Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)
Keeping with the classics kick from last week’s Touch of Evil, this week we took a look at Angels With Dirty Faces (1938). This film may be the best performance of silver screen legend Jimmy Cagney’s career. It’s a bit more of a gangster movie than a cop movie, but it deals with criminality and its causes at a deep level.
The film relates the story of New York City mobster Rocky Sullivan (Cagney) and his journey from street hoodlum to mob boss and his eventual incarceration. Rocky’s first bust comes as a juvenile after he and his friend Jerry Connelly (Pat O’Brien) burglarize a freight car. Connelly escapes the police and goes on the straight and narrow, eventually becoming a Catholic priest. After a few years in juvenile detention, Rocky gets out and expands his criminal ways. He eventually rises in the criminal world, becoming a famous gangster (think John Gotti), but like all perps, winds up in prison.
His criminal partner and attorney is James Frazier (Humphry Bogart) who holds Rocky’s money and criminal organization while Rockey is in the clink. Rocky gets out but Frazier reneges on returning his money and his place in the criminal organization. And there is the tension. Rocky also reconnects with his friend Father Connelly who elicits his help with straightening out the youth toughs in the parish.
The cast is rounded out by George Bancroft, the beautiful Ann Sheridan as the love interest, and the group of young New York City child actors known as The Dead End Kids. It is another all-star cast. Angels With Dirty Faces is brilliantly directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Adventures of Robin Hood).
The film explores the nuances between good and evil. How environment and societal pushes and pulls can lead down a path to criminality. Curtiz and Cagney show Rocky Sullivan as both a ruthless killer and as a caring role model, trying to do the right thing. As Rocky says, “In order to be afraid you’ve got to have a heart, I don’t think I’ve got one. I got it cut out of me years ago.” But he isn’t all bad. It is this inner turmoil that makes Angels With Dirty Faces such a compelling film and an intriguing character study.
The cops in the movie are used by Frazier and his associates to take Sullivan out of the picture. Any cop can relate to this. We all have been played by people trying to use the police to take out their enemies. From a simple 911 call for a “man with a gun” that is just a noise complaint, to detailed reports of criminality to the police designed to take out the competition. It’s a frustration that all cops can appreciate and the police in the film know the deal.
The final scene in Angels With Dirty Faces is masterful. It leaves Rocky’s true nature in question and is thought provoking and emotional. It leaves the viewer speculating as to the motivations of the final scene. The film is a masterpiece with a serious message.
Angels With Dirty Faces runs an hour and a half. It packs this wide-ranging story and its several themes into a relatively short movie and is well produced. This all-time classic can be hard to find. Sorry, but I didn’t realize it until I was finishing this review. I couldn’t find it on a streaming service and am not sure why. I grabbed my copy from the local library, or you can get your own for $20 on Amazon. It’s worth the purchase. Definitely a film you will enjoy watching multiple times.
A few side notes on the film
· All the cop cars in the movie are from the 18th Precinct, where Paul and I started our careers. It would have been located on West 47th Street at the time of this filming. It was moved up to its current location on West 54th Street in 1939.
· James Cagney developed a lifelong interest in farming after going to a soil conservation seminar as a youth. He was a private person who owned and operated his own working farm in upstate New York. A multitalented man who lived an interesting life.
· The New York accent seems to be fading a bit in recent years. It is on full display here and is fantastic. This is literally how my grandfather spoke.
Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Stay Safe!
Great review of a masterpiece! I also spent some time in the 18th, a great place for sure
The ending makes you think, which what all great movies should