The enormous critical and popular success of Dead End made follow-ups a promising prospect. Not sequels exactly, not in the sense of continuity with Dead End, but simply reusing the “Dead End Kid” troupe who were Dead End’s breakout stars. There was one problem. Like their fictional counterparts, the Dead End Kids proved naught but rambunctious rapscallions, running amok throughout the United Artists studio lot in a manner I picture similar to Pee Wee Herman or Jay and Silent Bob.
So United Artists washed their hands of the Kids, selling them, contracts and all, to Warner Brothers. It is here where the Dead End Kids franchise would run its course, for another six films.
The Warner Brothers series lasted a mere two years, 1938 and 1939, with an emphasis on the same quality and star power Dead End boasted. These films are a part of Warner Brothers’ robust string of gangster epics from the ‘30s, here marrying those socially conscious efforts with tales of young juveniles on the brink of criminality, desperate to make right. The series’ directors and adult actors remain at the highest level.
Warner Brother’s first entry, Crime School, is impossible to find, which seems a horrible oversight of the DVD era. Maybe it’s because its director, Lewis Seiler, belongs more to the B-movie tradition than some of the others.
Though the same actors remain (Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Bernard Punsly, Gabriel Dell, Leo Gorcey), maintaining the same personas, they do not share the same names as in Dead End. Rights and all. Hence there is no continuity with the prior film, and Warner Brothers was legally prohibited from advertising their troupe (for now) as the “Dead End Kids.” “Crime School Kids” was bandied about, but it wouldn’t stick.
The plot of Crime School concerns the kids getting sent to a reform school – that purgatory for wayward boys so oft threatened in Dead End. Again Humphrey Bogart appears, but now as a positive authority figure struggling to wrest control of the school from its ex-con masters. So another struggle between lawfulness and criminality erupts, with the boys caught in the center.
Warner Brothers released the boys’ contract following Crime School, allowing them to go to Universal and produce yet another similarly-minded motion picture, Little Tough Guy. This was the start of the Little Tough Guys parallel franchise, with the same cast, to be explored later. It was a success more in line with Dead End than Crime School, prompting Warner Brothers to retain semi-control of the troupe, to continue on what Crime School started, but with an increased focus on quality.
The result was Angels with Dirty Faces, which exchanges Humphrey Bogart as lead (though he’s still in it) for an equally iconic gangster film mainstay: James Cagney, of The Public Enemy and White Heat. Replacing William Wyler as director is arguably the greatest helmer of the period, Michael Curtiz, soon to do The Adventures of Robin Hood and freaking Casablanca! And like Dead End, Angels with Dirty Faces received its share of awards nominations, though it had to forego Best Picture for a Best Actor nom (for Cagney). This series enjoys an incredible amount of prestige!
Also, the lads are back to being called the “Dead End Kids” now, matters with United Artists being settled.
Despite the franchise designation, and headlining underage stars, the “Dead End Kids” are a minor element of Angels with Dirty Faces, just as they really were in Dead End. It’s the same dramatic framework, the lads serving as a metaphorical value which is being warred over by two morally and ethically opposed men – in this case the gangster Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) and his childhood friend turned priest Jerry Connolly (Cagney’s lifelong pal Pat O’Brien).
We first see Rocky and Jerry as youths, the same age then as the Dead End Kids – this is enough to impress just how the kids’ future rides on their decisions. While at first Rocky and Jerry were both budding hoodlums, taken to robbing the rail yards adjacent to their tenement neighborhood, Rocky was the only one to get picked up. This sent him directly to the Society for Juvenile Delinquents, and onward into a robust montage of flashing neon lights, kick lines, and images conveying Rocky’s passage through prisons in the midst of a prosperous, aimless career in bootlegging, murder, and racketeering.
