Customer Reviews

Dead End

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS FINALLY ON DVD!! Growing up in the 60's, I must have seen this flick a million times on TV on my local Saturday Afternoon Matinee. This was my favorite movie as a kid. Needless to say, when I saw this had recently been released on DVD, I snatched it up. I hadn't seen it in years and it's still as good as ever. The story is great and it has wonderful production values. For a film made in 1937, it's remarkable how good this looks. THE TRANSFER IS GREAT!! Now that I'm a full grown Bogart fan, I have to say, this is my third favorite Bogart flick of all time, following CASABLANCA and THE MALTESE FALCON. Even though Bogie shares the lead with a wonderful ensemble cast, his performance as Baby Face Martin is just as compelling as Rick, Sam Spade, or Phillip Marlowe. After having plastic surgery, it's amazing how much Baby Face looks like Humphrey Bogart. Imagine that. I also love the campy New York street dialogue of the Dead End Kids. My favorite line of dialogue: "The mark o' the squeala." Great stuff!! Along with ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES this was their best work, as their other short films were a bit over the top.

If you're a Bogie fan who has never seen this lesser known film, buy it today. Hey, it was nominated for 4 Oscars. The price is right and I GUARANTEE IT WILL BECOME ONE OF YOUR FAVORITE BOGART FLICKS TOO.

ENJOY.

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.

This is the film that propelled the Dead End Kids (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan et al) to stardom.
Humphrey Bogart portrays a gangster who returns to his old neighborhood only to come to grief.
The Dead End Kids portray slum kids living right next door to the luxurious apartment houses of the rich.
Sylvia Sidney and Joel McCrea are the star-crossed lovers who try to battle their way out of the slums.
Gangster melodrama at its finest!

"Dead End" is the first movie I have seen where Humphrey Bogart plays in one of the leading roles the "hoodlum" that he often portrayed as a minor character. He has the mannerisms down, the sneer and the steely murderous glare. He has that dangerous presence on display in this 1937 movie that he would use to good effect throughout his career. I believe this movie also introduced the "Dead End Kids". The movie was scripted by Lillian Hellman, from a play by Sidney Kingsley (he won the Pulitzer for it), and this quality source material shows through.
Anyway, the story is set in a tenement slum area in New York City where people are trying to scrape by. Towering over them is a newly built palace to the rich in the form of a fabulous apartment house that has a back entrance that opens into the slum streets. This juxtaposition sets the stage for an inappropriate romance between a rich girl and an idealistic young man who tried to work his way out of the area by getting a college degree, only to be dragged back down by the depression. There is a young lady of his own social class who is raising her younger brother. The young lady is in love with the idealist, but he views her as a sister. The little brother has fallen in with a group of truly nasty little thugs who, in the absence of television or video games, make life difficult for everyone around them. Humphrey Bogart ("Baby-face" Martin) rolls into town in a wistful mood, looking for his mama and the sweet girlfriend of his comparatively innocent youth. Well, these reunions don't go as planned as you can well imagine. Claire Trevor as the ex-girlfriend sets the screen on fire as the woman who didn't wait for him, and Mr Bogart's reaction to this revelation is a cinematic masterpiece. Moralizing occurs, but it is easy to take.
The movie looks great, the dialogue is very good and the acting is excellent. Recommended.

I was surprised at how good the film Dead End was. I'm not sure why, since I'd read nothing but good reviews. I bought it because I am a huge Bogart fan and it was one of the few remaining dvd's availiable at this stage of Bogie's career that I hadn't already got. Because it's pre The Maltese Falcon I wasn't expecting a lot. But its great. The Dead End kids get a bit too much screen time, but Bogart gets a lot more than some other gangster films, and some of his sceens are really key ones, and he has some real depth. This is a must own for all Bogart fans.

"Dead End" turned out to be Bogart's most important film since "The Petrified Forest." It offers a vivid portrait of people caught up in a constant struggle to somehow fulfill themselves despite the oppressive environment that seemed to silence their every attempt...

Joel McCrea is a frustrated architect who dreams of tearing down the slums and Sylvia Sidney portrays a shopgirl striving for identity and meaning in her life, a life made even more complicated by having to look after her brother (Billy Halop). The boy idolizes the decadent Bogart, an adulation shared by the rest of the Dead End Kids, here recreating their original Broadway roles with noisy good humor...

