Angels With Dirty Faces

Rating:
Summary: Three roads , three fates
Review: Three friends will be carried for those strange twists of fate in a priest a good man and a criminal.
Curtiz established as a young promise in 1938 with this famous work .
Cagney and Bogart are terrific.
An incandescent noir film .

Rating:
Summary: One Of Cagney's Finest & One Of My All-Time Favorites!
Review: WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD


The silhouette of "Rocky Sullivan" (played by James Cagney) struggling with the guards as he is being strapped to the electric chair is one of the most moving moments ever filmed. Was he scared and frightened? Was it a selfless act so that the "Dead End Kids" wouldn't end up in a similar situation? I strongly recommend you watch the film and decide for yourself.

Two friends grow up together on the Lower East Side of New York. One turns to a life of crime and the other turns to God and the priesthood. Having just been released from prison "Rocky" returns to the district where he grew up to collect money owed to him by his corrupt lawyer James Frazier (played by Humphrey Bogart). While he is there he calls in on his old friend Jerry Connelly (played by Pat O'Brien) who is now a priest. He is working with a group of young boys (The Dead End Kids) trying to keep them on the straight and narrow and away from crime. Rocky's infamy as a gangster assures him of being popular with the boys who idolise him, however, it is because if this popularity that Fr. Jerry asks him to pretend to be scared as he is taken to the chair. He doesn't want the boys to follow in his footsteps and end up in the same situation. Rocky refuses and walks to the chair without a flinch. On reaching the chair he cries out and struggles.

Did he do it for the boys? I think so. Was the priest a hypocrite? I think so. Father Jerry wouldn't accept money from Rocky for the building of a new gym for the boys because the money was corrupt. However, he was willing to allow the boys to have a false impression of Rocky as a coward.

All-in-All, This Gets 5 Stars Out Of A Possible 5 In My Book.

Rating:
Summary: One Of The Best Gangster Movies Ever Made
Review: What do you get when you mix James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien and the Dead End Kids?
Just about the best gangster movie ever made!
Cagney plays a gangster trying to go straight, who is idolized by the Dead End Kids.
Bogie is a psycho gangster and Cagney's ex partner-in-crime.
Pat O'Brien is the priest who is trying to keep the Kids on the straight-and-narrow.
Cagney is forced to gun down Bogie and winds up going to the chair.
At the end, director Michael Curtiz makes you wonder if Cagney really turned yellow or not.
Classic gangster melodrama and among the top 100 films ever made.