In 1935, Sidney Kingsley released the Broadway play “Dead End.” It was a moderate success, running two years, which in no way indicates how it would engender 92 movies in 4 separate franchises!
“Dead End” was a gritty, real world exposé of poverty and slum conditions in Great Depression New York. It focused on a gang of youthful street toughs, mired in juvenile delinquency and tempted by the ease of crime. To portray this central gang of fourteen, many genuine New York hoodlums were hired, lending an air of verisimilitude to the affair. In turn, this play was their opportunity for betterment.
Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood producer extraordinaire, saw the play in 1937 alongside respected director William Wyler – who would also do pictures like Ben-Hur, Mrs. Miniver, Dodsworth, The Best Years of Our Lives, Roman Holiday…and that’s just a highlight reel! They were impressed by the power of “Dead End,” and brought the film rights to United Artists.
Even with a reduced roster of lead youths, director Wyler had difficulty finding young Hollywood actors who could give the performances he’d seen on stage. To solve this issue, Wyler went to the source, recruiting six “Dead End” kids to appear in Dead End – which would lead to their being professionally christened the “Dead End Kids.” This was the start of a lengthy career for each lad, and the seed for four parallel actor-based franchises: Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, and The Bowery Boys. Each franchise was a natural offspring of this moment, with the original six pinballing between them.
Who are the “Dead End Kids?”
Billy Halop plays the gang’s leader, Tommy, as he did on stage. Halop’s background is theatrical, mostly in radio. His subsequent Hollywood career consists almost entirely of appearances in Dead End Kid films, and their related franchises. But “child actor” is not a good career choice, what with the natural process of aging. Halop served in World War II, then found little acting success in anything other than lesser B-movies – such as more of these films.
Bobby Jordan’s (Angel) story partly mirrors Halop’s, with much of his career post-Dead End limited to further films with the troupe. After a few years, though, he was one of the few “Dead End Kids” who was split up from the group – which had changed by then…and we’ll get to all that down the road. This saw Jordan in movies completely unrelated to any of these franchises, such as A Slight Case of Murder and Military Academy. This was while Little Tough Guys was otherwise going strong. Following its dissolution, Jordan found his way back to the fold with East Side Kids, and continued where he left off.
Huntz Hall (Dippy) is also entirely tied up with the quartet of “Dead End” franchises. In a way, he was the most persistent, becoming one of two headliners in the final series, The Bowery Boys. And when all his former costars left, well on into the ‘50s, Hall remained to headline the remainder of these films alone.
Bernard Punsly’s (Milty) introduction to acting was in “Dead End,” having not come from the vague tap-dancing background some of the other boys boasted. Like some of his pals, Punsly joined the Army during WWII. Here he got caught up in a M*A*S*H unit, medicine having already been a mania with him. Punsly left acting to become a physician, becoming something of this group’s Zeppo.
Gabriel Dell (T.B. – name too subtle to offend Hays) was the one with Broadway experience prior even to “Dead End.” When the troupe bifurcated into three franchises developing at once, Dell alternated between all franchises, lending credence to his cast mates. Perhaps the most successful actor out of the bunch, Dell transformed his Dead End Kid success into a brief stand-up career (which led to divorce, which I understand is a stand-up industry standard). With television gaining prominence in the ‘50s, Dell worked completely apart from the remaining Bowery Boys films, appearing in “The Steve Allen Show.” Here he famously developed the world’s best Bela Lugosi impersonation, cementing for all history the jokey way we think of non-Twilight vampires.
Leo Gorcey (Spit) became a member of “Dead End” as an alternative to working odd jobs in East Side New York. His film career is limited mostly to films within the “Dead End” cycle. Leo is perhaps most notable for introducing his brother Dave Gorcey to acting. And while Dave does not appear in any films of the first Dead End Kids franchise (nor did so on stage), he became another of their most notable performers in later years, being most responsible for the films’ eventual turn from high drama to sub-Abbot & Costello comedy. Other than Huntz Hall, Dave became the most prolific of the boys.
That is a lot of set up, which Dead End wouldn’t even need if history were different. For this is an entirely excellent film, filled with a roster of hugely famous adult performers, along with rugged direction, fluid cinematography, and astounding production design. In fact, Dead End was nominated for Best Picture in 1937 – that’s how good it is! (Of course, this was back when the Oscars meant something.)
