Hell's Highway (1932)

A career criminal (Richard Dix) is working on a chain gang work crew building a road. He's surprised when his kid brother (Tom Brown) shows up following in his footsteps. The older brother is determined that the young boy won't follow his same fate. Directed by Rowland Brown, this is a tough and gritty social message movie for the most part that is hampered by some excessive sentimentality. Did the film makers think we wouldn't be sympathetic to the inhumane and brutal treatment of the convicts unless they were made sympathetic? So we get the gray haired mother (Louise Carter) tearfully visiting her boys in the work camp, the deaf mute crying for his mother as he dies, etc. Scenes like that soften the film's harshness which doesn't work in its favor. That aside, the film is sort of the COOL HAND LUKE of its day in its graphic portrayal of prison camp brutality and corruption. With Rochelle Hudson, Louise Beavers, Fuzzy Knight, Clarence Muse and Stanley Fields.