modine as the Biddle brothers, Edward Herrmann as Warden Peter Soffel, and Trini Alvarado and Jennifer Dundas among the supporting cast. It was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with a budget of eleven million dollars and took about four million dollars at the worldwide box office.

On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.1 from roughly 3,900 votes, while on TMDB its rating stands at 6 from a much smaller number of votes.