ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES.
James Cagney & Humphrey Bogart,
Pat O Brien, Ann Sheridan, the Dead End Kids.
Dir: Michael Curtiz, 1938, Warner Bros.

SYNOPSIS:
Super-duper, enigmatic lowlife gets out of prison, goes back to his old 'hood and hooks up with his old pal, who's now the local priest trying to keep a gang of brats out of trouble. As always, the gangster gets whacked in the end but with a twist that worked this mediocre flick into a big smash. Ask someone if they've ever watched an old gangster movie and it's probably this one.

"Did Rocky turn yellow as he walked to the electric chair, or did he just pretend to? Is it a seizure of fear? Am I not instead doing a favour for my priest pal and the kids by pretending to be yellow? Through the years I have actually had little kids come up to me on the street and ask 'Didya do it for the father, huh?' ...which is just the way I want it. I played it with deliberate ambiguity so that the spectator can take his choice. It seems to me it works out fine in either case. You have to decide."
- Jimmy Cagney.

REVIEWS:
"A shrewd, slick entertainment package and a seminal movie for all kinds of reasons. It combined gangster action with fashionable social conscience; it confirmed the Dead End Kids as stars; it provided archetypal roles for its three leading players and catapulted the female lead into stardom. It also showed the Warner Bros style of film-making, all cheap sets and shadows, at its most effective."
- Leslie Halliwell.
"Should do fair business but the picture itself is no bonfire."
- Variety.
"A rousing, bloody, brutal melodrama."
- New York Mirror.