''The Devil's Party'' is a 1938 American
crime film
Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...
directed by
Ray McCarey
Raymond Benedict McCarey (September 6, 1904 – December 1, 1948) was an American film director, brother of director Leo McCarey.
Biography
McCarey began working at Hal Roach Studios, where he did work on short films with Our Gang and Laure ...
based on the
Borden Chase novel ''Hell's Kitchen Has a Pantry''.
Plot
Marty Malone is a member of a street gang called the "
Death Avenue Cowboys", consisting of poor children in
Hell's Kitchen, New York. As the gang try to steal fruit from a fruit warehouse, Marty starts a fire to distract the watchmen, unfortunately it turns into a real blaze and he is caught by the police. Even though the police give him a rough time in questioning, he refuses to say the names of any other gang members, thus saving his friends and accomplices from capture. Marty is sent to a
reformatory for delinquents.
Many years go by after that, and now Marty is the proud owner of the Cigarette Club, which is a cabaret and casino in
Manhattan
Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...
. In tending to his business, he sends men to strong-arm a customer reluctant to pay a gambling debt. The goons, Sam and Frank Diamond, beat the customer up, accidentally killing him. They try to make his death look as if a neon sign fell on him.
The
police emergency squad investigating the death includes brothers Joe and Mike O'Mara, who graduated from Marty's childhood gang. Authorities dismiss the death as an accident, but Joe, eager to become a police detective, believes it was murder when he finds evidence that the support that gave way allowing the sign to fall was clearly cut rather than breaking with age.
That evening there is a reunion dinner at Marty's Cigarette Club, with the boyhood friends attending, including the O'Mara's. Jerry Donovan is now a priest, and Helen McCoy has become a performer at the club. Helen has spurned Marty's many proposals because she loves Mike O'Mara. Mike dances with Helen all evening.
Brother Joe, striking out with the ladies, exits the dinner, returns to the scene of the murder, impatient to solve the crime he believes was committed. Diamond and Sam, having realized he may expose them, corner him and push him off the roof to his death.
Later that evening, Marty arrives on the scene and is upset his incompetent thugs have perpetrated the murders. The homicide bureau dismisses Joe's case as an accident, but Mike is unconvinced, and believes Joe's death is connected to the previous one. He is also guilt stricken he didn't accompany his brother to investigate his hunch on the incident that brought his death.
Diamond and Sam rob a jewelry store, set off a bomb next to Marty's club, and send notes to Mike incriminating Marty. Mike takes the bait, loses control and tries to kill Marty, but Jerry stops him, and Mike is arrested. Marty refuses to press charges, and also confesses his involvement to Jerry. He explains to Jerry that he never intended any deaths to occur.
Diamond and Sam plan to rob the Polar Gardensa popular ice skating ring, and force Marty to participate through kidnapping Helen who wisely informs Jerry of where she is going. Diamond and Sam alert Mike of the plan, hoping he will kill Marty. Mike again goes berserk, but Jerry again prevents Mike from killing Marty. In a shootout with the criminals, Marty dies taking a bullet intended for Mike. His death brings Mike and Helen together, and as Marty had requested, there is a playground built at Jerry's boys club in Marty's name.
Cast
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Victor McLaglen as Marty Malone
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William Gargan as Mike O'Mara
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Paul Kelly as Jerry Donovan
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Beatrice Roberts as Helen McCoy
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Frank Jenks as Sam
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John Gallaudet as Joe O'Mara
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Samuel S. Hinds as Judge Harrison
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Joe Downing as Frank Diamond
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Arthur Hoyt
Arthur Hoyt (March 19, 1874 – January 4, 1953) was an American film character actor who appeared in more than 275 films in his 34-year film career, about a third of them silent films.
Career
Born in Georgetown, Colorado, in 1874, Hoyt ma ...
as Webster
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Jerry Tucker as Child (uncredited)
Opening
The film opens with the following: "Hell's Kitchen – a section of New York, where, not so many years ago, the children of the slums made their playground in that grim street ... DEATH AVENUE." A later
intertitle
In films and videos, an intertitle, also known as a title card, is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of (hence, ''inter-'') the photographed action at various points. Intertitles used to convey character dialogue are referred ...
reads: "An enduring friendship moves with the years to Hell's Kitchen's other boundary ... BROADWAY."
References
Sources
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Devil's Party
1938 films
1938 crime drama films
American black-and-white films
Universal Pictures films
American crime drama films
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
1930s English-language films
1930s American films
English-language crime drama films
Films with songs by Harold Adamson