Besides the famous and spectacular dream sequence of poet Dante's version of hell, this movie also features an equally tremendous disaster sequence at the end of the film when a luxury liner catches on fire. You might say all "hell" breaks loose on board. Spencer Tracy strongly disavowed his work on this movie, but in actuality, it's one of his better roles in the 1930s. Tracy plays a carnival barker who works his way up the ladder of success until he's the head of several lucrative enterprises. His first claim to fame is the establishment of "Dante's Inferno" as the leading attraction at an eastern city (most likely NYC) amusement park. There he meets his future wife (Claire Trevor) and her uncle (Henry Walthall) who is the attraction's proprietor and main creative force. Tracy soon builds up Walthall's modest carnival concession into something out of this world and it becomes the hit of the boardwalk. It also becomes an unsafe structure that causes death and destruction. The movie follows Tracy's rise and fall in the business world and he pretty much ends up exactly where he came from: at the bottom. Luckily for him, Ms. Trevor is never far away to give him the love and encouragement that he really doesn't deserve. Old Walthall does his best to give Tracy some much needed advice about the wages of sin and immorality, but it falls on deaf ears. Tracy ends up in his own private hell, but he's given an unnecessary reprieve in the final reel along with a hokey ending. This is one of those films that could stand a good remake and an updating to the modern era. Dante's version of hell might be something that could attract some present-day director into developing his own interpretation.