“Angels With Dirty Faces”

Northern Advocate, 24 February 1940, Page 10

“Angels With Dirty Faces”

Dedicated to thousands of slum boys of the great cities who next week or next year must choose between crime and honesty, “Angels With Dirty Faces” is a powerful human document dramatically enacted by James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, the “Dead End” Kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft. It tells the story of two boys—ordinary dirty-faced kids, brought up in the teeming slums of a great city who took opposite roads. One to the shadowy realms of the underworld, the other to priesthood’s serene light. The conflict between these two characters, with the lives of thousands of boys as the grim stake, is strong dramatic fare and carries with it a deep social message. The film starts out with the two boys committing a petty crime, then running for freedom, with police in hot pursuit. A split second—a single stride—and one of them was made into a killer. He returns to the slums to get his vengeance on the world —a big-shot killer leading hundreds of kids into a life like his.

The boy who ran a little faster made a vow' to save a million other dirtyfaced kids from the fate that was almost his. Ordained as a priest, he returns to the slums to battle against the forces of crime for the lives of the dirty-faced angels who never had a chance to go straight.

“Angels With Dirty Faces” is the story of two of those kids —and the men they grew up to be. Powerfully produced with stark realism, it is destined to be a great and memorable experience for all those who see it. James Cagney arid Pat O’Brien have the strongest roles of their careers, and each makes the most of the character he brings to life on the screen. Cagney, the hard guy, reckless, daring, invulnerable until he clashes with O’Brien, the priest, who both loved and hated him, is Cagney at his best. O’Brien, as the fighting priest, serenely sacrificing his personal happiness and safety that his slum boys may grow up into good and useful citizens, shows his extreme versatility as an actor.

Contributing their unique talents for both comedy and drama to in story and then serving as''the unwitting motivators of the tale’s soul-sear-ing climax are the “Dead End” kids, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Garcey, Gabriel Bell, Huntz Hall and Bernard Punsley, whose fame has grown by leaps and bounds since they were first assembled to play the gut-ter-rats in Sidney Kingsley’s stage play, “Dead End.” Humphrey Bogart and George Bancroft create memorably sinister underworld characters, and beautiful Ann Sheridan displays a remarkable talent for emotional acting, in the role of Cagney’s sweetheart. Based on a story by Rowland Lee, which was treated for the screen by John Wexley and Warren Duff, the production was directed by Michael Curtiz, who recently won world-wide fame for his work in the recent" hit, “Four Daughters.”