Angels With Dirty Faces

Buy This Item Angels With Dirty Faces  List Price: $19.98  Available from Amazon  $13.99  on 11-28-2008     Features Actors: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, George Bancroft Directors: Michael Curtiz, Bobby Connolly, Robert Clampett Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC Language: English Subtitles: English, Spanish, French Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.) Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Number of discs: 1 Rating: Studio: Warner Home Video DVD Release Date: January 25, 2005 Run Time: 78 minutes Average Customer Review:   24 Reviews 5 star:  (13) 4 star:  (6) 3 star:  (4) 2 star:  (1) 1 star:    (0) See all 24 customer reviews...   (24 customer reviews) Reader Reviews James Cagney and Pat O'Brien star as childhood friends whose lives diverge dramatically in Michael Curtiz's 1938 ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. Chased by cops and railroad bulls after stealing boxes of fountain pens out of a freight car, Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) is caught and sent to reform school. Jerry Connelly (O'Brien) runs just a little faster and escapes. Rocky grows up a gangster, Jerry becomes a priest. Flash forward fifteen years. Rocky is being released after his last stint in stir and puts the squeeze on his crooked lawyer Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart) to cut him into `the business' per a previous arrangement. Father Jerry ministers to the troubled youth of what is, though never named, obviously New York City's Hell's Kitchen. Rocky moves back to the old neighborhood and becomes involved with the Dead End Kids, the dirty faced angels of the title, the same gang Father Jerry is trying, unsuccessfully, to reach. By the final act Rocky is ingrained in the local crime network that buys off politicians and police, the DE Kids are drawn to the charismatic gangster, and Father Jerry, in frustration, launches a media campaign against the crooks and crooked politicians, warning his childhood pal Rocky that he'll steamroll over him, as well, if it comes to that. There's a lot to like in ANGELS. Cagney is on the top of his form, often hitching his shoulders and twirling his head in a fluid, whiplike motion, adding another bit that will be imitated numerous times by many lesser actors. Cagney and O'Brien's walk down the last mile is also one of the most memorable and moving sequences in Hollywood history. On the other hand, Ann Sheridan is wasted in an underwritten part as Rocky's girlfriend, and Bogart isn't called on to do much more than cringe and cower. O'Brien's portrayal of the priest is a bit sanctimonious and smug. It may have thrilled the censors at the League of Decency, but today it just reads stuffy. The biggest clunker, though, is the Dead End Kids, whose schtick grows old really quick. Warners must have been building their fan base, or something, before changing their names to the Bowery Boys and launching them on a profitable and prolific b-movie career. Fans of Jimmy Cagney won't be disappointed with his performance, though, and it has to be said that nobody slings the pious sentiment with greater sincerity than O'Brien. As is their custom in the Gangster series, Warners has loaded this dvd with delightful extras. There's a 21 minute making of special, "Whaddya hear? Whaddya say?" that discusses the movie, director Michael Curtiz and the career and friendship of Cagney and O'Brien. The special contains some spoilers so it might be better if you watch it after watching the movie. There's also an hour-long audio rebroadcast of a 1939 Lux Radio (Lux, the soap with active lather) broadcast of the play, featuring Cagney and O'Brien, with Gloria Dixon in the Ann Sheridan role. The radio play is interesting for a couple of reasons. It adds a line to the `last mile' sequence at the end that saps the script of its ambiguity and unambiguously tells us whether or not Rocky turned coward at the end. The radio show also contains a short speech by J. Edgar Hoover's `pal,' writer Courtney Riley Cooper, who speechifies a tad incoherently on "kids born with a `mouthful of want.'" Film historian Dana Polan deconstructs the movie on the commentary track, setting a record for the use of the word `interesting' and `interestingly' - preceding every other sentence with "I found this interesting..." and "Interestingly, this scene was...." That annoyance aside, Polan's commentary put ANGELS in academic context, stressing themes and motifs and for the most part ignoring anecdotal information about the movie's cast and crew. The Warners Night at the Movies include: A trailer for Boy Meets Girl, a comedy starring Cagney and O'Brien. A newsreel warning of war clouds gathering over Europe and Franklin Roosevelt's call for America to rearm. A black-and-white Porky and Daffy cartoon, titled "Porky and Daffy," directed by Robert Clampett. An 18-minute short entitled "Out Where the Stars Begin" featuring veteran character actor Fritz Feld as an autocratic and temperamental European director (Leonard Maltin tells us the character is based on ANGELS' director Michael Curtiz.) Shot in Technicolor with pink tutus and even pinker cheeks. Also stars a pirouetting Evelyn Thawl in her only credited screen appearance.  Comments (2) | Permalink |  function showYesNoCommunityResponse(uId,result,value) { var msgLayer = getElement("thanks" + uId); if ( result == "SUCCESS" ) { msgLayer.innerHTML = "Thanks for the valuable feedback you provided to other Amazon.com readers and reviewers. Your vote will be counted and will appear on the product page within 24 hours."; } else { showVoteErrorResponse(msgLayer,result,value); } } (Report this)

Angels With Dirty Faces List Price: $19.98 Available from Amazon Price: $13.99 Updated on 11-28-2008.

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