Reform School. 1939. USA. Directed by Leo C. Popkin. Screenplay by Zella Young. With Louise Beavers, Reginald Fenderson, Monte Hawley. Digital restoration courtesy of the Academy Film Archive with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts from a 16mm print donated by Giancarlo Esposito and Laurence Fishburne. New York premiere. 82 min.
In 1937, the actor, writer, and master of ceremonies Ralph Cooper (of Amateur Night at the Apollo) joined the brothers Harry and Leo Popkin, owners of the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles, to create Million Dollar Productions “for the purpose of producing all-colored cast, modern, Class -A- talking pictures with themes taken from modern Negro life.” Million Dollar produced 10 or 12 films—most famously The Duke Is Tops, the first film appearance of Lena Horne, but mostly gangster films based on the popular formulas of the day. Long thought lost but recently discovered and restored by the Academy Film Archive, Reform School riffs on Universal’s “Little Tough Guys” series, proposing the “Harlem Tuff Kids” as the residents of a penal institution for teenagers where Louise Beavers—a familiar supporting player in many Hollywood films—is the new warden trying to reform a brutal system.