"Laughter in Hell" was very interesting and unusual.....Film belonged to Pat O'Brien in what I thought was a marvelous low-key performance, employing an Irish brogue when needed, but restrained even from talk, most of the time. It opens when he's called from his rock quarry job only to be told his mother is dead. Two brothers torment him and he swears to get even one day. Next we see him in town, grown up as Pat O'Brien, whose father buys him a beautiful gold railroad watch because he's going to be a railroad engineer. He meets a floozie whom he marries, and when she's not cheating on him with one of the evil brothers, she's waving to him as his train goes by.
He suspects she's unfaithful when the other brother (Douglas Dumbrille) taunts him. As he drives the locomotive, the sound and fury of the machine and his jealousy intensify in a rapid montage of taunting angry images. He comes home to find the man in his house with his wife. The man pretends to be arriving with some brandy and they drink. O'Brien is all self-contained rage, and when the man tries to flee, O'Brien chases him around the house and strangles him behind the kitchen table. There are a series of ultra fast zooms in and out, of O'Brien, the wife and paramour as they react in terror during this horrific event. O'Brien arrives at his father's house in shock and tells him haltingly, that's he's killed the man .......and his wife as well. The father says if his son is sentenced to death, he'll stab him in the back in the courtroom. In his jail cell, after being sentenced to a chain gang, O'Brien says, "I wasn't born to stretch a rope."
What follows are harrowing scenes of him being delivered, along with young Tom Brown, to a chain gang. They're put into caged trucks where they are chained to their bunks, and have to carry the heavy ball and chain everywhere. Later on the guards lynch four black prisoners who are accompanied by a chorus of men chanting, yelling and singing gospel up until the time they're each yanked from the back of a wagon to the length of a rope. As the violence continues the prisoners express their anger and disgust in a series of close-up Dutch angles.
After being whipped by Dumbrille, who hates him even more for killing his brother, O'Brien is emboldened by a fellow prisoner to escape. The fellow inmate escapes but is tracked by bloodhounds and shot by the guards. The big escape takes place at night, while they are digging graves for the yellow fever victims, the crosses on the hills illuminated by their lanterns. During a melee where they overcome the guards, O'Brien escapes, but most are shot on the spot, helplessly weighed down by their ball and chains.
Gloria Stuart has a few scenes, all with O'Brien. This is a very subdued role for the glamor girl. When they meet she's tending a wood fire in a cabin looking frail and drained. We find out that the farmer who owns the farm, his wife and Gloria's mother, are all dead in the back room from yellow fever. She doesn't know that O'Brien escaped from a chain gang where he was whipped by Dumbrille, but tends to his back wounds.
They burn the yellow fever house as they leave in a wagon with the dog (Thank God!) and travel the dusty roads where they are accosted by a posse of four led by mustachioed Bob Burns (nee Robin Burn) who has two lines and gallops off. He is not listed in the cast of this film and it's not listed in any of his credits. A farmer and his wife take the hungry dirty couple in. Though he says he's a farmer, O'Brien doesn't know how to unhitch the mules so the farmer suspects something's amiss.
The local sheriff arrives and tells the farmer that there was an escape from the chain gang and all were caught or killed except a big dark guy who's still on the loose. The farmer looks downs and sees the broken shackle under O'Brien's ripped pant leg as he tucks his foot under the chair. The farmer diverts the sheriff and sends the couple off to bed upstairs.
The next morning after O'Brien admits he was a locomotive engineer, the farmer tells him that he'd better learn how to unhitch mules if he wants to be a farmer. The couple drives away to start a new life. After a while they stop on the road......O'Brien looks at Stuart and proclaims his love for her.
It's a very downbeat film and didn't do well at box office since it opened at Christmastime. In 1938 Universal wanted to reissue the film for re-release but was turned down, not because of the graphic and extended lynching scene, but because the film had the word "Hell" in its title. It was one of three films about chain gangs that were being made around the same time, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)," "Hell's Highway (1932)" were the other two.
