Hell's House

In the days of Prohibition, orphaned country boy Junior Durkin (as James "Jimmy" Mason) goes to live in the city with his aunt and uncle, after his mother is hit by a car. There, Mr. Durkin becomes meets, and hero-worships charismatic boarder Pat O'Brien (as Matt Kelly). Durkin doesn't know it, but Mr. O'Brien is a bootlegger. O'Brien dupes Durkin into being the lookout for a cache of liquor, which police discover. Durkin naively thinks the booze was planted, and refuses to squeal. O'Brien lets the lad take the rap, and Durkin is sentenced to three years in "The State Industrial School for Boys".

After arguing over who gets top, Durkin befriends bunkmate Frank "Junior" Coghlan (as "Shorty"), who has a heart ailment. Conditions in the reformatory are terrible. The boys have a plan to spring Durkin, but young Coghlan is caught. While his pal lies close to death, in solitary confinement, Durkin breaks out to enlist O'Brien's help in finding suitable doctors for Coghlan. But, O'Brien doesn't want to get involved, or he'll have to leave pretty Bette Davis (as Peggy Gardner) for prison...

Howard Higgin's "Hell House" was relatively ahead of the juvenile reformatory curve, and boasts several points of interest.

First off, you have the two "Juniors" Durkin and Coghlan in the same picture, comparable to the 1980s "Coreys" Haim and Feldman. Durkin even looks a little like Feldman. Unfortunately, Durkin died in a car accident. Coghlan's supporting performance upstages even Ms. Davis - and, you will see Davis get her hair messed up as O'Brien tell her, "I just washed my hands and I can't do a thing with 'em!" Note, this was before Davis uttered her famous trademark response, "I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair" (see "The Cabin in the Cotton"). Finally, you have a delirious Coghlan "talking" to his dead mother quite credibly in one scene - and, in the end, Durkin's deathly "conversation" gives the story startling emotional closure.

******* Hell's House (1/30/32) Howard Higgin ~ Junior Durkin, Frank Coghlan Jr., Pat O'Brien, Bette Davis

Despite the fact that Bette Davis takes top billing here, she rarely features in this rather effective tale of a young boy "Jimmy" (Junior Durkin), who does the right thing and ends up taking the rap for bootlegger "Kelly" (Pat O'Brien). His integrity now sees him in Reform School for three years. There he befriends "Shorty" (Frank Coghlan Jr.) and together we experience the hardships faced by these young men as they are essentially incarcerated, used and forgotten about. Meantime, newspaper man "Gebhardt" (Morgan Wallace) is set on exposing the truth about this place and improving the standards for the boys. Can he do it before tragedy ensues? The film belongs to the charming and decent "Jimmy", and Durkin turns in an engaging performance in the role as the young, naive and optimistic young man ill-equipped for his new life in city where he is ripe for exploitation. It builds slowly, but well until a denouement that is maybe a bit late in the day, but fitting nonetheless. The production is all a bit basic, but I still quite enjoyed this.

Plot-- Following his mother's untimely death, young Jimmy (Durkin) is misled into a crime by fast-talking family friend Kelly (O'Brien). Betrayed again by Kelly, Jimmy is sent to a boy's reformatory where he experiences many institutional cruelties, but also meets fellow inmate Shorty (Coghlan), where a fast-friendship is formed. The question is what will become of Jimmy, friend Shorty, and will the cruelties of the reformatory and Kelly be rectified.

That reformatory brickyard is stacked to the skies and unlike anything I've seen. Should the mountainous stacks tumble, I doubt the boy stackers would ever be found. The movie's an interesting antique (1932) where O'Brien gets to show his fast-talking specialty as a pretentious bootlegger. But the real focus is Durkin, a likable kid, maybe too much so for the toughened last part. Sorry to say Davis's role looks like an add-on as O'Brien's conscionable girlfriend, and one that also gets a woman into a mainly male cast. It's still early in her career, but already Davis has that hard-eyed stare. And catch that toe-the-line stare-at-the-wall punishment misbehaving boys have to go through. That too is unlike anything I've seen.

Anyway, most of the runtime occurs inside the reformatory, minus the two top-billed players. Apparently, Durkin didn't have that same name recognition even though he gets the screen time. Too bad he died at such a young age and with so much to live for. His scenes with Junior Coughlin are unusually tender and moving, and dare-I-say, almost homo-erotic. All in all, the movie's in the prison-reform wave that occupied much of Hollywood at the time- e.g. Hell's Highway (1932); I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932). Despite the many passing decades, the hour still holds interest, so shouldn't be passed up

One of the first films Bette D ever did. and unfortunately, one of the last that Howard Higgin directed. and almost the end of the road for Junior Durkin (played "Jimmy") as well. more about them later. In the film, Jimmy's mom gets bumped off, and he goes to live with relatives. Pat Obrien is "Kelly", a no-good boarder, and Davis is his girl. Jimmy takes the fall for Kelly, and now he's off to reform school. Sound and picture are pretty rough, which is probably why we never see this one on Turner Classics. director Higgin died quite young at 47. and Junior Durkin, the "star" of this also died young, at 19 in a car accident. Durkin also lost his own mother at a young age, just like in this film. The car was driven by friend Jackie Coogan. The film's okay. and a good oppurtunity to see a young Bette Davis in an early, small role. Showing on Moonlight Movies channel.

The reviews for this film posted here (quite a large number) reflect badly not on the movie, over 90 years old now, but on the submitters. They take a high-handed tone as if the movie had been shot recently, reflecting/comparing it to current budgets, techniques, sensibilities. I'd hate to see their reactions to silent films, only four or five years earlier than this one.

Silent Era Pathos was a formidable approach to movie making a hundred years ago, from Chaplin to Borzage, and a surefire way of captivating an audience. The simplicity of "Hell's House" in aiming for pathos is its strength, not a weakness, and its lack of flashiness (in camerawork or other techniques) is because it's not an All-Star big-budget picture or a musical extravaganza.

I truly enjoyed this simplicity, the unaffected performance by Junior, who resembles a young Sean Penn. The immense charisma bursting from stars Pat O'Brien (perfectly cast as the glad-handing con man) and just starting out Bette Davis balances the downbeat subject matter. Director/story writer Howard Higgin makes his point on prison reform -reform school subset here - without sensationalism, while obviously today's audience is looking for an exploitation movie approach a la Reefer Madness.

One sidelight: the young Bette Davis is a dead ringer (no pun intended) for current porn starlet Chloe Cherry, an amazing resemblance I hadn't noted even after seeing dozens of Cherry's videos, probably because in my mind's eye I imagine Davis with her iconic look years later in her career. Chloe's star quality has served her well, as she is one of the rare actresses to make a name for herself in the mainstream (via "Euphoria" and social media) after being pigeonholed in the still-looked down upon porn industry.