The Devil's Party

Elements of Manhattan Melodrama and Angels With Dirty Faces are to be found in The Devil's Party. Though the two cited are better films The Devil's Party can certainly hold its own.

Back in the day four boys and the tomboy girl that tagged along with them who grew up to be Victor McLaglen, Paul Kelly, John Gallaudet, William Gargan and Beatrice Roberts commit a robbery in which a fire is started. The boy grows up to be McLaglen takes the rap for the rest and goes to reform school.

Fast forward several years and the grownups are now the owner of a swank gambling club and the girl singer attraction in same which would be McLaglen and Roberts. Paul Kelly has become a priest who runs a settlement house and Gargan and Gallaudet who are brothers are cops with ambitions to become detectives.

It's that ambition and the fact that McLaglen sends a pair of enforcers played by Joe Downing and Frank Jenks to collect a gambling debt and they kill the debtor sets in motion a whole string of events that pits the former pals from Hell's Kitchen against each other and it results in tragedy.

Some nice performances all around by the principal players make this B programmer from Universal something special. The Devil's Party is a real cinema diamond in the rough waiting to be discovered.

Devil's Party, The (1938)

** (out of 4)

Okay, the story here is pretty confusing but I'll try to explain it. Four kids, growing up in Hell's Kitchen, have their lives changed when the oldest pulls a prank, which sets a warehouse on fire. He's sent to reform school but twenty years later he's out on the streets as a gambler/night club owner. Two of the other friends are cops and another is a priest. The gambler sends a couple men to rough a guy up but they eventually kill him and the two cops are put on the case. This film only runs 61-minutes but it seems the screenplay was missing around twenty minutes worth of additional footage that might have tied up various plot holes. With that said, I found myself somewhat entertained but there's really nothing going on in the film. I've heard this was an influence on Leone's Once Upon a Time in America but that connection would be very loose. Victor McLaglen stars.

A bunch of young roughnecks in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan grow up to be Victor Mclaglen, Paul Kelly, William Gargan, Beatrice Roberts and a couple of others.

Pardon me while I contemplate that sentence. Most of the others go straight, but Mclaglen goes to prison (which must be where he picked up that accent. Yeah. Everyone in Greenville and SingSing talks that way). Twenty years later and they've all grown up and mostly gone their ways, some into police work, Miss Roberts is a singer in Mclaglen's night club. They all still get together once a year. Except this year, the two of them who are cops are investigating a murder. A couple of Mclaglen's collectors got too rough with someone who wouldn't pay his gambling debts, and were sloppy getting rid of the clues, leading to one of the old pals who spotted them getting killed....

It's from a novel by Borden Chase, and it's a fine little Universal B movie directed by Ray McCarey, Leo McCarey's kid brother and a reliable director of cheaper features. It's also got camerawork by the solid but not yet celebrated cinematographer Milton Krasna -- he wouldn't be nominated for an Oscar until 1942, and not win one until the 1950s. It's shot in beautiful, sharp black and white, showing off the beauty of industrial lines, even as the story and line readings crackle along.

It's clearly not a great movie, but it does what a B movie is supposed to do -- tell a story with economy and beauty -- and tell it quickly.

The film begins with a group of five kids playing around a warehouse. They accidentally light the place ablaze and run when the police arrive. However, one of the gang (Marty) is caught and he refuses to tell them who else was involved. So, he takes the rap for everyone and ends up growing into a guy who is a shady character--owning his own casino and consorting with disreputable types.

The other four members of the gang grew into a not particularly talented lounge singer who works for Marty (Helen), a priest (Jerry) and two brothers who are firemen (Joe and Mike). Each year, they all meet for a reunion and are life-long friends.

This friendship is tested when two thugs that work for Marty kill a man. Joe suspects it is not an accident and when he goes back to investigate, the thugs kill him as well! Now Mike takes up where Joe left off and he begins to suspect Marty's involvement. As for Marty, he did NOT want anyone killed and is stuck having to cover for the two thugs because this all began when he ordered the two to rough up a customer who refused to make good on his gambling debts. The problem is that the thugs have plans of their own and they refuse to leave town when Marty tells them to beat it.

In the middle of this mess is Father Jerry. He cannot allow Mike to kill Marty but also cannot just ignore Marty's involvement. How all this is worked out is something you'll just have to see for yourself.

Overall, this is a very interesting B-film with some nice twists and turns thanks to some excellent writing. As far as the acting goes, it's just fine, though Victor McLaglen in the lead is a real standout--in a tough but very sympathetic performance.

A good story idea and a good performance by Victor McLaglen make this crime feature work well, despite some weaknesses in other areas. The premise is a good one that holds many possibilities, and in general the story makes solid use of them. The production has a low-budget look to it, but most of the time this doesn't get in the way. The rest of the cast never comes up to McLaglen's level, and this is probably the main thing that keeps it from being better. It's still pretty good.

The setup has McLaglen's character Marty, as a boy, as part of a five-member gang (which includes one girl) in Hell's Kitchen. Caught in the act of one of their crimes, Marty is the only one caught and sent to the reformatory. Then the main story starts, with the five of them now adults, and holding a reunion. As the only former convict, Marty owns a night club and gambling house, while the others include a singer, a priest, and two police officers.

The story that follows tests the relationships among all of the old friends, and sometimes pits their new relationships against the old ones. As a result, there are some good moments of drama and suspense. McLaglen fleshes out Marty quite well, bringing out his character and the way that it has been shaped by events. If the other characters had approached his in depth, it could have been quite compelling.

The rest of the cast is adequate, and the pacing also keeps things moving, but the one-dimensional nature of the other characters often keeps it from grabbing you as much as it could have. It's still well above average for its time and genre.