PRISON REFORM METHODS

Evening Star, Issue 21628, 25 January 1934, Page 7

PRISON REFORM METHODS

EXPOSED IN * MAYOR OF HELL ' A dramatic exposure of methods in certain American prison reform schools is made in ‘ The Mayor of Hell,’ which will head the excellent programme to be shown for the first time at the Strand to-morrow. James Cagney has yet another forceful role as a young man who attempts to introduce humanitarian methods into'such a school, but who is opposed by a brutal superintendent. The romantic interest is supplied by Madge Evans, who appears as a nurse attached to the school. Arthur Byron, who will be remembered for his performance as the warden in ‘ 20,000 Years in Sing Sing,’ is in the cast. The story deals with a certain reformatory ‘school where almost unbelievable cruelties are practised on tho boys, cruelties so inhuman as to give the production its title. Boys of tender vears are bearded in barbed wire enclosures like wild animals. They are half-starved and flogged for the slightest infraction of rules, or lacked up in a damp dungeon, which results in the death of one boy from exposure. It is to such an institution that Cagney goes as supervisor. He sets, about reforming the place, using the_ “strong arm ” methods to which he is accustomed on the' heads of school, finally throwing out the grafting ring in control.