Customer Reviews

Angels With Dirty Faces [VHS]

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"Angels with Dirty Faces" is one of the greatest gangster pictures of the 1930's, a decade which saw many great ones. Some people might be turned off by the old style acting (When people shoot, it seems more like they are punching). But I very much enjoyed this movie, and I'm only 14! (Some plot spoilers).

James Cagney is "Rocky" Sullivan, who as a kid was driven to a life of crime by an arrest. Cagney gives what some consider his definitive gangster performance, which was awarded by the New York Film Critics as best actor, but was not awarded by the academy. Pat O'Brien is his childhood friend Jerry Connolly, who is now a priest. He is concerned with Sullivan's involvement on a group of kids, believing that he is influencing them in a life of crime. He vows to fight organized crime, even if that means crushing his friend.

Before he was a major star, Humphrey Bogart was a supporting player who made a major impact. In here, he plays Sullivan's lawyer, who tries to knock off Rocky after his release from prison. There is also Ann Sheridan as Laury, a love interest to Sullivan, and there are also the Dead End Kids (Led by Billy Halop as "Soapy").

I will make this short and sweet. You must see this movie. If you want more, you must own this movie. Thank You.

Slightly dated and just a little too sentimental towards the end ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is still a great movie mainly due to James Cagney's high-powered performance as life long criminal Rocky Sullivan.

After his latest prison stint Rocky returns to his old neighborhood looking to get in on some of the action. Childhood friend and now priest, Pat O'Brien, is glad to see his old buddy but worries about Sullivan's influence on the local kids who idolize his violent ways.

Sullivan's aggressive behavior doesn't sit too well with local bosses George Bancroft and Humphrey Bogart, so before too long the lead gets to flying.

The scenes with Cagney (which are the majority of the film) are great, but the stuff with The Dead End Kids is annoying. They acted like a bunch of wannabe tough guys doing a "Three Stooges" routine. Ann Sheridan, while not being on the screen near enough, is beautiful. I've always found her to be one of the hottest women of the Golden Age.

Followed, in name only, by ANGELS WASH THEIR FACES starring Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan.

Cagney and O'Brien also starred together in HERE COMES THE NAVY (1934), CEILING ZERO (1935), DEVIL DOGS OF THE AIR (1935), THE IRISH IN US (1935), BOY MEETS GIRL (1938), THE FIGHTING 69TH (1940), TORRID ZONE (1940) and RAGTIME (1981).

Also if you look fast enough you'll notice Harry Hayden as the pharmacist during the drug store attack. Harry starred bit parts and supporting roles in close to 250 films including MR.SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, HIGH SIERRA (another pharmacist), NOTORIOUS, THE KILLERS, FURY, OUT OF THE PAST and 7 movies by the great Preston Sturges.


D: Michael Curtiz (MILDRED PIERCE, LIFE WITH FATHER)

William `Rocky Sullivan - James Cagney (EACH DAWN I DIE, MISTER ROBERTS)
Father Jerome `Jerry' Connelly - Pat O'Brien (SOME LIKE IT HOT, BOMBSHELL)
James `Jim' Frazier - Humphrey Bogart (THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, HIGH SIERRA)
Laury Ferguson - Ann Sheridan (THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, KINGS ROW)
Mac Keefer - George Bancroft (STAGECOACH, EACH DAWN I DIE)

Of all the Cagney films I've seen, and I've seen a lot of them, this is the way that I always remember him. He's tough talking, swaggering, with the hint of a good guy that never got a break and was destined for a life of crime. Cagney is amazing in this role, and you'll recognize so many of the mannerisms and speech patterns that became his trademark and part of his legend. Pat O'Brien also makes a good impression in his role as Father Connelly, and this type of role is what he is well remembered for, too. It's a basic story of two friends, and one goes down the right road, while the other goes down the wrong road. The movie is fast, full of memorable moments, and the last scenes will stay with you for a long time. This is one of those "they don't make them like that anymore" movies, and it's a must-see for anyone who likes Cagney, gangster films, old films, or simply good movies.

