The Mayor of Hell (1933)

The story opens on a street gang composed of young boys bullying some older gentlemen to pay them to wash their cars, they later rob a store and seriously injure the clerk. The police catch up with these boys and the majority of them are sent to reform school, a brutish place where they are forced to do hard labour in a severe and unforgiving environment where the guards are likely to hit you for a wrong look. Things change however when a new manager is selected for the place, and the warden takes an immediate dislike to him. This new character seems a little too rough around the edges, and as it turns out he got the position for political reasons. This would have been your average 'bad school' story but for this new boss man falling hard for the resident nurse. He falls over backwards to get the girl, and fortunately for the boys, their nurse is something of a radical in her ideas of reformation and education. She feels that the school should be a model for the boys to follow, that they'll learn better by example than they will by being bullied into what to think. That they would embody correct social behaviour more earnestly if it was their own choice. Well the man tries out this idea, and it actually works very well. The boys still work, but they are able to buy things after having completed their labour. They elected a mayor (who is the ring leader of the initial gang we were introduced to) as well as chief of police and a treasurer. They also hold their own court trials to police themselves.

All seems to be going well until he begins losing the support of his public back in town. The reason our man got the job running this place is because he's popular with the people, but he begins to lose support and is forced to return to town and sort out the trouble. The trouble is actually with his own gang... of which he's the leader, and they're trying to oust him as boss, so he shoots a guy and is forced to go into hiding. At the same time, the old supervisor returns from a forced vacation, and upon hearing this news, decides to return the school to what it was. In an effort to make up for lost time, the old supervisor really cracks down on the kids and throws the old 'mayor' into solitary confinement. The other boys sneak him some food, but one of them gets caught in the process and is thrown in the cell also. The boy is very sick however and ends up dying. The entire school riots upon discovering and try the old supervisor in their court, and find him guilty of murder. Will our hero come out of hiding when he finds out that the school's in trouble? Will he be able to stop the boys from doing something drastic?!

This was a really good film about educational practice in relation to moral behaviour. How a person reacts to their environment, and what people with authority should consider if they are trying to change behaviour. A lot of the time people act in accordance with what others expect of them, and the general idea around delinquents and criminals in general is that they're just bad people, that they're always going to be that way and always were. It would be useless treating them like ordinary people, or allowing them any dignity or respect, because actually they are less worthy than your average, law-abiding citizen. More effort goes into 'managing' them or subduing them or ignoring them than any actual reformation attempts, and this film calls into question this logic. What if in fact these individuals were able to rise out of their situation simply by being provided with a place in a healthy environment? It's an interesting conversation to have in any case.