Themes: Kids in Trouble, Inner City Blues, Going Straight
Main Cast: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft
Release Year: 1938
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connelly (Pat O'Brien) grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood. Rocky becomes a hero to a gang of teenaged boys (played by Dead End KidsBilly Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Bobby Jordan and Bernard Punsley). Father Jerry despairs at this, asking Rocky to lay off so he can keep the kids on the straight and narrow. Then Rocky's crooked business associates George Bancroft and Humphrey Bogart attempt to end Father Jerry's radio campaign against the rackets by killing the priest. Rocky (whose cynical outlook on life has been softened by his romance with true-blue Anne Sheridan) shoots them down and takes it on the lam. Arrested and convicted of murder, Rocky sits smugly on death row, fully intending to go to the chair with a smile on his face. A few moments before the execution, Father Jerry pleads with Rocky to "turn yellow" so that the tenement kids will despise his memory. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Young viewers unfamiliar with 1930s era gangster melodramas might think that this classic is full of well-worn clichés, but Angels With Dirty Faces is the kind of film that brews up the bromides for others to dispense. Decades of homage, satire, and straight-up rip-offs have ensured generations of folks who have never seen a James Cagney film but always recognize an impersonation ("You dirty rat!"). Angels With Dirty Faces has aged well, still delivering plenty of excitement and hard-boiled action alongside its touches of hokum: the kindly priest of the ghetto parish, the cold killer with a soft spot for kids, and the long-suffering neighborhood girl who loves them both. The cast is packed with future icons at work. A pre-legend Humphrey Bogart plays against type as a conniving, cowardly lawyer, still three years away from The Maltese Falcon, and four years from his defining role in Casablanca (also helmed by Angels director Michael Curtiz). Pat O'Brien had made several films with Cagney prior to Angels in which he often served as his cast mate's foil, but this is the first time O'Brien played a priest, a persona he'd be associated with for years to come. The Dead End Kids didn't premiere with Angels, but they're still in their prime, too raw and tough here to be full-fledged comic relief; it would be a few years before their scrappy personas aged into buffoonery as the Bowery Boys. Then there's Cagney, at the height of his firebrand power, swaggering and sneering with charisma to burn. One never doubts that Cagney could survive a swarm of bullets in the climactic gunfight, as he wages a one-man war against both cops and crooks. Angels With Dirty Faces seems to acknowledge its star's glamour and the possibility of his gangster image celebrated and worshipped by impressionable youth. When Father Jerry asks Rocky Sullivan to feign cowardice as he walks to the electric chair, it's to prevent the naïve Dead End Kids from hailing him a martyr who spits at authority up to his last seconds on earth. Sullivan finally puts on the act, begging and pleading for life, and loses all credibility in the eyes of his onscreen admirers. Despite the film studio's intention of "social commentary," however, the audience in the theater watching Angels may feel this final cop-out makes the character even more appealing. After all, Rocky Sullivan shows great fortitude by "turning yellow" in the face of death; it was something he loathed to do, but chose because of his affection for the Kids and his friendship with O'Brien. Who wouldn't want to be that cool? ~ Fred Beldin, All Movie Guide
Robert M. Haas - Art Director, Orry-Kelly - Costume Designer, Sherry Shourds - First Assistant Director, Michael Curtiz - Director, Owen Marks - Editor, Max Steiner - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, Perc Westmore - Makeup, Sol Polito - Cinematographer, Sam Bischoff - Producer, Everett A. Brown - Sound/Sound Designer, Rowland Brown - Screenwriter, Warren B. Duff - Screenwriter, John Wexley - Screenwriter
Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) are childhood friends who robbed a railroad car as kids. Rocky saved Jerry's life during the chase by pulling him out of the way of a steam train. Rocky was then caught by the police, but Jerry - who could run faster - escaped. Rocky, after being sent to reform school, grows up to become a notorious gangster, while Jerry has become a priest.
Meanwhile Rocky gets involved with Frazier (Humphrey Bogart), a crooked lawyer, and Keefer (George Bancroft), a shady businessman and municipal contractor. They try to dispose of Rocky, but he finds the record book that they keep where they list the bribes to city officials. Jerry learns of these events and warns Rocky to leave before he informs the authorities. Rocky ignores his advice and Jerry gets the public's attention and informs them all of the crooked government, causing Frazier and Keefer to plot to kill him. Rocky overhears this plot and kills them to protect his childhood friend.
Rocky is then captured following an elaborate shootout in a building, and sentenced to die. Jerry visits him just before his execution and asks him to do him one last favor - to die pretending to be a screaming, snivelling coward, which would end the boys' idolization of him. Rocky refuses, and insists he will be "tough" to the end, and not give up the one thing he has left, his pride. At the very last moment he appears to change his mind and has to be dragged to the electric chair. The viewer is never told whether Rocky genuinely was afraid, a "rotten sniveling coward", or if he does it for the Father and the boys. The boys hear about what happened and decide he was a coward. Then Father Jerry asks them to say a prayer with him, "for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could".
Father Jerry: "All right, fellas... let's go say a prayer for a boy that couldn't run as fast as I could".
Rocky Sullivan: "Whadda ya hear; whadda ya say?!"'
Rocky : " like sitting in a barber's chair.. " just before going to the electric chair.
When first offered the project, Cagney's agent was convinced that his star property would never consent to playing a role where he would be depicted as an abject coward being dragged to his execution. Cagney, however, was enthusiastic about the chance to play Rocky. He saw it as a suitable vehicle to prove to critics and front office honchos that he had a broad acting range that extended far beyond tough guy roles. Bogart, for one, was very impressed by the death house scene and informed Cagney as such.
Adaptations to Other Media
Angels With Dirty Faces was dramatized as a radio play on the May 22, 1939 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater, with James Cagney and Pat O'Brien reprising their film roles.
In popular culture
Cover of the DVD, released on January 25, 2005
Warner Brothers created a 1939 cartoon that spoofed the movie called Thugs with Dirty Mugs.
During the 1950s, three Argentinian footballers - Antonio Angelillo, Enrique Sivori and Humberto Maschio - formed a talented inside forward line for their Country. They acquired the nickname "Angels with Dirty Faces" when they all moved to Italy in the latter part of the decade to play for the likes of Juventus. The name was given on account of their typically South American colour and ability. They were also known as ‘The Trio of Death’ because of their clinical finishing.[citation needed]
A parody of the film appears in Home Alone as Angels with Filthy Souls. In the parody, Gangster Johnny fires a lengthy machine gun salvo before remarking, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal". Hardcore band, Angels with Filthy Souls, are named after this reference.
In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, we see scenes from a sequel to that film, Angels with Even Filthier Souls. In the sequel, Johnny fires his Tommy gun before saying "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal. And a Happy New Year". In the two movies, Kevin uses the movies as an illusion to make others think that they were talking to Johnny, and that he was shooting at them.
In the early 1990s an Indian version of the film was made. Called Ram Jaane, it cast Shahrukh Khan in the role of Rocky. The movie was quite faithful to the original (albeit Indianized).[citation needed]
Angels with Dirty Faces is often credited as the favourite film of Dr Edward Fitzgerald from the popular UK psychological crime drama Cracker[citation needed]
