I found this gem in the Warner Archive "Forbidden Hollywood" collection, a series of several dozen pre-code films; this one's from Volume 9, and it dazzled my eyes from start to 62-minute later finish, plunging at once into headlined stories concerning poor prison conditions, and then wasting no time depicting those conditions; as the film opens, a new prisoner whose hands are bleeding from using a pick axe and collapses from overwork, is put into "the sweatbox," a crenelated metal enclosure--to teach him a lesson. The camera continues a barrage of brilliantly made images edited with speed and expertise, built around the main character, Richard Dix (a hugely popular star for a short period of time), in for bank robbery, and dismayed when his younger brother ends up in the same camp. Unlike many RKO melodramas, this film has a strong documentary feeling, with some persuasive touches seldom seen in a fast-moving prison film-- during one mother's visit to the prison, the camera pauses in close-up just long enough to see a grown man feel the touch of his mother's palm. The prison supervisor is normally a unfeeling chilly individual--but in an intimate quiet scene is shown tuning up his violin and sitting down to play some music while the convicts are chained in a cage. And for those of you who are Flash Gordon devotees, Charles "Ming The Merciless" Middleton essays the prison mystic, crucial to several plot developments, and often very funny in a space of his very own. There is much to notice in the film, such as the black prisoner's chorus with a refrain that encapsulates another plot development, and the effeminate cook treated as something other than another Hollywood stereotype. Hell's Highway is one of those gems that make digging around in the old stuff worthwhile.

A film noted for having anticipated the much more (justly) renowned I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG from the same year in promoting a plea for prison reform. Being essentially a 'B' movie, this does not really have the necessary qualities to compete with that classic film (lesser star, greater sentimentality, leaner running-time, etc.) but, taken on its own terms, it has reasonable merit and is certainly punchy enough to make whatever points were intended.Richard Dix is a legendary(!) convict whose hold over the chain gang is softened with the unexpected arrival of his idolizing younger brother (for killing the man who "ratted" on his sibling!). Dix's ripe acting has not worn well the passage of time (truth be told, neither has Paul Muni's from the rival film but the latter's was generally put at the service of better movies, so one tends to accept it more readily!) – even his Oscar-nominated turn in CIMARRON (1931), a Best Picture Oscar winner no less, is apt to raise a chuckle nowadays! That said, of the number of several unwatched efforts of his that I own, I look forward to the 1929 version of the much-filmed 'old dark house' comedy-thriller SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE, the 1932 Hollywood satire THE LOST SQUADRON (with Erich von Stroheim more or less playing himself!), the early British sci-fi THE TUNNEL from 1935, and his seven appearances in the noir series of the 1940s THE WHISTLER.Anyway, the prisoners here are utilized in the building of roads (hence the title) and the severe treatment of them stems from slackening that could jeopardize meeting the deadline. To this end, the contractor involved purchases a sweat-box (subsequently made famous by David Lean's THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI [1957]) where hot-tempered convicts can be isolated to 'cool off' – however, the confined space and even more restricting shackles sometimes result in the occupant strangling himself to death (the film, in fact, starts off with real-life newspaper headlines reporting just such an incident)! After Dix's brother himself does a stretch in it, the hero is forced to compromise: if he simmers down the unrest, thus finish the road on time, the younger man is transferred to an office job with the warden…but, of course, the other prisoners begin to taunt him thereafter for being "yellow"! Eventually, the kid learns that his sibling has been made a lifer and determines to free him – the situation, however, escalates into a mass break-out and the cells themselves set on fire! When the authorities close in for the hunt, naturally, they blame everything on the two brothers! In the end, the convicts are all apprehended, with Dix going back of his own accord and carrying his injured brother (he had actually been shot with an airgun by some local children!). The contractor then screams for Dix's blood, but the kindly warden promptly produces evidence of the man's guilt in the sweat-box scandal (a happy ending which, again, is a far cry from the bleakly haunting one devised for I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG)! Moreover, there is an oddly paradoxical coda in which bible-thumping/bigamist prisoner Charles Middleton (whose wonderful performance anticipates Boris Karloff's and John Carradine's in two John Ford classics, THE LOST PATROL [1934] and THE GRAPES OF WRATH [1940] respectively!) is asked by Dix why he did not join them in the getaway when he had the chance – and the deadpan reply comes that one can escape from jail but not from (juggling between) three wives!

Well done chain gang movie - a short film, but packed with enough prison movie clichés to hold my interest for an hour including prisoners working in the hot sun with pick axes to build a highway under the supervision of mean, whip-wielding guards, the "sweat box" where prisoners get punished (sometimes to the death), bad chow (of course), black inmates singing spirituals, blackmail, murder, prison escapes, and two brothers - one the older, cocky, hardened bank robber (Richard Dix), the other a kid (Tom Brown) who seems to look up to his older brother almost like a father-figure and gets put in the prison for taking a shot at the "squealer" who sent his brother to the slammer. And to add a little color to the mix of men here - there's also a gay cook, a deaf inmate, and a prisoner who "reads the stars" and tells fortunes. There's also a bit about prison reform too, as a man is sent there to inspect the reason for the latest "sweat box death".This is quite a good film, nicely photographed in almost what I might call an early noir style with lots of dark shadows and close-ups. Richard Dix gives a really, quite good performance here - I usually think he seems a bit hammy, but this role really seemed to suit him. A young Rochelle Hudson appears here as Tom Brown's girlfriend - though her part is very, very, very brief. All in all, I found this film to be quite interesting and entertaining - well worth seeing.

By 1932 standards, this must have been a hard-hitting film at time of release during the big Depression. It still packs a punch with some grim vignettes on a chain gang with RICHARD DIX as a "Cool Hand Luke" kind of guy opposing the stiff opposition of sadistic warden C. HENRY GORDON.The story starts with a grim "sweat box" scene with JOHN ARLEDGE (as Carter) unable to perform on the chain gang and put into the infamous torture chamber. When he dies, it builds from there to rebellion among the prisoners. TOM BROWN is Dix's kid brother. He gets into a scrape on the chain gang and ends up in the sweat box too. But Dix manages to get him an office job to keep him out of future scrapes.However, the story builds to an escape by most of the convicts and punishment too for some of the authority figures. It's all over in a brief one hour and four minutes so the plot never gets too complicated but deals mostly with the brutal treatment some of the men have to endure. ROCHELLE HUDSON has a brief scene but is given virtually nothing to do but look winsome as a prison visitor.Effectve, but certainly not one of the best prison films, all of which came much later and reached their peak during the '40s.