Wednesday, 20 October 2021

ALL-TIME CLASSIC MOVIE FAVOURITES – ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938)

 

“Angels with Dirty Faces” is a Crime Drama, screenplay by John Wexley and Warren Duff, from a story by Rowland Brown and Directed by Michael Curtiz.

It’s the story of two boyhood friends, Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) who were running from the police one night when Rocky was caught.

After he was arrested he went into the prison system and became a lifelong criminal, while Jerry went straight and became a Catholic Priest and ministered to people in the same neighbourhood where he and Rocky grew up.

When Rocky is released from prison after his latest term he resumes his criminal lifestyle and is hero worshipped by many of the local kids.

Jerry is worried that the kids will follow Rocky down the wrong path into the criminal world, and works hard to keep them on the straight and narrow.

But no matter what he says he can’t get through to them, even after Rocky is convicted of murder and sentenced to the electric chair, so Jerry visits him on death row and asks him for one last favour.

A classic of the genre, with extraordinary acting by James Cagney, ably complimented by Pat O'Brien as his friend, Humphrey Bogart who is the perfect actor as the arch villain, and the radiant Ann Sheridan adds a feminine touch.

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