This pre-code movie about life on a chain-gang is brilliant and extremely hard-hitting. The director was the underrated Rowland Brown and he certainly doesn't pull any punches in showing the horrors of prison life at the time. Richard Dix is the prisoner who leads the revolt against the treatment meted out by the authorities. If the acting in general is mostly crude it's very much in keeping with the sensational material and if this prison picture isn't as well known as, say, "The Big House", it's every bit as good even if the gay caricature, (why did there always have to be one), is somewhat offensive.
Review of Hell's Highway
