Angels with Dirty Faces
1938  NR  DRAMA  1h 37min
CAST— James Cagney, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Dead End Kids, Frankie Thomas, George Bancroft, Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabe Dell, Bobby Jordan, Bernard Punsley
MUSIC— Max Steiner  DIRECTOR— Michael Curtiz

     To be more precise the title should have been Angels with Doity Faces. Two boys, growing up on the mean streets of NYC, turn to a life of crime, often to survive, often for fun. After some time the one boy is apprehended by the police, the other narrowly escaping. The jailbird (now played by James Cagney) spends the next fifteen years or so in and out of prison, always in trouble. Upon his latest release from the slammer he decides to pay his old pal a visit only to find that he’s now a priest! Cagney soon runs afoul of a ragtag gang of gangster wannabes, not one of them even old enough to shave. They begin to look up to Cagney as a role model; they glorify his shady past and seek to emulate him, rejecting the advice of the good-natured priest. Performances by Cagney and Humphrey Bogart shine in this classic drama. Yeah, see?
OUR RATING— ***