Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

Directed by Michael Curtiz, with a story by Rowland Brown (The Doorway to Hell (1930)), this essential crime drama features not only one of several James Cagney-Humphrey Bogart pairings, but also one of several James Cagney-Pat O'Brien pairings as well. Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur are said to have been uncredited contributors to the John Wexley-Warren Duff script. Cagney received his first Best Actor Academy Award nomination; director Curtiz and writer Brown were also Oscar nominated.

Cagney plays Rocky Sullivan, a street kid who "made it" out of the boroughs of New York through a life a crime. He returns to the streets of his youth to find his former boyhood pal, Jerry Connelly (O'Brien), is now a Father who's trying to keep the kids in his parish from following a similar path to Sullivan's. Unfortunately, the Dead End Kids (later known as the Bowery Boys) idolize Rocky, who relishes their attention as well as the chance to impart to them the "secret to (his) success". Bogart plays Sullivan's lawyer, who along with the character played by George Bancroft, get mixed up with Rocky in his latest scheme. Ann Sheridan plays a childhood friend of Jerry's & Rocky's, who intervenes on his behalf once he's in trouble again. She also supports what Father Connelly has been doing with the kids, which include Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, and Huntz Hall, among others. Don't miss this film's terrific ending!!!

Wade Boteler, Joe Devlin, John Hamilton (as a police captain, naturally), Harry Hayden (as a pharmacist, of course), Emory Parnell, William Pawley, Lee Phelps, and Charles Trowbridge, among others, also appear, uncredited.

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