Laughter in Hell | |
---|---|
Directed by | Edward L. Cahn |
Written by | Tom Reed |
Based on | Laughter in Hell by Jim Tully |
Produced by | Carl Laemmle, Jr. |
Starring | Pat O'Brien Gloria Stuart |
Cinematography | John Stumar |
Edited by | Philip Cahn |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 70 minutes |
Country | United States |
Laughter in Hell is a 1933 American Pre-Code drama film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Pat O'Brien. The film's title was typical of the sensationalistic titles of many Pre-Code films. [1] Adapted from the 1932 novel of the same name by Jim Tully, the film was inspired in part by I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and was part of a series of films depicting men in chain gangs following the success of that film. [2] O'Brien plays a railroad engineer who kills his wife and her lover in a jealous rage and is sent to prison. [3] [4] The movie received a mixed review in The New York Times upon its release. [5] Although long considered lost, the film was recently preserved and was screened at the American Cinematheque in Hollywood, CA in October 2012.
The dead man's brother ends up being the warden of the prison and subjects O'Brien's character to significant abuse. [4] O'Brien and several other characters revolt, killing the warden and escaping from the prison. The film drew controversy for its lynching scene where several black men were hanged. Contrary to reports, only blacks were hung in this scene, though the actual executions occurred off-camera (we see instead reaction shots of the guards and other prisoners). The New Age (an African American weekly newspaper) film critic praised the scene for being courageous enough to depict the atrocities that were occurring in some southern states. [4]
O'Brien plays an Irish mine worker, Barney Slaney. Later Barney gets a job as a fireman on the local train for an engineer named Mileaway. He gets married, but finds his wife having an affair with Grover Perkins, a childhood nemesis. Barney loses control and kills them both. He turns himself in and receives a life sentence of hard labor. Barney quickly finds out that the brother of the man he killed, Ed Perkins, will be in charge of his chain gang, and the brother bullies him repeatedly. While the prisoners dig graves, Barney knocks Ed unconscious and drops him into one of the open graves. He then escapes during the ensuing mayhem, in which the warden is killed. He breaks out of the police dragnet, and hides at a farm which recently had a pestilence infection. He meets a woman named Lorraine, and they run away together. [3] [4]
The railroad scenes were filmed on the Sierra Railroad in Tuolumne County, California. [6]
A controversial lynching scene where several black men were hanged, gained headlines after the film was released. The Motion Picture Herald expressed concern that the events depicted could be very difficult for some African Americans to watch. Writing in New Age (an African American weekly newspaper) Vere E. Johns praised the producers for depicting the scene and in so doing, publicizing the atrocities that were happening in some southern states. [4] Johns also disagreed with the initial reports in the Herald which stated that only blacks were lynched, Johns stated (erroneously) that both blacks and whites were lynched in the picture. [4]
Although Universal Pictures released Laughter in Hell with the lynching scene intact, like many American films of the time the film was subject to cuts by city and state film censorship boards. Several censorship boards including New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Chicago removed the lynching scene, allowing only indications that a hanging was about to take place. [7]
Mordaunt Hall, writing for The New York Times praised the acting, the characterizations, action sequences, and some of the banter, but was not impressed with the storyline. [5]
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a 1932 American pre-Code crime-drama film directed by Mervyn LeRoy and starring Paul Muni as a wrongfully convicted man on a chain gang who escapes to Chicago. It was released on November 10, 1932. The film received positive reviews and three Academy Award nominations.
The Defiant Ones is a 1958 American adventure drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier.
Cool Hand Luke is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman and featuring George Kennedy in an Oscar-winning performance. Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a Florida prison camp who refuses to submit to the system. Set in the early 1950s, it is based on Donn Pearce's 1965 novel Cool Hand Luke.
The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPA), adopted the Production Code in 1930 and began rigidly enforcing it in 1934. The Production Code spelled out acceptable and unacceptable content for motion pictures produced for a public audience in the United States.
Berton Churchill was a Canadian stage and film actor.
The women in prison film is a subgenre of exploitation film that began in the early 20th century and continues to the present day.
Stir Crazy is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Sidney Poitier, produced by Hannah Weinstein and written by Bruce Jay Friedman. The film stars Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as two unemployed friends who are given 125-year prison sentences after getting framed for a bank robbery. While in prison they befriend other prison inmates. The film reunited Wilder and Pryor, who had appeared previously in the 1976 comedy thriller film Silver Streak. The film was released in the United States on December 12, 1980 to mixed critical reviews, but was a major financial success.
