Laughter in Hell

It's a chain gang movie with a miscast Pat O'Brien in the lead. Grim. Very grim. The big set-piece involves hanging four men. Also, the editing for story is as botched as you can imagine, as the whole thing wraps up with a happy ending in fifteen seconds when you're expecting more story.

It's like the suits said sorry, folks, this is not a John Stahl picture, so we're capping it at 70 minutes and sticking on a happy ending. Clarence Muse steals the picture, as he so often did. It makes I WAS A PRISONER FROM A CHAIN GANG seem like a comedy for most of its length. Glad I saw it, but I never want to see any of it again.

Laughter in Hell never seems to figure out just what kind of a movie it is. Is it a romance, a revenge story, a jail picture? It hops around willy-nilly without sufficient binding in between. Some of the scenes are incredibly awkward too, especially the one where Pat O'Brien reveals to his father that he has just murdered his arch rival, the man who had been sleeping with his wife. The father doesn't react. He just keeps rocking back and forth in his rocking hair, with his back to the camera. Then O'Brien continues; he has also killed his wife. The father pops up with a start! "You did what?!?" As if it is fine to have a murderous son, as long as he isn't murdering women.