Back Door to Heaven

Back Door to Heaven is a 1939 American film directed by William K. Howard.

He gains a hard reputation there and afterwards is sent to the state penitentiary for five years for punching a prison monitor. After this time he is released as an adult with two other inmates, and they spend their first evening of freedom together. Later they go with Frankie back to his home town. It happens to be Miss Williams birthday, and she is opening cards and presents sent by her former pupils, including Frankie. Although she has fond thoughts of all her students, she said to her friends that she cared for Frankie as if he were her own.Things have changed since Frankie left the town. He returns to his family shack, to find that a negro woman and her children are now living there. She tells Frankie that his father had died and that his mother was taken away to an asylum a year previously. He meets Miss Williams ans discovers that she has been pensioned off. He visits the chairman of the school board of governors, who happens to be both an old school colleague and the local bank manager. He asks him to find a position for Miss Williams in the new school, and agrees to consider it. The visiting trio then leave the town for Cleveland. Frankie meets up with another classmate Carol and forms a relationship with her. Upon returning to his digs, he finds a note from his two friends saying that they intended to rob an ice cream parlour at a given time. He races to the scene in order to prevent the crime, but arrives just at the point when they kill the proprietor during the robbery. He is implicated in and arrested for the crime. During the trial Frankie is defended by another class colleague, John Shelley played by Van Heflin. While inexperienced as a lawyer, he delivers a powerful oration to the jury. ........

Source: Wikipedia