Opposing these idealists is their real threat, Bogart, a killer named Baby Face Martin... Bogart is impolitely rejected by a mother (Marjorie Main) who detests him and an ex-girl friend (Claire Trevor) who leaves him bitter and disillusioned when he discovers that she has become a prostitute...

Rebuked by those he had been sentimental enough to want to visit, he quickly reverts to prefigure and plans a kidnapping in order to rescue something from the consumed affair...

"Dead End" remains one of Bogart's best films, where the actor proves that he is capable of handling difficult material with considerable skill...

Director William Wyler effectively translates playwright Sidney Kingsley's account of life on the Lower East Side of New York where the tenement classes uneasily co-exist with the upper classes in the high-rise apartments. Wyler is assisted by vivid characterizations as penned by screenwriter Lillian Hellman, breathtaking art direction where you can feel the roaches and lice that share quarters with the residents, and beautiful cinematography by Gregg Toland, best known for his work on "Citizen Kane". A great ensemble is on hand here with a young Humphrey Bogart playing Baby Face Martin, a killer hood who finds out that you can't go home again. Claire Trevor, in a performance of great subtlety(probably because of the production code) plays Baby Face's old flame who has turned to the world's oldest profession as a means of survival. It's the Dead End Kids that give texture to the film. It is they who get the brunt of their elders' wrath as well as formal society for the audacity of being impoverished. All you have to do is look in the eyes of these urchins and see that they have seen and experienced things that no human should have to endure. One of the great films to emerge from the 1930's and another excellent Samuel Goldwyn production.

Dead End is a classic, but one that's pretty much been forgotten these days and is rarely revived on TV, let along the reissue circuit. It's a shame, because alongside the crusading social drama it's also one of the most strikingly designed and magnificently shot films of the Thirties thanks to Greg Toland's remarkable photography and Richard Day's marvellous set. Almost every shot in the film is extraordinarily imaginative - not just beautifully composed, but also absolutely right for the scene. And in William Wyler's hands, it still works pretty well as drama despite the plethora of stereotypes. Joel McRea, the most unjustly forgotten star of the 30s, makes the best of the worst of them as the idealistic but starving would-be architect, and the Dead End Kids when they still were kids and hadn't changed their screen names a half dozen times do display the early signs of all the irritating shtick that would turn them into one of the most painful ensembles of the 40s, but Sylvia Sidney's striking worker, Claire Trevor's hooker (no typecasting there) and Bogart's disillusioned gangster make the most of their opportunities. But Marjorie Main as Bogie's mom? That's a hard sell on the best of days!

Bogart and the Dead End Kids would cross the street to the Warners lot to co-star in Angels With Dirty Faces a couple of years later, but this one beats even that Cagney classic. Sadly no extras, but the DVD transfer is quite superb. Highly recommended.

Dead End was a Broadway phenomenon not only because of its subject matter but because of the casting. For the tenement kids, the producers went out into the tenements to find their actors. These kids were brought to the screen intact and after a number of other films the dead end kids were born.

It is also interesting that for the screen adaptation, that award winning playwright Lillian Hellman (The Little Foxes and Watch on the Rhine) adapted the play. This probably is why the film captures the essence of the play without being too staged.

The movie takes place on a dead end street where the uptown has crept to meet the tenements during the depression. This does not have one story line but a group of stories that from time to time intersect.

Dave (Joel McCrea) grew up in the tenement. He went to college and now is an architect who is down on his luck. He is in love with Kay a private secretary to one of the uptown residents. While local girl Drina (Silvia Sidney) is in love with Dave.

Dave runs into an old gang member Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) who is wanted by the police. He has returned to see his mother (Marjorie Main) and girlfriend (Claire Trevor).

The current gang is five local boys, T.B. (Gabriel Dell), Tommy (Billy Halop) - Drina's brother, Dippy (Huntz Hall), Angel (Bobby Jordan) and Spit(Leo B Gorcey). They like to tease the rich kid Philip.

The major changes from the play is with Dave in the play is Gimpty because of his bad leg. Also, Dave informs on Baby Face for the reward to escape the tenement with Kay in the play; in the movie he seeks revenge and shoots Baby Face himself.

This was Bogart's follow-up film to The Petrified Forest. The Petrified Forest is credited for bringing Bogart to the forefront. This film solidified his standing as the perfect gangster.

Silvia Sidney gives another marvelous performance and look for Marjorie Main in an against type performance. Future Oscar winner, Claire Trevor gets a nomination for a brief role as Baby Face's girlfriend.

This is an excellent movie that started a subgenre of films.

DVD EXTRAS: None