High school students led by the Girl and Boy turn from Christianity toward secret atheistic meetings. When a girl is accidentally killed by a stairway collapse, the Girl and Boy go to reform school where they are treated brutally.
After an incident at their high school, Lina Basquette and Tom Keene find themselves sent to an harsh and brutal state "reformatory" where they must deal with the nasty Noah Beery and his team of pretty cruel guards. During the course of the remainder of the film, the characters challenge their long held beliefs, whilst determining to survive this ghastly regime. This film is more notable for the fact that it is the last silent film from Cecil B. De Mille, but as far as the actual story goes, it is a very thinly spread couple of hours and though the performances are of a high standard; the production is lively and active and I particularly liked the way newspaper headline were used as inter-titles now and again, it struggles to hold the attention at times. It is quite a long watch that tends to recycle the nastiness just once too often, but the last twenty minutes bring the thing alive with a wonderfully staged conflagration that in some ways also vindicated the underlying storyline: a retribution on those who perpetrated abuse on these underprivileged people in the name of the Lord, but who were in reality, little more than horrible bullies.
