In the 1930's, particularly in the South, it was common place to punish criminals by placing them on chain gangs. As one can imagine, this involved manual labor, such as building roads, while the prisoners were chained to one another by the ankle. This practice was often accompanied by the "sweat box" a form a punishing an uncooperative inmate by placing him in a wooden, coffin-like box in the hot sun. In the thirties, this form of punishment was to be addressed in two major films, the drama I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), and the screwball comedy Sullivan's Travels (1941-not technically released in the 30's, but reflective of the decade).
I Am a Fugitive...was a particularly controversial film, as the state of Georgia sued Warner Brother's in an attempt to stop the film from being released. The film is based on the true story of a man wrongly accused and placed on a chain gang in Georgia. The man in question was actually still a fugitive, and served as a consultant on the film. The film is an scathing critique on an unfair judicial system, and established the studio as one of the most socially conscious of Hollywood.
Sullivan's Travels, a post-code, post-decade screwball comedy released by Paramount, can be seen to function as a kind of anti-Fugitive, in that it addresses the problem of life on the Chain Gang, but manages, as comedies often do, to reconcile itself to the prevailing ideology.