TJE 7/18 - Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

This review is going to be very spoiler-heavy, because one of the most notable things about "Angels With Dirty Faces" is the direction that the story takes, which simply wouldn't happen in a mainstream modern film. I'm going to discuss it in some depth, so fair warning, and here we go. "Angels With Dirty Faces" is a crime film about gangster Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) who does all the despicable things that gangsters do, but makes good in the very end by sacrificing his reputation and acting like a coward at his execution. He does this for the noble purpose of ensuring that the local gang of street kids who idolize him won't be tempted to follow in his footsteps.

Present-day American culture idolizes the anti-hero and masculine pride far too much for this kind of ending to be acceptable today, and such blatant morality tales went out of fashion a long time ago. The story follows a tried and true formula. Rocky and his best friend Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) are a pair of mischievous kids together. One day they are caught trying to rob a railroad car. Jerry escapes, but Rocky is carted off to a string of reform schools and lock-ups, graduating to longer stints in prison as his criminal career progresses. After serving a three-year sentence for a theft committed with a shady lawyer named Frazier (Humphrey Bogart), Rocky goes home to the old neighborhood, and discovers that Jerry has grown up to be a respected local priest, and Laury (Ann Sheridan), the girl they used to tease, is now a beauty.

Rocky has matters to square with Frazier and his boss Keefer (George Bancroft), which leads to escalating episodes of violence. However, this is not your typical gangster picture. The film's biggest conflict is really over the souls of the gang of local boys, lead by Soapy (Billy Halop), who Father Jerry is trying to keep on the side of angels, steering them away from vice and temptation. Rocky befriends them, after they pick his pocket, and quickly becomes their hero and the only adult who can get them to do anything. It's easy to see why. Rocky Sullivan may be the most likeable gangster there ever was, a man who claims he doesn't have a heart, but is clearly loyal and generous and probably capable of being much more. He holds no grudge against Father Jerry, and genuinely cares about the kids. At the same time, he's not hesitant about giving Frazier and Keefer exactly what's coming to them.

The performance of James Cagney and the unusual ending are the only things I can summon up much praise for. The direction by Michael Curtiz has some nice flourishes, especially in the rousing action sequences, but it's nothing special. The performances by O'Brien and Sheridan barely register. The kids are funny and engaging, but barely differentiated enough to be real characters. They aren't even credited separately, but as the "Dead End Kids," for one of their previous projects together. It's sort of fun to see Bogart playing such a straight villain role in his pre-stardom days, but it only serves to highlight how simple and shallow the film is. If it weren't for Cagney's charismatic portrayal of Rocky Sullivan, I doubt anyone would remember the film today.

Then again, there is that ending, which sticks in the mind not only because of how well executed it is, but because of what it represents. There used to be so much more debate over the portrayal of crime and criminals on film, on their social impact. Here we have a film where the filmmakers clearly felt a sense of responsibility toward their audience. Rocky had to be punished for his crimes under the Hays Code one way or another, but using the punishment as a means of redemption was far more interesting and fulfilling than Rocky simply getting carted off to jail or dying on the final firefight. It also allowed Cagney to subvert the image of the "tough guy" he was always trying to get away from, which is probably why he took the role in the first place.

Can you imagine a modern crime picture where the gun-toting badass hero realizes that he's contributing to the degeneracy of the American youth, and willingly destroys his own image of cool in repentance? Can you imagine the equivalent of the Pat O’Brien character being part of that decision without all the baggage of the religious viewpoint, because being a priest was shorthand for being the dispenser of proper morality in a film? Can you remember the last time intentional disillusionment of young children was a plot point? For better or for worse, "Angels With Dirty Faces" could have only been made in the 1930s, when Hollywood was far more innocent, and the bad guys, even the good-hearted ones, always got it in the end.
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