Product Details

• Actors: Bette Davis, Pat O'Brien, Junior Durkin, Frank Coghlan Jr., Emma Dunn
• Directors: Howard Higgin
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Celebrity Home Enter
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 1987
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300158837
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,750 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Early Bette Davis melodrama, June 3, 2006

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hell's House [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Part reform movie and part "B" picture melodrama, Junior Durkin plays a kid who idolizes bootlegger Pat O'Brien; when O'Brien hires him as a go-fer, Durkin is in his glory. Little does he realize that O'Brien has eyes for his girlfriend, Bette Davis. When the bootlegger's joint gets raided and Durkin is arrested, he refuses to rat out O'Brien and the kid is sent to reform school for three years. Here the boy is cruelly mistreated; when another boy at the school dies, a newspaper threatens to expose what's going on (that's the reform angle). When Durkin finds out from his mother that O'Brien and Davis are a number, he escapes and pays a visit to Davis. She feeds him the line that she was only doing it to get O'Brien to spring him. Then when the cops show up on Durkin's tail, O'Brien confesses. It's a pretty unbelievable ending, and the picture is not very memorable. It's interesting to see Davis this early in her career, though, and some of her scenes with O'Brien are decent, if not great.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Bette Davis, bootlegging, and a bunch of delinquents, June 12, 2007

By 

Joseph P. Menta, Jr. (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hell's House (DVD)

Undistinguished, yet a perfectly watchable depression/prohibition-era melodrama set mostly in a workhouse for delinquent kids. For those Bette Davis fans out there, yes, Bette Davis is in this movie, but it by no means a "Bette Davis movie". Ms. Davis plays the girlfriend of a bootlegger, but doesn't get to do much besides show that she has the conscience her boyfriend lacks (until the unlikely conclusion where the bootlegger all of a sudden feels guilt for those he ground under his boots on the way up). She's also not onscreen much, with most of the running time being devoted to a misguided kid trying to make his way in the workhouse after he refuses to dime out his bottlegger boss.

All in all, this churned-out, second-tier melodrama is a fairly painless stopover for Bette Davis completists. The movie is only 72 minutes long, the print isn't bad (though it's not sharp and restored, by any means), and there's a nice gallery of other vintage-era DVD offerings to scroll through, which mostly feature original movie poster art on the DVD boxes pictured.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great classic movie, February 1, 2010

By 

Patricia A. Richey (Front Royal, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hell's House (DVD)

This movie is a great classic that I was happy to add to our collection. Product shipped quickly and arrived in great condition.