ofumalow One of only three films (all of them apparently very good) by Rowland Brown, who had more success as a screenwriter, this was released the same year as "I Was a Fugitive From a Chain Gang," and apparently its studio had to make some changes in order to avoid potential plagiarism litigation from Warner Brothers. But beyond also being set in a Southern prison work camp, it's very much its own distinctive film in story and style. The once highly popular, now largely forgotten Richard Dix is fine as the tough veteran convict dismayed when his hero-worshipping younger brother turns up as a fellow inmate, having glamorized his older sibling's outlaw machismo and severely under-estimating the potentially fatal hardships of being sentenced to such an establishment. Eventually there's an escape attempt, but that doesn't happen until late; most of "Hell's Highway" is concerned with everyday life in the prison camp, and despite its very economical running time, does an impressive job representing the diversity of personality/racial/et al. types amongst both convicts and staff. There's room for humor as well as blunt indictment (of an abusive for-profit prison labor system that's all too relevant today). It's one of those striking vintage movies that packs an unbelievable amount of well-thought-out ideas and drama into a compact package that seldom seems rushed or over-simplified. The only viewers who might be disappointed are those who are here for Rochelle Hudson--though second-billed, she only has one scene in a standard ingenue role, which makes sense this movie takes place in a brutal, self-contained world that has no use for women.

MartinHafer What surprised me about "Hell's Highway" more than anything else was that it addressed the abuses of the chain gang system two months before the much more famous "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" debuted. So why is the latter film a super-famous film for its social commentary and "Hell's Highway" is pretty much forgotten? Well, the biggest reason is focus. In "Hell's Highway", while the system is bad, the movie ALSO focuses on the inmates--and shows them, in most cases, as a bunch of bad folks. Killers, thieves, cut-throats and homosexuals seem to make up most of the prisoners--so at the time the message of reform was somehow lost. The public no doubt was torn between hating the prisoners and the system that mistreated them.The film stars Richard Dix in an unusual role. He plays perhaps the toughest of all these prisoners--a guy respected yet feared by everyone. Only when his young brother is also committed to this same chain gang is Dix's toughness challenged. Amidst this strange family reunion is the purpose of this chain gang--not to rehabilitate but to provide cheap labor for a jerk trying to produce a road and make himself rich in the process.The film excels due to pretty good acting and an exciting script. While it's not as timeless and important as "I Am a Fugitive...", it is, nonetheless, well worth seeing and might surprise you at the film's quality and strength.sign language gibberish

sol **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.

bkoganbing Warner Brothers classic I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang coming from a bigger studio as it did overshadowed RKO's Hell's Highway. That's a pity because the fact that the two films came out around the same time robbed this one of the attention it deserves.Richard Dix and Tom Brown play the Ellis Brothers, a pair of convicts in a southern state prison of unknown name. Dix is a hardened convict, a lifer who's about to have it made official because he was convicted of his fourth offense and falls under the habitual criminal act.Dix has a hero worshiping younger brother in Brown who gets himself tossed in the slam because he decides to even the score for Dix by shooting someone who ratted his brother out. Dumb kid, he's lucky he missed otherwise it would be a very long stretch.As in I Am a Fugitive From a Chang Gang the emphasis is on the horrible conditions in these prisons, they are every bit as gruesome as they are in the Warner Brothers film. The highlight of the film is a mass escape when the entire compound goes up in a kerosene fire. Even though these guys are in there for God knows what, your sympathies are with them as the local populace goes on a hunting expedition for the convicts. It's like everyone participating in Leslie Banks's sport of hunting The Most Dangerous Game which also came out that year by RKO.I was pleasantly surprised by the depths of Richard Dix's performance. Usually he's a pretty straight arrow hero in his film in a classic Victorian era style of acting. His part here is the best work I've ever seen him do, though I can honestly say I haven't seen that many of his films.You'll see good performances also by Stanley Fields as the head guard and by Charles Middleton, the philosophical bigamist in the joint for the same.Catch this film if it is ever run again by TCM.