For a stage-bound story, the one riverside road of Dead End affords plenty of visual splendor, a constantly shifting focus and an endless procession of beautiful, pre-noir shadows. Our setting is the East Side, as painstaking effort is made to render this film setting exactly as its real life (not Broadway) counterpart, East 53rd Street and River House – but don’t go there today expecting gangsters and molls. Due to lovely river views, gentrification has begun, with the hoi polloi wealthy of River House living side by side with the dirt-poor tenements of the neighborhood.
This is the situation the Dead End Kid gang finds themselves in, despising the wealthy as they loiter the day away feigning toughness. The focus isn’t even limited to juveniles, though. Leader Tommy’s older sister, Drina (Sylvia Sidney, already of both Sabotage and Fury), struggles to raise her brother and make ends meet. Dave (Joel McCrea, most recognizable from later Preston Sturges comedies Sullivan’s Travels and The Palm Beach Story) is an out-of-work architect (hey!) who now takes scant chores as he finds them – this doesn’t sit well with his money-hungry mistress in River House.
Many figures are newly arrived in the neighborhood, in good dramatic shorthand. Milty, one of the “Dead End” gang, is the new street tough, who serves as our window to these street urchins even as he joins them. In contrast is the equally young Phillip Griswald, born into wealth, shielded off in River House, and endlessly taunted for it. Also newly arrived, and forever skulking in the background, is notorious and surprisingly-fictional gangster Baby Face Martin – played by none other than Humphrey Bogart, perhaps the biggest icon in all of moviedom.
Dead End follows dialogue and narrative contours which feel very much authentic to the play – though with language curtailed slightly. But even with Hays’ approval, Dead End is somehow notably unpleasant to watch – the sorrowful realities of impoverishment are handled naturally, the implications of subtly simmering violence more challenging than all the severed eyeballs in all the goo movies. And that’s when the harshest language is the word “bologna.”
With these characters setup, and under-explicated on my end, how do things play out? Well, Baby Face Martin is the catalyst, this being his first visit to his childhood neighborhood in years. He’s even acquired a new plastic surgery face, choosing to go with the profile of Hollywood’s most famous actor – ah, the celebrity paradox. Martin is here to make amends, even while he remains a murdering Mafioso. To this end, he tasks the Dead End Kids with rounding up his mother. Milty does this, earning his keep with the gang.
Dave cannot help but notice Martin’s shady presence, and has repeated altercations with the man which come thiiiiis close to outright fisticuffs. But do not. Drina is sadly absent, as she’s busy working in order to feed Tommy.
At last Martin achieves an audience with his mother. She is a poor, bedraggled husk, the weight of slum life clearly weighing heavily. And rather than accept her estranged son’s blood money, she turns him out. “You no-good tramp! You ain’t no son of mine!”
Spurned by family, Martin seeks out friends, in the form of his ex-lover Francey (Claire Trevor, who was Oscar nominated for this role – yet Dead End won nothing). Dialogue indicates Francey is “sick,” getting by “on her looks.” This is Hays Code talk for “Francey is a syphilitic prostitute.” The play was apparently more open about this. A heated quarrel erupts between her and Martin, as she too essentially spurns him – but not without accepting some cash. Here in the belly of the Depression, they suggest the only way out of the East Side tenement lifestyle is to take up Martin’s criminal activities – and that’s no acceptable alternative.
Martin’s one comfort is seeing how little changed in the neighborhood – the Dead End Kids appear well on the track to turn out as Martin did. And he’ll offer up subtle encouragement in their direction – earning the increased ire of Dave. Indeed, with subtext remaining subtext, one gets a sense of the pull the kids face, looked down upon by all they know except for Martin, the one person they shouldn’t emulate.
As an example of the gang’s increasing hoodlumism, they set an ambush for Phillip on one of his rare sojourns outside of River House. Phillip indeed stands up to them, wishing to fight – but on fair terms, one-on-one, in which Phillip just might prove “tough.” But under Martin’s guidance, the Dead End Kids instead wail on Phillip as a whole, giving him a thrashing so solid, it remains entirely off screen – and thus more effective.
