Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Yeah, she was my goile when we was kids", March 24, 2002
This is a wonderful film about the life of people living in a Manhattan ghetto in the 30's. Their life is starkly juxtaposed against that of an upper class family living in a posh residence in the same neighborhood--moving there for a desirable view of the river. From their terrace, the rich folks are insulated from, and can look down upon, the poor people living in tenements.The film has a very theatrical feel; most of the action happens right on the street in the neigborhood. The dialouge, written by Lillian Hellman, is snappy and excellent. The kids of the Dead End are young adolescent boys on the verge of growing up. Their choices in life are constrasted by the characters of Joel McCrea and Humphrey Bogart: adults who were also once Dead End kids. McCrea, who still lives in the neigborhood, has been to college but is now is looking for work. Bogart, who is returning to the neighborhood after many years away, is the nortorious gangster, Baby-faced Martin; he has killed eight men. The adults are facing tough choices too: McCrea is torn beween two women: Sylvia Sidney, a neighborhood friend who is trying to raise her younger brother (one of the Kids) on her own, and Wendy Barrie, a member of the rich family (her father is brother to a Judge). Sidney, when her brother gets in trouble, contemplates helping him run away. Barrie is apparently engaged but wants to go with McCrea--if a prospective job for him comes through. Bogart has come back to the neighborhood for something...he's not sure. Perhaps he wants some stability in his life so he seeks out an former girlfriend, Clair Trevor, leading to a memorable scene: Bogart (reminiscing): "Remember that night on the roof?"
Trevor: "The night was full of stars and I was full of dreamy ideas." He makes a pitch for her to come away with him but she tells him to take a closer look at her... Bogart feels betrayed--and this comes shortly after being rejected by his own mother--whom he hasn't seen for years. Trevor, like other characters here, feels as if her life is at a dead end. What hope? But this film is not depressing. There is a glimmer of hope offered through the characters of McCrea and Sylvia; and, of course, in the boys. This is a very enjoyable film, well written and executed. And the dilemmas portrayed are still with us today.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Park Ave. it ain't!, July 20, 2000
In the film Dead End, the murky waters of Manhattan's East River served as an appropriate backdrop for the squalor that manifested itself within the conefines of tenament housing. City streets that offered little hope for the jobless, poor, and oppressed were truely "dead ends". Written by Lillian Hellman and directed by William Wyler, Dead End exposed the stark social and economic divisions between the affluent and the underpriveledged. Logistically, the film was easily adapted from Sidney Kingsley's stage play, as most of the scenes are shot within the shadows of Manhattan's East 53rd street highrises. Dead End is essentially about people and their relationship with the neighborhood that spawned them. Gangster Baby Face Martin ( Humphrey Bogart) returns to his old block seeking glorified acceptance from his mother, only to be rudely rebuffed. Plastic surgery may conceal Martin's outward identity, but his crimminal persona is clearly defined through his street wise and violent attitude towards survival. At first Martin basks in the limelight; preening with sharp suit, hat, and polished shoes. As if to make a social statement exclaiming the virtues and rewards of crime, Martin becomes an icon for a teenage street gang (The Dead End Kids). When Martin is shocked by his mother's repulsive behavior, he seeks out his old flame (Clair Trevor). When she reveals that she is now a prostitute, Martin once again becomes tormented that his homecoming is a lonely one. Sylvia Sydney plays Drina, a young unemployed woman struggling to forge an identity of her own while raising her teenage brother. Drina can only dream about escaping the confines of her depressing neighborhood, since her childhood beau ( Joel McCrea) has been enticed by a society girl ( Wendy Barrie) who resides in an exclusive penthouse overlooking the shoddy apartments that define Dead End. Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Leo Gorcey, and the rest of the Dead End kids provide enough street talk to make an English teacher cringe with embarrassment. Is there a way out of Dead End? Most street toughs assumed a life of crime would free them from poverty. Others set up businesses relying on the patronage of tenanment residents to keep the bills paid. Others relied on marriage in hopes of "marrying up". Still others sought education as a way out. The year is 2000, and if you visit the streets of Manhattan above 110th street not much has changed since Wyler's 1937 film Dead End.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
`Aren't they sweet?' `Yes, from a distance.', May 14, 2005
William Wyler's DEAD END opens with a crane shot of the beautiful skyline of New York City before descending down to a festering tenement slum abutting an imposing, polished upper-class apartment that stands like a walled and guarded castle. Gentrification has hit the East Side.
DEAD END is about poverty and crime, an examination of the social roots of that obsession of `30's movies, gangsterism. DEAD END is also the movie that first foisted the Dead End/East End/Bowery Boys on the movie-going audience. Before settling into a mediocre and prolific b-movie career in the `40s and `50s, the studios paired the Boys with a number of tough guy stars - Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Garfield. Of all the combinations this one is the most successful, in my opinion. At any rate, the Boys are more restrained, for once their schtick subservient to the script and the movie.
The rich moving in next door to the poor created tensions that attracted the attention of playwrights and Hollywood. The poor worry about labor strikes and putting food on the table. The rich practice their French at the breakfast table and hold swank parties deep into the morning. Drina Gordon (Sylvia Sidney) and Dave Connell (Joel McCrea) are two poor people who want a better life, want out of the slums. Although hard-working and educated, Connell has a college degree in architecture, they're stuck in a dead end, mired in hopelessness. The quickest out, of course, is through crime. `Baby Face' Martin (Humphrey Bogart) is a success story, of sorts. A famous gangster who dresses as good as the swells in the castle, Martin wants back in - at least in enough to enjoy a mother's warm welcome or a reunion with an old love who didn't become a prostitute and isn't suffering from late-stage syphilis. Claire Trevor's Francey plays Martin's old flame, and with the censorship of the day it takes a little effort and imagination to connect the dots and make sense of things when Bogart recoils in horror.
DEAD END still entertains. Don't be too fooled by the dvd cover art. Bogart is the third lead in this movie, and the main story takes place between the Sidney and McCrea characters. This urban melodrama is less about crime than the root causes of crime, and everyone is on the top of their game. Strongly recommended.
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