The author of this story, Jim Tully had a difficult life and many of his experiences were reflected in his novels. Before becoming a famous Hollywood writer, he had been a boxer and a hobo among other things. He has recently been rediscovered and there is a book out about his life on the road and in Hollywood where he was befriended by Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery and Boris Karloff in the early 1930s. His criticism of John Gilbert once caused the actor to attack Tully at the Brown Derby, where Tully knocked him out. Later they became friends and Tully had a part in Gilbert's 1930 film, "Way for a Sailor."
He suspects she's unfaithful when the other brother (Douglas Dumbrille) taunts him. As he drives the locomotive, the sound and fury of the machine and his jealousy intensify in a rapid montage of taunting angry images. He comes home to find the man in his house with his wife. The man pretends to be arriving with some brandy and they drink. O'Brien is all self-contained rage, and when the man tries to flee, O'Brien chases him around the house and strangles him behind the kitchen table. There are a series of ultra fast zooms in and out, of O'Brien, the wife and paramour as they react in terror during this horrific event. O'Brien arrives at his father's house in shock and tells him haltingly, that's he's killed the man .......and his wife as well. The father says if his son is sentenced to death, he'll stab him in the back in the courtroom. In his jail cell, after being sentenced to a chain gang, O'Brien says, "I wasn't born to stretch a rope."
What follows are harrowing scenes of him being delivered, along with young Tom Brown, to a chain gang. They're put into caged trucks where they are chained to their bunks, and have to carry the heavy ball and chain everywhere. Later on the guards lynch four black prisoners who are accompanied by a chorus of men chanting, yelling and singing gospel up until the time they're each yanked from the back of a wagon to the length of a rope. As the violence continues the prisoners express their anger and disgust in a series of close-up Dutch angles.
After being whipped by Dumbrille, who hates him even more for killing his brother, O'Brien is emboldened by a fellow prisoner to escape. The fellow inmate escapes but is tracked by bloodhounds and shot by the guards. The big escape takes place at night, while they are digging graves for the yellow fever victims, the crosses on the hills illuminated by their lanterns. During a melee where they overcome the guards, O'Brien escapes, but most are shot on the spot, helplessly weighed down by their ball and chains.
Gloria Stuart has a few scenes, all with O'Brien. This is a very subdued role for the glamor girl. When they meet she's tending a wood fire in a cabin looking frail and drained. We find out that the farmer who owns the farm, his wife and Gloria's mother, are all dead in the back room from yellow fever. She doesn't know that O'Brien escaped from a chain gang where he was whipped by Dumbrille, but tends to his back wounds.
They burn the yellow fever house as they leave in a wagon with the dog (Thank God!) and travel the dusty roads where they are accosted by a posse of four led by mustachioed Bob Burns (nee Robin Burn) who has two lines and gallops off. He is not listed in the cast of this film and it's not listed in any of his credits. A farmer and his wife take the hungry dirty couple in. Though he says he's a farmer, O'Brien doesn't know how to unhitch the mules so the farmer suspects something's amiss.
The local sheriff arrives and tells the farmer that there was an escape from the chain gang and all were caught or killed except a big dark guy who's still on the loose. The farmer looks downs and sees the broken shackle under O'Brien's ripped pant leg as he tucks his foot under the chair. The farmer diverts the sheriff and sends the couple off to bed upstairs.
The next morning after O'Brien admits he was a locomotive engineer, the farmer tells him that he'd better learn how to unhitch mules if he wants to be a farmer. The couple drives away to start a new life. After a while they stop on the road......O'Brien looks at Stuart and proclaims his love for her.
It's a very downbeat film and didn't do well at box office since it opened at Christmastime. In 1938 Universal wanted to reissue the film for re-release but was turned down, not because of the graphic and extended lynching scene, but because the film had the word "Hell" in its title. It was one of three films about chain gangs that were being made around the same time, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932)," "Hell's Highway (1932)" were the other two.
The author of this story, Jim Tully had a difficult life and many of his experiences were reflected in his novels. Before becoming a famous Hollywood writer, he had been a boxer and a hobo among other things. He has recently been rediscovered and there is a book out about his life on the road and in Hollywood where he was befriended by Lon Chaney, Wallace Beery and Boris Karloff in the early 1930s. His criticism of John Gilbert once caused the actor to attack Tully at the Brown Derby, where Tully knocked him out. Later they became friends and Tully had a part in Gilbert's 1930 film, "Way for a Sailor."
