Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) – DVD

***½/**** Image A Sound A Extras A+
starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, The "Dead End" Kids, Humphrey Bogart
screenplay by John Wexley and Warren Duff
directed by Michael Curtiz

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover For those who hold to the dubious belief that the Production Code produced better filmmaking through deviousness, there is no better ammunition than 1938's Angels with Dirty Faces. On the surface satisfying the crime-doesn't-pay, no-bad-deed-shall-go-unpunished virtuousness so beloved by censorship organizations and humourless types, the film succeeds in pushing to the margins that which seems reckless or corrosive by comparison. But there's subtext all over the place in this singularly agonized gangster melodrama, with the dreams and desperation of slum dwellers bubbling forth to envelop its platitudes and pieties. Angels with Dirty Faces is locked in mortal combat with itself, a repressed sinner wanting to do good while needing to blow its top, resulting in one hell of a potent "classic" that goes well beyond the standard pleasures of studio craftsmanship.

The line between the two extremes divides Rocky Sullivan (Frankie Burke as a teenager, James Cagney as an adult) and his friend Jerry Connelly (first William Tracy, then an incipient Pat O'Brien), the former of whom lands in police custody after an attempted theft by the pair. This single event creates a moral schism: the captured Rocky begins a slow and unstoppable descent into criminality while Jerry goes the other way to become the neighbourhood priest. Sprung from jail again, the now-notorious Rocky waits for lawyer/accomplice Jim Frazier (Humphrey Bogart) to give him the hundred grand he's owed–and while laying low, he reconnects with Jerry, who is disturbed by his former friend's influence on the neighbourhood (a.k.a. "Dead End") kids. When Jim welshes and tries to eliminate Rocky, he ignites his victim's defiance, transforming Rocky into a local legend and thus a problem Jerry must move quickly to squelch.

It would be easy to write off the film as a one-sided binary opposition from that synopsis, but Angels with Dirty Faces is far too knowing to let it go at that. If Rocky's a corrupting influence on the youth, the skid-row conditions they endure make him completely enticing: here is the apparent salvation from the pain and humiliation of poverty, decked out in the slick style and mocking arrogance that can be thrown in the face of the forces that keep them down. And as Dana Polan points out in his commentary for the DVD, everybody in the picture loves Rocky for reasons that go beyond his gangster chic: he's genuinely interested in raising high the kids in this Dead End, and having been brutalized by the system in an unfortunate twist of fate, his disaffection is particularly attractive.

That Jerry is inevitably forced to move against his friend–ostensibly to save the kids from a violent fate, but really to keep the wheels of the social order churning–is the film's cruel kicker, making it seem more hopeless than heart-warming. The fact that crime does not pay is no moral consolation if nothing else does, either, and Rocky's famous climactic sacrifice is like snuffing out the last light of fantasy in a poor boy's dreams. Pat O'Brien is a nice man, but he fights for order instead of solutions, content with the idea of peace when something less romantic is needed. If these thoughts flit briefly through its unconscious consciousness, they cast enough of a shadow to turn a popular melodrama into some New Deal Greek tragedy. Angels with Dirty Faces is compulsively sad and terribly watchable.

THE DVD
Warner's DVD release of Angels with Dirty Faces is in keeping with the high quality of the other titles in their "Gangsters" collection. The full-frame image is astoundingly crisp–the occasional defect is a minor nuisance next to the crystal-clear, super-fine image, whose contrast and shadow detail are likewise superb. The DD 1.0 mono sound is equally fine, probably as good as we can hope for without violating historical integrity. Another mountain of extras follows suit. The breakdown:

Angels with Dirty Faces: Whaddya Hear? Whaddya Say? (22 mins.)
The usual battery of academics and writers weigh in on the film's significance. Of note is its mutation of the gangster form, brought about by the now-insurmountable Hays Office and Catholic Legion of Decency: the live-fast/die-young philosophy becomes a careful eschewing of anything that might have us sympathizing with the criminal lifestyle. A great featurette, barring a few wide-eyed innocent interviewees.

Commentary by Dana Polan
The USC professor turns in one of the best commentaries I've ever heard. He's unusually sensitive to the aesthetic and historical significance of Angels with Dirty Faces' various elements, from the tension between its New-Dealish hope for the redemption of the children and Production Code conservatism to its analysis of (and cynicism towards) media and its representation of the seductive gangster. Erudite without being pretentious, it's the tops, you dirty rat.

5/22/39 Lux Radio Theatre Production (58 mins.)
The READER'S DIGEST condensed version, featuring Cagney, O'Brien, and various substitute players. Kind of interesting as a lesson in stripping a script to its source, which winds up marginalizing the kids here. Too, the frequent commercials for the title product make for fascinating relics.

WARNER NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

Once again, Warner provides a treasure-trove of shorts and newsreels–viewable individually or consecutively, in approximation of the theatrical experience–linked in subtle ways to the main feature. The gallery is composed of:

Introduction by Leonard Maltin (4 mins.)
Choice tidbits regarding the disc's remaining bonus material, as furnished by Maltin while lounging on the brownstone lot of the studio.

Trailer: Boy Meets Girl
Cagney and O'Brien return as two screenwriters in the crazy, mixed-up town known as Hollywood. Some hilarious snippets suggest that the film deserves its own DVD.

Newsreel (2 mins.)
The Munich Peace–described as "a totalitarian holiday feast"–is contrasted with more positive words from President Roosevelt at the grounds of the then-unfinished New York World's Fair grounds.

Musical Short: Out Where the Stars Begin (19 mins.)
This musical fantasy features a dancer trying to wangle a role in a musical–a task that requires much frivolous skulduggery. No great shakes but an interesting artifact all the same, plus it includes a nice sequence involving a gibberish-speaking foreign director apparently patterned after Angels with Dirty Faces helmer Michael Curtiz.

Cartoon: Porky and Daffy (7 mins.)
Those used to Daffy as flustered foil to Bugs Bunny will be surprised by this early cartoon, in which Porky dares him to box a nasty fighting cock and commits various Bugs-like surrealist acts in the name of victory. He sums up the Warner animation mentality thusly: "I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible!"

A trailer for Angels with Dirty Faces rounds out the excellent package.

78 minutes; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 1.0, French DD 1.0; CC; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Warner