The Devil's Party

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.

This one wasn't bad - I expected the film to be far worse so it came as a nice surprise. It's not a great story but kinda fun to watch in a way. It's about the kid's club "Hell's Kitchen"... where a gang of kids, 4 boys and 1 girl, become friends. The oldest boy, Marty Malone, accidentally set fire to a building and was sent to reform school. Then the story fast-forwards to their adulthood where we find them meeting every year, the year we peer into their story there is a murder that leads to another murder - Marty Malone is involved.

All grown up: A night club owner, a singer, a priest and 2 cops. I found my favorite of the gang to be the Priest Jerry. He was the one trying to keep the others calm and reasonable.

It's not the grandest of stories but I found this one watchable and enjoyable.

6.5/10

In THE DEVIL'S PARTY, a gang of tough kids known as the Death Avenue Cowboys run the streets of "Hell's Kitchen" in NYC, causing trouble.

Years pass, and the gang gets together for a reunion as adults. Among them, one is now a singer, two are cops, and another is a priest! When a murder is committed, problems arise, leading to further tragedy.

If you enjoy movies from the 1930's-1940's, full of wise guy characters spouting snappy dialogue, then this is worth your while! Entertaining from start to finish...

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.

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.