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.