The beginning of the film marks its character. A single mother gets run over by a car, which leaves her there to die in the arms of her only child, a small boy with the name of James Mason. He has no choice but to go to town to his nearest of kin, his mother's sister and her husband out of work, but they have a tenant, who employs James Mason in his bootlegging business. Naturally the boy gets caught while his 'benefactor' absconds in faked innocence. That's the beginning of the downward journey into hell.
He ends up in a reform school, and the real interest of the film is the shocking revelation of conditions there. The boys are forced to slave work and subjected to inhuman punishments which are not far from brainwash. But the truth will out, even from the hell of a reform school, and a nosy journalist gets interested. That, however, does not help the one boy who has already died.
He ends up in a reform school, and the real interest of the film is the shocking revelation of conditions there. The boys are forced to slave work and subjected to inhuman punishments which are not far from brainwash. But the truth will out, even from the hell of a reform school, and a nosy journalist gets interested. That, however, does not help the one boy who has already died.