Phillip’s father eventually gets word of this assault, and comes out to fight his son’s battle. He grasps Tommy, and Tommy stabs him in the hand, escaping. Mr. Griswald rallies a flatfooted Irish police officer (back when this was a reality, not a grotesque caricature), essentially blackmailing him to hound Tommy. Because Mr. Griswald is brother of Judge Griswald, and is using his wealth and position unfairly.
This is the situation Drina encounters upon returning from work. She wishes to protect Tommy, as it’s known if he is caught, and sent to reform school, a life like Martin’s is inevitable. Poor Drina, bargaining fruitlessly with her younger brother, barely able to keep up a solid façade underneath the Sisyphean challenges of poverty. Tommy, can you hear me? Tommy, can you feel me near you?
This turn of events draws Martin’s attention to Phillip, and his family’s influence. So Martin conspires that this visit shall not be a complete bust; he can at least commit a kidnapping. Dave has overheard this scheming, just as he’s secretly been party to everything Martin has done, and once again confronts him. This confrontation goes further than any before it, as Martin hurls Dave into the river. He even thinks Dave drowned, while Dave is in fact simply hiding under the docks.
So Martin continues to creep through the hot, filthy night alleyways, seeking access to River House. Dave catches up, obtaining a firearm from Martin’s associate Hulk. Guess his personality! With Dave on the offensive, a chase erupts all over the moody extremes of the neighborhood, through the basements, up the fire escapes and onto the rooftops. As a purely cinematic moment, independent of the source material, this is wholly successful. In fact, the whole of Dead End is incredibly effective, moving and evocative. This is the best unexpected surprise I’ve discovered in this film series project, a genuinely first-class A effort.
Dave shoots Martin dead, as a mass huddles below and sees all. When the cops grow the courage to arrive, and ID Martin, they congratulate Dave for his heroism. Dave is to receive a reward, a hefty $3,500 in a world where fistfights erupt over three pennies. Naturally, this windfall brings Dave’s mistress back into the picture – what a gold digger! Dave is conflicted, given his chance to escape this inescapable existence, and yet…
Cops accumulating, they press further into Tommy’s whereabouts. Their tactics used to strong-arm the individual Dead End Kids are not what we’d call ethical today, but they get results. Spit spits it out, squeals, telling all he knows of Tommy. How could he not, under the circumstances? Still, if his friends find out, this surely will not sit well.
The film scores another point – and muddies another issue – as the Dead End Kids peruse a newspaper (released with amazing rapidity, which I again take to be period appropriate) telling tale of Martin’s slaying. The facts related are anything but true, a series of lies which fool no one but Angel: “It says so in the papers.” (Angel, true to his name, is something of an innocent.) There is also brief mention in the paper of Tommy, prompting all to consider him a squealer.
Tommy saw Spit selling out from his perch among the slum’s countless hideaways. He now emerges to squeal on Spit’s squealing. Violence erupts within the Dead End Kids, Tommy himself pinning Spit to the ground with intent to give him the “mark of the squealer.” (We saw this earlier, with a neighboring block’s gang – it is a cheek scar, a permanent emblem.) Dave, ever privy to all the street hosts, intercedes at last in the gang’s storyline, prying Tommy away from Spit and arguing reason.
In this ruckus, Drina confronts Tommy about the cycle of violence. “Where is this all gonna end?” Tommy genuinely wishes to change, and resolves to turn himself in to the police. But this will send him irreparably down Martin’s path! Dave at least sees what he should do: Use his reward money to defend Tommy in court. This offers him a chance, at least, to mend. Wisely, we do not see that trial, or know what comes of Tommy, leaving that debate open.
Rather, Dead End concludes with the remaining Dead End Kids singing “The Wings of an Angel,” promising salvation without even a smidgen of gooey sentimentality. The camera rises over the tenements, to the same impressive model which opened Dead End. And another day in the city comes to an end.
Considering I went into this film knowing only 91 movies would follow it, I am surprised at how singly excellent Dead End is. It is a testament to the best that studio-system Hollywood could offer up, combining a good play with a respectful screenplay adaptation, nuanced and assured performances, and a more robust visual fabric than most filmed play adaptations can hope for. It’s not the sort of effort which merits dwelling upon, for the movie is a testament alone to its quality. No matter where these upcoming Dead End Kid movies go – and they’ll almost certainly start to get pretty mediocre – Dead End cannot be assailed.
Related posts:
• No. 3 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
• No. 4 They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
• Nos. 5 - 7 (1939)
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