William Joseph Patrick O'Brien was an American film actor with more than 100 screen credits. Of Irish descent, he often played Irish and Irish-American characters and was referred to as "Hollywood's Irishman in Residence" in the press. One of the best-known screen actors of the 1930s and 1940s, he played priests, cops, military figures, pilots, and reporters. He is especially well-remembered for his roles in Knute Rockne, All American (1940), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), and Some Like It Hot (1959). He was frequently paired onscreen with Hollywood star James Cagney. O'Brien also appeared on stage and television.
Blood In Blood Out is a 1993 American epic crime drama film directed by Taylor Hackford that has become a cult-classic film with a cult following among the Mexican-American community, over the decades. It follows the intertwining lives of three Chicano relatives from 1972 to 1984. They start out as members of a street gang in East Los Angeles, and as dramatic incidents occur, their lives and friendships are forever changed. Blood In Blood Out was filmed in 1991 throughout the Spanish-speaking areas of Los Angeles and inside California's San Quentin State Prison.
Pre-Code Hollywood was the brief era in the American film industry between the widespread adoption of sound in film in 1929 and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines, popularly known as the "Hays Code", in mid-1934. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor, and it did not become rigorously enforced until July 1, 1934, with the establishment of the Production Code Administration (PCA). Before that date, film content was restricted more by local laws, negotiations between the Studio Relations Committee (SRC) and the major studios, and popular opinion, than by strict adherence to the Hays Code, which was often ignored by Hollywood filmmakers.
The Irish Mob is an organized crime syndicate based in the United States, Canada, and Ireland, which has been in existence since the early 19th century. Originating in Irish-American street gangs – famously first depicted in Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, The Gangs of New York – the Irish Mob has appeared in most major U.S. cities, especially in the Northeast and the urban industrial Midwest, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago.
White Heat is a 1949 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly and Steve Cochran. Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, White Heat is based on a story by Virginia Kellogg, and is considered to be one of the best gangster movies of all time. In 2003, it was added to the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress.
The Emperor Jones is a 1933 American pre-Code film adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play of the same title, directed by iconoclast Dudley Murphy, written for the screen by playwright DuBose Heyward and starring Paul Robeson in the title role, and co-starring Dudley Digges, Frank H. Wilson, Fredi Washington and Ruby Elzy.
Chained Heat is a 1983 American-German exploitation film in the women-in-prison genre. It was co-written and directed by Paul Nicholas for Jensen Farley Pictures. Producer was Paul Fine, who had previously produced The Concrete Jungle.
Merrily We Go to Hell is a 1932 pre-Code film directed by Dorothy Arzner, and starring Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney. Its title is an example of the sensationalistic titles that were common in the pre-Code era. Many newspapers refused to publicize the film because of its racy title. The title is a line March's character says while making a toast.
The Doorway to Hell is a 1930 American pre-Code crime film directed by Archie Mayo and starring Lew Ayres and James Cagney in his second film role. The film was based on the story A Handful of Clouds, written by Rowland Brown. The film's title was typical of the sensationalistic titles of many Pre-Code films. It was marketed with the tagline "The picture Gangland defied Hollywood to make!"
The era of American film production from the early sound era to the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934 is denoted as Pre-Code Hollywood. The era contained violence and crime in pictures which would not be seen again until decades later. Although the Hays office had specifically recommended removing profanity, the drug trade, and prostitution from pictures, it had never officially recommended against depictions of violence in any form in the 1920s. State censor boards, however, created their own guidelines, and New York in particular developed a list of violent material which had to be removed for a picture to be shown in the state. Two main types of crime films were released during the period: the gangster picture and the prison film.
Pre-Code sex films refers to movies made in the Pre-Code Hollywood era between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934, which contained sexual references and images that were contrary to the yet to be enforced Hays Code. Pre-Code sex films explored women's issues and challenged the concept of marriage, and aggressive sexuality was the norm. The sexual subject matter of the uncensored period was found within many movie genres, most especially in dramas, crime films, exotic-adventure films, comedies and musicals.
Beau Bandit is a 1930 American Pre-Code Western film, directed by Lambert Hillyer, from a screenplay by Wallace Smith, based on his short story, "Strictly Business" which appeared in the April 1929 edition of Hearst's International-Cosmopolitan. The film starred Rod La Rocque, Mitchell Lewis, Doris Kenyon, and Walter Long. The story is based loosely on the legend of Robin Hood.