Not only do I consider this to be Jimmy Cagney's greatest flick, but perhaps the greatest gangster movie of all time. Rocky Sullivan - the "bad guy" - has you cheering for his side from the opening scene with that little snot, Laurie Martin, begging to be taught a hard lesson, through the "electified" ending. But why do we cheer for the bad guy? Well, we come to find that Rocky's not quite so bad, that he really cares and has a heart of gold. It's just the folks he gets mixed up with (his lawyer/partner, for example, played by Bogart) who, we find, are the REAL bad guys. The way Sullivan 'takes care of' those who screwed him over is played to perfection by Cagney. His mannerisms, the way he speaks, even his affection for the now grown up Laurie Martin (who is no longer a 'snot' but a real good lookin' dame) all are played out with such versitality by one man that there is no doubt how great an actor Jimmy Cagney actually was. And, best of all, is that there is absolutely 100% NO POLITICALLY CORRECT B.S. so prevalent in so many of today's movies. Nope. Not back in the glory days of 1938 when men were men, gangsters were gangsters, and Jimmy Cagney played them both to the hilt!

Yankee Doodle Dandy is the most politically correct choice people make as their favorite Cagney movie these days. My personal favorite is White Heat but AwDF by far, is Cagney's best acting job. In Warner Bros. movies once you're sent to reform school you're doomed to live a life of crime until your inevitable death. As is Rocky Sullivan so doomed. He visits his old neighborhood in a vain attempt to recapture his youth, perhaps to start his his life over, but, he's condemned to relive his mistakes. Rocky's emotional growth is stunted at the age he was first arrested, which explains his attraction to the Dead End Kids, who he sees as his peers. The question that has always dogged this film is " Did Rocky turn yellow?" The short answer is "Yes". Most people are inclined to disbelieve this because of Cagney's lifelong on-screen personality. They want to believe that Rocky performed a final noble act in an attempt to put the Dead End Kids lives back on the straight and narrow. Cagney enjoyed going against his tough gangster image. Rocky's character is all about being in control, if he's not he collapses. Witness the Warehouse shootout scene When Pat O'Brien tries to talk Rocky down, Rocky is sweating profusely, his voice quivers, he's trapped and terrified,until Pat O'Brien gives him his way out. At the end of the film when Pat O'Brien pleads his case Rocky refuses, trying to retain what little control he has left. But as he's being strapped to the chair, the last vestiges of control evaporate, Rocky snaps and panics. Yes, Rocky turned yellow.

I must have seen this film about 30 times while I was growing up. Realizing James Cagney was the best of his Generation. Every time I watched it I wanted the ending to be different. It had such an impact on me. Did he do it for the Kids? Did he just get Yellow at the last minute like the Guard said? A question we will never have answered.
Other scenes that were great was seeing the streets of NY( even though it was really the backlot). The scene of seeing Gagney coming into the church and hearing the Choir singing is memorable. As a young boy watching it for the first time in the 50's I fell in love with Ann Sheridan as well. A real knockout.
This film will go down in Film History as one of the best of it's kind.

ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is no by the numbers gangster melodrama of the 1930s. It is a penetrating insight into a number of well-known character types. Director Michael Curtiz portrays a bulls-eye of distinct personalities with Rocky Sullivan centered on ground zero. James Cagney, who plays Sullivan with the bravura performance of a long and distinguished career, absolutely dominates each scene with his tongue and flashing arms. Sullivan is a recently released convict from Brooklyn who returns to the scene of his youth and finds that the local youth gangs have elevated him to heroic stature. He takes this adulation in stride; he has business to take care of. He plans to regain money taken from him by a former cohort in crime (Humphrey Bogart), or failing that, to kill him. Yet, despite his criminal life, there is much good within him. At one time early in life, the merest of chances pushed him down the wrong path of a one way street while allowing another (Pat O'Brien) to take the right one. His life after that was predictable: reform school, the criminal life, back to jail, a hard-nosed attitude about life. Now he walks the streets, attempting to have it all, money, a good-looking dame (sweetly played by Ann Sheridan), and the respect of his peers, even if those peers are the Dead End Kids. These kids form the first outer circle around Rocky. They are both literally and emotionally around him. In Sullivan's interactions with them, he is squarely centered, tossing out bills as if they were candy bars, smacking them on the head with his fedora hat, exhorting them with words to upgrade their lives. And they, of course, tough as they are, lionize him, protecting him and his property from the common enemy--the cops--, and setting in motion the wheels to wind up just like him. In the third and final circle orbiting Sullivan lie the trio of Sullivan's girlfriend (Ann Sheridan), his crooked business partner (Bogie) and the other boy whom fate pushed down the right path to grow up to be a priest (O'Brien).
Try as hard as he can, Rocky cannot escape the bulls-eye painted plainly on his forehead. His girlfriend badgers him to go straight. The Dead End Kids are contstantly in trouble, trying to emulate their hoodlum god. Bogie has sicced both his own hoods and the cops in a vain attempt to eliminate Sullivan. And Father Jerry (O'Brien) tells Sullivan up front that he will go after him using the power of the media. It would have been easy for Sullivan to despair and act meanly, but he adheres to his own moral code that demands that all debts be paid. To his surprise, when he is arrested by the police and is ready to face the electric chair, Father Jerry reminds him of one more debt to be paid. This debt is to kids like those who idolize him and expect him to, in Rocky's own words, 'to walk up to the executioner and spit in his eye.' Father Jerry asks a great deal of him, to pretend fear and die seen as a gutless coward. Some debts, Father Jerry reminds him, are tougher to pay than others. The movie ends with the Dead End Kids emotionally flattened, their hero as just another yellow punk who could not walk that last walk unaided. ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is a character drama that uses crime and hero worship as a backdrop against which a flavor of a decade is portrayed. The angels at the close of this movie have been convinced that one of their own had been permanently covered with the dirt of cowardice. Yet the audience knows that the dirt of crime can be washed off if the one facing his destiny can only scrub hard enough.

Shows the good and bad side of humanity. How choices we make today will affect us in twenty years. If you want to see a great movie buy this one.

Humphrey Bogart's part is minor. ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is a Cagney movie. Sure, it does seem dated. See it for the old boys' gymnasium, the boys playing basketball in their gym clothes, the trapezes hanging from the gymnasium ceiling above the basketball court. See it for Cagney helping the priest by refereeing a game, and punching the kids around when they commit fouls.

Cagney looks good as Rocky Sullivan, famous gangster put away for years, only to return to the streets. Doublecrossed by two former allies, he guns them down, only to be hunted down by police. Cagney's the real McCoy.

This is classic Cagney and not to be missed by fans of gangster movies. ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES: 5 stars

Two childhood friends grow up to go their different ways. Here we witness one Rocky Sullivan, a noted criminal, who comes back to his old neighbourhood and finds that he's the idol of the gutter-bred youngsters there...It's a good title and a better picture; it moves swiftly with ever increasing tension; Michael Curtiz directed splendidly: this movie moves fast, is both imaginitive and humourous and the entire cast gives performances which are uniformly polished. While Jimmy Cagney was filming BOY MEETS GIRL, scenerists John Wexley and Warren Duff were preparing this gem. Cagney returned to the Gangster arena with this one, and he delighted everyone as hard-headed Rocky Sullivan. To watch Cagney in this role is sheer bliss, because he conveys his feelings by doing everything physically in his playing: i.e. - for instance, his discomfort in church is evident - he shrugs his shoulders in a vain attempt to free himself from his starched collar, etc. Director Curtiz was nominated for an AA for both this and FOUR DAUGHTERS (done the same year); neither won. The cast here is top-notch; the production was outstanding, Max Steiner's musical score is terrific and the last few minutes of this film is unforgettable movie making at its very best - what the viewer experiences here is genuinely timeless!