Posted Thu Jun 6, 2013 at 10:00 AM PDT by Tom Landy
Another classic featuring Hollywood's golden age starlet Bette Davis will arrive on Blu-ray in June.
In an early announcement to retailers, Kino Video has revealed 'Hell's House' will hit Blu-ray on June 18.
'Hell's House,' released in 1932, was an independent production, produced by Bennie Zeidman, that features early appearances by both Davis and Pat O'Brien right before their time as contract players at Warner Bros., where they would both become superstars within a couple years.
A pre-code melodrama, 'Hell's House' is an exposé of the American penal system, with similarities to other socially-conscious films of the period such as 'I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' and 'The Mayor of Hell.' The film stars Junior Durkin as a naive farmboy who comes to the big city after his mother dies. There, he falls into bad company when he meets a smooth-talking bootlegger (O'Brien) and his beautiful girlfriend (Davis). Before long, the lad finds himself in trouble with the law and is handed a sentence in a brutal reform school. Abandoned by the judicial system, the boy's only chance for justice from the reform school is the conscience of the criminal who put him there in the first place.
Specs have yet to be revealed, but the Blu-ray will be mastered in HD from an original 35mm print from Bette Davis' personal collection, donated to the Library of Congress.
Suggested list price for the Blu-ray is $29.95.
You can find the latest specs for 'Hell's House' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where it's indexed under June 18.
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