1938’s Angels with Dirty Faces performs a weird bait-and-switch. With James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart among the leads, one would expect an incredibly tough gangster picture like Cagney’s The Public Enemy or White Heat. Instead, you get second-billed Pat O’Brien as a priest who is impossibly pure of heart. You also get the Dead End Kids as a bunch of rambunctious hooligans. As the notorious Production Code went into effect only three years earlier, I suspect that neutered what was originally meant to be a leaner and meaner work.
It starts out promisingly enough, with a young Frankie Burke turning in a stellar Cagney impersonation as the teen version of the star. Together with the teen version of O’Brien’s priest (William Tracy), these two commit various acts of criminal mischief before things escalate with an attempted theft of boxes of fountain pens from a railroad car. I’m still amused their big crime was the theft of office supplies. If this film gets a modern remake, I want to see the grand theft of a truck filled with Post-It Notes.
Burke is interred in the “Society for Juvenile Delinquents”, which sounds a bit more high-falootin’ than “juvie”. I like to imagine they’re being taught how to properly drink tea, with their pinkies extended. Over time, he grows up to be Cagney, who is now a career criminal. There’s a montage where we see hints of his various criminal activities through the years, interspersed with additional stints in prison.
While he’s been in prison, his money is being watched over by his lawyer, played by Humphrey Bogart. This film was made when the actor wasn’t fully in his element yet, though that change was right around the corner. His character here is conniving instead of clever. He is also surprisingly cowardly.
Cagney is greatly displeased when he learns his lawyer has his money tied up in a club, and he forces an arrangement where he’ll take 20% of Bogey’s share. He also wants his own accountant to go over the books. Bogey claims he’s fine with that, but he clearly intends to take Cagney out of the picture. Even more dangerous is George Bancroft, who is the real boss of the enterprise.
This set-up has enough potential for one movie, but then that becomes almost secondary to the other storyline, where O’Brien’s priest recruits Cagney to help him put a group of young misfits on the right track. Cagney’s introduction to these thugs had happened when they stole his wallet and he tracked them down to his old hideout. He teaches them a lesson about not shitting where they eat, but you can tell he feels an affinity with them.
Soon, he’s doing things like being the referee in a basketball game where these kids attempt to cheat and Cagney smacks them around as correction. Watching this, O’Brien smiles and says, “He sure knows how to handle those kids, doesn’t he?” I guess so, if handling them means kicking them in the shins and elbowing them in the jaw.
Also in the mix in this, the lesser plot, is Ann Sheridan. He obviously had a thing for her when they were both kids in the neighborhood, and now she runs the boarding house where he has taken a room. There’s an interesting bit where she retaliates for an insult from years earlier, by slapping him and then pulling his hat down hard over his eyes. He’s amused by this, and we’re as surprised as he is when he proceeds to sit down on the bed and it collapses.
The actors here deliver a range of performances, with the best deserving of a better film. It is odd to see Bogey play a rather spineless and shifty character, which is probably why I wasn’t fully sold on his performance. Also, O’Brien’s priest is nothing more than a cliché. Those who fare the worst are The Dead End Kids, whose “Whaddideyedoo?” shtick wore on me very quickly. I get the title refers to these miscreants, but I did not see any potential for angelic behavior from any of the lot.
The film has some interesting visual flourishes. I especially liked a 360-degree crane shot which shows the changes to the characters’ neighborhood in the times before and after Cagney’s long stay as a guest in various correctional facilities.
The third act has some interesting action where police using tear gas grenades are unable to flush Cagney out of where he’s barricaded himself. O’Brien is sent in and successfully gets his friend to surrender. The gas seems to have very little effect on O’Brien, so I guess all that lousy incense they burn in church enabled him to build up an immunity to tear gas.
I didn’t believe that, nor a great deal else, in Angels with Dirty Faces. But worst of all is the ending, where O’Brien convinces the fearless Cagney to act like he’s gone yellow when he’s about to be seated in the electric chair. When the kids read about this in the newspaper the next day, their hero worship is shattered, and it is implied they will now live decently from here on out. I believed neither Cagney acquiescing to this request, nor the teens’ complete transformation by this event. If this is all that was needed to convert juvenile delinquents, might I propose any criminal who is executed be reported as crying and wetting themselves like a big baby as the hour of their demise drew near?
Dir: Michael Curtiz
Starring James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan
Watched on Warner Bros. blu-ray