Out of the frying pan into the inferno for Frankie, Squirt, Goofy, Spike and the rest of their pals. They've been grabbed off slum streets and sent to reform school. There, they'll be changed. Brutally changed into hardened criminals unless a compassionate defender stands up for them.

One year after his corrosive influence on slum kids as Baby Face Martin in Dead End, Humphrey Bogart portrays a champion of wayward boys in this social-conscience movie. Playing the boys: Dead End's Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Halop and more, beginning their memorable string of Warner Bros. Dead End Kids films that includes Angels with Dirty Faces and the Crime School remake Hell's Kitchen."

This entry in the Dead End Kids series of adventures makes critical comments about the failings of reform schools. The story begins as the boys are sent to the Gatesville Reformatory, a cruel institution where the discipline is often violent. They boys do their best, but it is difficult to cope. Things get a little better when the deputy commissioner of corrections makes a surprise visit to the institution. He is appalled and immediately fires the sadistic warden. He then begins instituting gentler ways of treating the inmates. The grateful youths save the new warden's life after he is machine gunned during a political double-cross. As a reward, the boys are paroled.