Hell’s House (1932) [Drama]

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“Hell’s House” is a 1932 American drama film directed by Howard Higgin. The screenplay by Paul Gangelin and B. Harrison Orkow, set during the waning days of the Prohibition era, is based on a story by Higgin.

When orphaned Jimmy Mason is taken in by his Aunt Emma and Uncle Henry, he meets their boarder Matt Kelly, who impresses the young man with his boastful swagger and alleged political connections, although in reality he’s a bootlegger. The boy’s life is disrupted when, as one of Kelly’s hired hands, he refuses to identify his boss during a police raid and is sentenced to three years of hard labor in reform school, where he befriends a sickly boy named Shorty, who eventually is sent to solitary confinement.

When Jimmy realizes his new pal is seriously ill and desperately needs medical attention, he escapes and goes to Kelly and Kelly’s girl friend, Peggy Gardner, for help. Peggy contacts newspaper columnist Frank Gebhardt, who is anxious to expose the conditions at the state industrial school. The authorities find Jimmy at Gebhardt’s office, but before they can apprehend him Kelly admits his involvement in the bootlegging operation and the boy is set free. He discovers Shorty has died, victimized by a corrupt system.

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Directed by Howard Higgin, produced by B. F. Zeidman, written by Paul Gangelin and B. Harrison Orkow, starring Bette Davis as Peggy Gardner, Pat O’Brien as Matt Kelly, Junior Durkin as Jimmy Mason, Frank Coghlan Jr. as Shorty, Emma Dunn as Emma Clark, Charley Grapewin as Henry Clark, Morgan Wallace as Frank Gebhardt, Hooper Atchley as Captain Of The Guard, Wallis Clark as Judge Robinson and James A. Marcus as Superintendent Charles Thompson.

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Source: “Hell’s House” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.. 1 March 2013. Web. 20 April 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_House.

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20 Replies to “Hell’s House (1932) [Drama]”

  1. You mean you didn't think how his mother died is important? I sure do. The whole story revolves around what happened to Jimmy after her demise. It could have been a better story if he would have at least been smart enough to recognize the killer's car. But that's the difference between a B grade movie and a mainstream movie.

  3. Don't you find it rather strange that she wanders out onto the road for no apparent reason? I found it to be even stranger when little Jimmy walks right by the same car later in the story. The script writer wasn't very good but still the movie has interesting characters in it and I loved seeing that Model A Ford roadster.

  4. Hell holes like these "schools" and "insane hospitals" started closing down all across the country in the '70s due to utterly horrendous human rights violations often exposed by very brave and heroic whistle blowers.
    I couldn't help but notice they didn't show how the guards used to beat, torture, rape and even murder the boys in the milk toast portrayals in this film, a thinly disguised whitewashing. More like… lies through omission perhaps?
    I grew up in Westborough , Massachusetts, home of the sprawling and quite notorious Lyman School for Boys and had relatives and neighbors who worked there so I know ALLLLLLLL about the filthy horrible secrets!

    http://cdn.patch.com/users/432956/2012/05/T600x450/45a735bd342e5a5e2a7a7318a25e820c.jpg

    https://lostinnewenglanddotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/img_6103.jpg

  7. Started to watch when I saw Bette Davis, but immediately stopped after hearing eenie, meanie, minie, moe, catch a nigger by the toe. Don't care what era it happened, racism is racism. Will never watch this filth.

  9. Everyone expressing disapproval of the language in this film is apparently ignorant of the fact that the only reason they perceive these words as anything other than innocent, is that THEY WERE TAUGHT TO PERCEIVE THEM AS UNDESIRABLE. Words, by themselves, are not and can not be racist. Those who claim to perceive racism in words are expressing their ignorance of etymology.

  11. Nice print. Love early Bette Davis. The pre-Code movies depicted their period during the Great Depression honestly. Nowadays films are ruled by PC restrictions so much that it distorts our perception of the real world we live in. Racism still exists – PC just encourages us to pretend like it doesn't.

  12. Junior Durkin, the 16 yr old lead actor, had the same agent as Rock Hudson later did: Henry Willson, a notorious sodomite. Junior died in a car wreck in 1935 and the only survivor of the massive crash was a fellow passenger, a young Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester). Jr was 19 when he died and it was known that he and the older Willson were living together and checking each other's oil. Willson died penniless, sick and bedridden….which is the way it should be for older men who prey on vulnerable younger men (he introduced Hudson, it is reported, to sodomy when Rock was quite young). May God forgive them all and allow them entrance into His kingdom.

  13. Back then and also in that old time rhyme "nigger" didn't always refer to black people. In that ditty 'nigger' meant the Devil. Here it is: First line-——-"Eeny meeny miney mo"Inimicus animo is Latin for "enemy of the spirit".

    Second line-——–"Catch the nigger by the toe"Use of "the" thus reinforces the concept that this refers to the Devil. It is further reinforced in that many variants use the term devil.

    Third line-——-"If he hollers let him go” This is the key line. If you catch or pinch a human toe, they will feel it and protest, but the Devil has a cloven hoof and therefore has no sensation in the toe.

  15. Around 3:44 ,did he say: Catch a…..??? Anyway,can't believe Bette Davis was in this sack of shit,but I do think Bette Davis is a little racist herself. I saw the interview she did with Dick Cavett,very disturbing.

  16. How did words like, "catch a nigger by the toe" (at 3:42) get into a mainstream movie? I know the Pre-Code early 1930s was the dark ages for being insensitive, racist, homophobic and misogynistic, Islamophobic, etc., but, you would think a serious lesson in race relations was learned from 1915's Birth of A Nation. This film is a very forgettable, unimportant filmwork. Turner Classic Movies (TCM) could have and should have bleeped the slur from when it recently shown. It ranks with any derogatory, profane word that should rarely be repeated!

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