Ultimately Rocky secures his latest prison release, with the aid of shyster lawyer Jim Frazier (Bogart), and decides to visit the old neighborhood. He’s fulfilling Baby Face Martin’s role in Dead End, so Jerry serves as our Dave – and then some! Serving in the parish, Jerry is a beacon of virtue and rectitude so unwavering, it’s almost dramatically uncompelling. Almost. For Cagney and O’Brien maintain a chemistry which makes this relationship interesting, with the focus always upon the Macbeth-ian figure of Rocky. For Jerry is so pure, he represents an ideal even to Rocky, who shall soon be tempted in another direction.
Rocky had arranged shady business with Frazier prior to his latest incarceration, but now finds Frazier and his business partner Mac Keefer (George Bancroft) reticent to cut Rocky in on their criminal activities. Rocky, that two-bit gangster, plans something of a Yojimbo scheme against these guys (though at the time “Red Harvest” would be the better analogy), arranging a revenge so air-tight, they won’t even be aware of it.
This scenario – which we’ll see more of by and by – is the Warner Brothers gangster influence. Angels with Dirty Faces is the sort of film to put a Tommy gun in the hands of a cackling, suited maniac – it’s a 1938 action movie! As such, certain characteristics are altered. The lush, almost dreamlike cinematography of Dead End gives way to a more basically functional aesthetic, perfectly in keeping with Michael Curtiz’s own macho approach – for he was perhaps the heartiest of Hollywood’s directors. The acting remains at a staggering high, but the style is utterly distinct. Gone are Dead End’s realist, humanistic attributes, given way to a more knowingly artificial approach. For we’re now in the gangster genre, urban violence for the Depression Era the same as noir was for the Post War years. It’s a thoroughly more exciting approach, but far less emotional – it’s also a lot less trying to watch (though that was one of Dead End’s strengths).
So far, and not a word of the Dead End Kids – now saddled with names like Soapy, Swing, Bim, Pasty, Crabface and Hunky. Well, they’re there, local troubled juveniles, the only lads unresponsive to Father Jerry’s youth activity charities. But they’re substantially open to Rocky’s influences, as he knows the proper approach to greet them – faking a gun in his pocket in order to “stick ‘em up.” (Amazingly, Rocky passes most of his criminal career without even a weapon, only sheer moxie and smarts.) “Say your prayers, mugs.” The dialogue here is arch and amazing!
With the Dead End Kids now in his pocket in place of his nonexistent gun, Rocky can entertain them at his seedy hostel, with a magnificent feast of “Irish caviar” (baked beans). Because Rocky and Jerry are friends, philosophical stances notwithstanding, this in turn opens up Jerry’s access to the Dead End Kids. He’s able to get them down to the YMCA, to play the “sissy” game of basketball – well, it sure is sissy how these gangly Caucasians play! But the Dead End Kids are irrepressible, refusing to play by the rules except how Rocky defines them. Thus Rocky refs.
But this is all subplot to the main spectacle, pure and unadulterated gangster goodness with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart! Rocky begins his revenge, getting the better of Frazier in order to steal everything in his safe. This leaves Rocky with a substantial sum of “dough,” and better yet scads of documents with which to blackmail Frazier – or at least that’s what he tells Frazier. Rocky’s really bluffing one over on his old attorney, the same as he then pulls on Mac by convincing him Frazier’s been kidnapped. With remarkable ease, this affords Rocky access to Mac’s cash funds as well. However, it also earns Mac’s ire…
A hit is put out on Rocky, who’s out on a date with local hottie Laury (pinup and “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan). But Rocky – still unarmed – is able to con his would-be-assassins into taking out one of their own, by forcing one gunman into the phone booth intended for Rocky. The poor sap thusly received a hail of gunfire not seen again until James Caan’s death in The Godfather.
