Hell Harbor is Lupe Velez's second sound feature, and her first high-profile one. Her talkie debut, Tiger Rose (1929) was considered a financial risk for Warner Brothers, who feared the actress' Mexican accent would alienate moviegoers. When that film was hit, director Henry King was given the go-ahead to cast Velez in his big-budget adaptation of Rida Johnson Young's novel. During filming, King was so struck by the unusual appearance of a reporter covering the production that he cast him as a barfly. He advised the newswriter, Rondo Hatton, to quit his day job and come to Hollywood. Seven years later, Hatton would take King's advice, and the director cast him in In Old Chicago (1937). Afterwards the actor would achieve legendary status playing "the Creeper" in three Universal horror films, The Pearl of Death (1944), House of Horrors and The Brute Man (both 1946). Jean Hersholt and Gibson Gowland had previously played adversaries in Erich von Stroheim's epic Greed (1924).
DVD Details
>Rated: NR
>Runtime: 1 hours, 5 minutes
>Encoding: Region 1(US & Canada)
>Originally Released: 1/1/2025
>Label: Alpha Video
Starring: Lupe Velez;Jean Hersholt;Gibson Gowland;Al St. John;Rondo Hatton