“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.