THE DEVIL'S PARTY (1938) Victor McLaglen, William Gargan, Beatrice Roberts | Crime, Drama | B&W

The Devil's Party is a 1938 American crime film directed by Ray McCarey based on the Borden Chase novel Hell's Kitchen Has a Pantry.Show more

SYNOPSIS
Adults who grew up as slum kids meet later in life, but murder disrupts their reunion.

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. 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.

CAST & CREW
Victor McLaglen as Marty Malone
William Gargan as Mike O'Mara
Paul Kelly as Jerry Donovan
Beatrice Roberts as Helen McCoy
Frank Jenks as Sam
John Gallaudet as Joe O'Mara
Samuel S. Hinds as Judge Harrison
Joe Downing as Frank Diamond
Arthur Hoyt as Webster

Directed by Ray McCarey
Written by Roy Chanslor
Based on Hell's Kitchen Has a Pantry by Borden Chase
Produced by Edmund Grainger
Cinematography Milton R. Krasner
Edited by Philip Cahn
Music by Charles Previn
Production company Universal Pictures
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date May 20, 1938
Running time 65 minutes
Country United States

NOTES
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 reads: "An enduring friendship moves with the years to Hell's Kitchen's other boundary ... BROADWAY."