“Dead End Kids” Bring Crowd to Plaza

Northern Advocate, 25 January 1939, Page 5

“Dead End Kids” Bring Crowd to Plaza

Amusements

Vivid portrayals of the hopeless outlook facing slum children in big cities are contained in the dramatic screening, “Crime School” which attracted a large crowd to the Plaza last night. Six New York boys, now famous as the “Dead End Kids.” play the main roles, while Humphrey Bogart and Gale Page take the principal adult parts. Born in an atmosphere of squalor and crime, where murderers and gangsters .are boy-heroes and robbery and vice are the codes of every day life, the boys face a hopeless future. Their very environment with its hostility to society, to law and order, militates against their ever being useful citizens. Crime is a feature of their lives and is even inherited in them. To survive in .their neighbourhood—of which there are samples in every city in the world —one must be “tough” and able to stand up against outsiders as well as fellow future criminals.

The picture is entertaining, amusing and, at the same time, forcefully instructive. Its main theme is a contrast between the old methods adopted in “reform” schools and the modern policy for dealing with such boys in an effort to stop them from drifting further on the downward path. Success achieved by these slum boys in their first production, “Dead End” is continued in their second performance. True to life acting, devoid of any elocutionary stance, won the heart of last night's audience which went away well pleased that it had seen something out of the ordinary, something that was well worth seeing. A splendid selection of supports accompanies the main attraction.