Road Gang

Road Gang (1936)

Genres - Drama  |   Sub-Genres - Prison Film  |   Release Date - Mar 28, 1936 (USA - Unknown)  |   Run Time - 65 min.  |   Countries - United States  |   MPAA Rating - NR
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Review by Hans J. Wollstein

Road Gang is one of those tough little blue-collar melodramas that the brothers Warner did so well and that have weathered the times rather better than many of the period's more star-studded films. Stock footage from the searing 1932 prison spectacular I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang adds to the production values and director Louis King stages a harrowing blowout in a mineshaft. Leading man Donald Woods is almost too immaculate as the muckraking journalist-turned-prison inmate but he manages to overcome what at first appears to be a slight case of miscasting. Heading an ace Warner Bros. stock company, Kay Linaker has little to do this time around as the nominal heroine, but Charles Middleton is properly coldhearted as the mine warden and Carlyle Moore Jr. is good as Woods' ill-fated accomplish. Typically, writer Dalton Trumbo is very circumspect regarding the actual Southern location of this particular Road Gang lest Warner Bros. should get in trouble with the state of Georgia. Heavily censored, the drama was released in Great Britain as Injustice.