The Dead End Kids are somewhat in on Rocky’s wheelings and dealings, since he’s entrusted them to hide his funds while the police detectives do their dutiful duty. Choice dialogue: “You don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout this, see? Ya filthy mug.” With each of the kids getting a cut of the “dough” – from $50 to $100, an enormous sum then – they set about acting quite the fiends, spreading their “simoleons” all around a beer hall. And while Father Jerry may be as straight as an arrow, and surely a nearly Christ-like figure, he’s not above doing like Christ in the temple and physically breaking up the riot the Dead End Kids engender. He’s so good he’s Good, with a streak of hard-earned toughness to match!
Jerry sees the time has come to take action, to put a stop to the rampant gangster worship which inspires such behavior in today’s young. Armed with his knowledge of Frazier and Mac (gleaned from Rocky), Jerry seeks a platform to crusade publicly. One newspaper montage later (Angels with Dirty Faces features perhaps the high point of the newspaper montage art form), and Jerry is on the radio arguing against gangsterism, pleading for the very souls of the children.
These radio broadcasts shatter the con Rocky has been playing on Frazier and Mac – a con thus far so successful, he regularly plots with them in their gambling casino. They accuse Rocky, so Rocky…murders them. He just guns them down maniacally, with a glee I’m surprised was allowed in 1930s cinema.
This is followed immediately by the most astounding shootout the period can offer, as Rocky flees encroaching police officers while making a desperate stand in the tenements. This is the high point of this particular sort of sequence (this coming from the director who also perfected the cinematic swordfight), totally ‘30s in style even while it reminds me of Heat. And this is where the Tommy guns come in! (These sequences are better seen than explained, so all I can say is “Check this out!”)
Rocky is only corralled with Jerry’s help, as he appeals directly to whatever is left of Rocky’s soul. Kudos to Cagney, for making Rocky a conflicted figure who wishes to do right, even while he guns down cops with impunity.
Rocky’s trial is such a predestined affair, it passes by entirely in montage. Rocky is sentenced to the electric chair, and Father Jerry has the unique opportunity for one last visit. Rocky’s death is necessary, because the Hays Code demands the cosmic punishment of all villains, especially criminals. This was to keep stuff like Rocky’s actions from becoming idolized by viewers.
With Jerry, Curtiz is able to turn this into an asset. Jerry himself understands how Rocky mustn’t become a martyred Mafioso – for the Dead End Kids’ sake. “I want you to let them down.” We get something of a legitimately subtle Christ metaphor here, but with a switch. For Rocky to do right, he must die shamefully, a coward. And while Rocky remains hard-souled during the entirety of his final long walk, he reverts into bubbling terror once strapped into the chair. “I don’t want to die! No!” Leave it to the audience to determine if Rocky’s genuinely sacrificing his own dignity for the sake of Jerry’s kids, or if he really was a coward (unlikely). This is a touching moment, Angels with Dirty Faces at its most emotionally powerful.
Again ensconced in their basement hideout, the Dead End Kids read the papers. “ROCKY DIES YELLOW. KILLER COWARD AT END.” With their “hero” reverse-martyred, the kids are open to Jerry’s leadership. With a most faint choir on the soundtrack, he leads them up the basement’s steps into the light.
It would be splitting hairs to say Angels with Dirty Faces is superior to Dead End, which I feel it is, mostly because it’s more cinematic and less stage-bound. But both are astounding pictures, among the top of Hollywood’s 1930s A efforts. This degree of quality is rare for most franchises, but the Dead End Kids is not a franchise like most. There is no continuity between entries, as evinced by Bogart’s wildly divergent roles, nor are the characters the same (though the kids’ personalities are). No, this is something rare and nebulous: a franchise of the actor. It is the presence of the six “Dead End Kids,” and their billing as such, which makes these movies of a piece. It’s a brand name, like “National Lampoon,” in a way I cannot quite pinpoint. Similar series include The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, and later on Monty Python. They are defined by personality over persona, by a certain consistency distinct from authorial voice, and by a plurality of connected performers. As long as the “Dead End Kids” remain a troupe, and use that title, this series shall prosper.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Dead End (1937)
• No. 4 They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
• Nos. 5 - 7 (1939)
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