THE MAYOR OF HELL

US, 1933, 90 minutes, Black and white.
James Cagney, Madge Evans, Arthur Byron, Allen Jenkins, Dudley Digges, Frankie Darro.
Directed by Archie Mayo.

The Mayor of Hill is moralising film from Warner Brothers in 1933, at the same time as they were producing the classic gangster films like Scarface, Public Enemy, Little Caesar.

James Cagney, always full of verve, portrays a man caught up in rackets and voting, who is given the public office as deputy for a reformatory, is caught up in what he sees as abuses in the place, decides to go full-time and reform it, with the help of the initially hostile nurse, played by Madge Evans. Dudley Digges is the bullying supervisor while Arthur Byron is the sympathetic judge.

Frankie Darro, who appeared in such films as Wild boys on the Road, is the leader of the gang. Interestingly for the times, one of the boys is black and his father appears in the court scene with a humorous quip at the assistant to the judge, And there is a Jewish boy whose father appears in the court, speaks to his son in Yiddish, and the son in the reformatory declines eating bacon.

The film offers a strange mixture of suspicious rackets and the spirit of reform, actually getting the boys to set up their own form of government within the reformatory, the leader becoming the Mayor of the hell that is the reformatory, with a police chief and the setting up of a court and proper procedures and trial by jury.

The film was remade some years later as Crime School with Humphrey Bogart in the central role. The behaviour of the boys is much the same. However, there is no nurse and the sympathetic woman is the sister of the leader of the gang. The supervisor is certainly sinister in the later film and much is made of his assistant and the falsifying of accounts. More is made in the later film of a romance, of the setting up of the head of the reformatory – and it is interesting to see Humphrey Bogart in this sympathetic role.

1. A crime drama from the Depression years? Teenage gangs? The responsible authorities? The nature of reformatories? Oppression? Reform?

2. Warner Brothers production values, city locations, the reformatory? Interiors of the reformatory? The musical score?

3. The title, the reformatory as hell? The process for rehabilitating the teenagers, setting up their own government, the mayor, Jimmy elected as mayor, his presiding, his behaviour?

4. The introduction to the gang, the boys in the street, their violence, petty thieving, the cars and the tires, the reaction of the owners? Dividing up the stolen goods? The arrests?

5. The sympathetic judge, his court, the severe assistant laying down the law? Each of the boys, different characters? The sleeping father, the anxious mother who had been beaten by her son, the Italian father supporting his son? The surly attitudes, the parents and their plea, the judge deciding it was better for them to go to the reformatory?

6. The presence of the black boy and his father, and the comic comment about thinking? The presence of the Jewish boy, his father and his store, speaking in Yiddish?

7. Arrival at the reformatory, the severity of Thompson, the dormitory, no food? The severity of the guards? The dining room, on the double, removing the hats, the inedible food? Jimmy and his fighting?

8. The arrival of Patsy Gargan, James Cagney character, his racket and boats, the money? His appointment as deputy, political move? The hostility of the judge towards him?

9. Dorothy, her presence, as a nurse, examining the boys, with Thompson, his disdain of her? Her suspicions of Gargan?

10. Gargan, his encounter with Jimmy, the reactions of Dorothy? With Thompson? Thompson and the whip for Jimmy? Gargan’s reaction?

11. Gargan, staying, the enable inedible food, the organisation of the boys, Dorothy’s help, the structure of the government, the mayor, the police chief (and the nominating of the bully), the holding court, the case with the boy and the chocolate bar, the black boy and his role as a lawyer, the jury, the decision, the punishment from the boys themselves?

12. Thompson, his racket with his assistant, the accounts? Thompson away for a month?

13. Dorothy and Gargan, working together, the attraction? The change in attitude of the boys? Positive reform? Better meals and the boy serving them, bacon and eggs – in the Jewish
boy not wanting to eat bacon?

14. Gargan, Mike and his presence, the racket, Gargan’s return, the fight, the gunshot, the suspense of the victim in hospital so long, Gargan going underground? Phoning the
reformatory? Dorothy and her complaints, her resignation? Things worse than ever?

15. Thompson’s return, getting Charlie to give information, to persuade Jimmy to leave, the clothes, Charlie persuasive, the light on in the office and Jimmy suspicions, their going, meeting Gargan on the way, his letting them go?

16. Thompson and his putting the boy in the cold in isolation, his death? The boys and their holding court, Charlie and their attack on him, finding Thompson guilty of murder, converging on in, his climbing to the roof, the setting fire to the barn, his fall to his death?

17. Jim’s return, Gargan appealing to Jimmy to put out the fire, the boys following him? A future?

18. Moral lesson from Warner Brothers in the early 1930s?