Hell's Highway (1932)

Powerful

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

**SPOILERS**Explosive exposure of the brutal prison system in the south circa 1932. With the use of chain gangs and sweat boxes to keep the inmates in line and in order but where in many cases these brutal practices are used as medieval torture devices. By the sadistic guards and their overseers, the big boss men, who worked prisoners almost to, and many times passed, the point of death. We get to see what's happening at the prison camp when one of the new inmates Carter,John Arledge, who's unable to keep up with his fellow prisoners at the rock pile is thrown into the notorious sweat-box. Put in a stress-position the poor young man, who's almost dehydrated already, is left there for hours in the broiling sun where he eventually dies and his death is reported to be by the corrupt master of the guards Skinner, C. Henry Gordon, a suicide.It soon becomes apparent that the prisoners are not being there in the name of Justice but are there to be used as slave labor in building a road, the aptly named Hell's Highway, for this local construction magnet Billings, Oscar Apfel, who's paying off the Boss Man, Skinner, to get the job done even if he has to work them all to death to do it. It the mist of all of this chaos and human degradation there's the hardened and unapologetic Duke Ellis, Richard Dix, the toughest guy in the joint who's planning to stage a break out. Ellis later gets cold feet at the very last moment not because of the fear of death but because he spots his kid brother Johnny, Tom Brown, in the prison camp who was just brought there for trying to gun down the stool pigeon who ratted on him.Tough guy Duke always wanting his brother Johnny to look after their mom and Johnny's sweetheart Mary Ellen there and then decided to go straight in not starting any trouble with both the prisoners and guards and look after young Johnny. Ellis tries to get him off this tough guy act in trying to imitate himself and end up in the same position, a lifer with no chance of parole, instead of him being able to get out on parole in less then a year.Things aren't as easy as Duke thought they would be with the hot headed Johnny getting into a fight with one of the prisoners, who stole his photo of Mary Ellen, and at the same knocking down a guard who tried to brake it up ending up in the sweat-box. Duke blackmailing Pop-eye, Warner Richmond, the captain of the guards in getting Johnny out of the sweat-box with the threat of proving that it was he not the two escaped prisoners, who were later shot dead, who murdered his old lady. This happened when he, thanks to prison fortune teller Matthew (Chas Middleton), caught her in bed with another man.Getting Johnny a job at the prison office Duke thought that would keep his nose clean until he's let out on parole but it has the opposite effect on Johnny, feeling that he'll be considered a rat by the other prisoners, not wanting to be a pampered office boy but a hardened criminal like his big brother Duke. In order to prove himself Johnny stages another break out that goes completely haywire with the entire poison camp being burned down. During the confusion Johnny saved the entire contingent of prison guards from burning to death interrupting his getaway. On eh run Johnny ends up getting shot in the back ,not by the guards or fellow prisoners, by this group of mutes out hunting in the country who somehow mistook Johnny for a wild animal.Hard hitting and thought-provoking motion picture about brutality behind prison bars with only the ending being a bit too hard to take. Both Duke and Johnny not only survive their ordeal by fire but also get the goods on both Billings and his paid off butt-kissing Boss Man Skinner. The really out of touch with reality, and the law, Billings incriminated himself by sending an official letter to the prison administration. In the letter he praised what a good job Skinner and is boys did in installing the sweat-box that put fear and terror into the hearts of the prisoners and at the same time got them to work harder in building his notorious Hell's Highway. The letter implicating him, as well as Boss Man Skinner, in the brutal and torture murder of inmate Carter as well. P.S For the first and last time in his life Duke was more then willing to play the part of a stool pigeon, the worst thing a prisoner could do, in being the one person to testify in open court against the unscrupulous Billings and sadistic Skinner; and you know what! not a single one of his fellow inmates will hold it against him for doing that.

This was a tough prison to be in. The inmates were dispatched to chain gangs, and instead of stripes on their shirts, they wore bullseyes on their backs. That made it a lot easier to chase down and shoot escapees. At night they slept in what amounted to large cages with bunk beds, about 8 to 10 men per cage.William Billings is the local contractor, and he stands to make a good profit constructing a new road with chain gang labor. He also has a special "hot box" built, to encourage prisoners to work hard. They referred to it as the "hospital." Richard Dix, star of that era, is hardened criminal 'Duke' Ellis, and on this chain gang. Things turn when his little brother, played by 18 year old Tom Brown as 'Johnny' Ellis gets in there too. He tried to shoot a man who was a witness against Duke.When Johnny, working in the office, notices that Michigan wants Duke to be extradited, for a 4th offense, which means "life", Johnny decides to try to break him out. Things go wrong, but eventually the prisoners get satisfaction when Billings is arrested for murder for having one man die in the hot box. Duke would be a witness against him, and Johnny would be allowed to get out in a few more days because he saved some guards from the fire.

To me this film shown on TCM @ 2 wks ago early am! (end of NOV. 03) left such an impact. on me Never Heard or seen before!! . wow..better than I AM A Fugitive From A Chain Gang!! before the code was in progress.. A prison drama depicting the harsh realities & also the racial & sexual innuendoes which awhile later would have been censored: WATCH!!! Observe the cook in the Prison..obviously gay or "Pansy" being slapped on the behind by one of the male wardens.. & later talking about a funeral which he'll never forget, where the Pansies were sooo large"!! & the immortal Louise Beavers visiting her boyfriend in same prison"rolling her eyes" & making it clear that she wishes her "Handy Man" was free.. so she could feel so much better!!!& he sees her & states he"aint well since he ain't had no 'sugar"...wow could not believe my eyes & ears !!& the relationship between the imprisoned brothers..THIS FILM SHOULD BE ON DVD/and or VHS has a lot to say about prisons of the South at that time (early 1930s) & sexual mores & racial attitudes way back then.. should not be missed !an Historic Document!!! How did we let this one pass?? & Rochelle Hudson? gorgeous & beautiful Want to see again..Thanks TCM once more

It's like a touring production of the Warner's classic, stripped down to 62 minutes and missing both the star power and the production values. And despite all the entertaining muckraking, it indulges in Hollywoodisms -- this chain gang can sing like the Hall Johnson Choir while swinging pickaxes, and Dix wakes under filthy conditions with smooth shaven cheeks and lit like a big movie star. But most of the details are right, and the unrelenting pessimism and brooding -- Dix doesn't even play a framed innocent a la Paul Muni, so he's less sympathetic -- is refreshingly against the grain. The director and cinematographer do a lot with deep focus and expressionistic angles, and the pre-Code grittiness -- lots of unblinking violence and death -- feel almost modern.