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Angels with Dirty Faces
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Angels with Dirty Faces is a Warner Bros. gangster film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, the Dead End Kids and Humphrey Bogart, along with Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft. The film was written by Rowland Brown, John Wexley and Warren Duff with uncredited assistance from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
y Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) are childhood friends who robbed a railroad car as kids. Rocky saved Jerry's life during the chase by pulling him out of the way of a steam train.
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Encyclopedia
Angels with Dirty Faces is a Warner Bros. gangster film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, the Dead End Kids and Humphrey Bogart, along with Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft. The film was written by Rowland Brown, John Wexley and Warren Duff with uncredited assistance from Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Plot
Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O'Brien) are childhood friends who robbed a railroad car as kids. Rocky saved Jerry's life during the chase by pulling him out of the way of a steam train. Rocky was then caught by the police, but Jerry - who could run faster - escaped. Rocky, after being sent to reform school, grows up to become a notorious gangster, while Jerry has become a priest.
Rocky returns to his old neighborhood, where Jerry is running a home that intends to keep young boys away from a life of crime. Six of those boys, Soapy (Billy Halop), Swing (Bobby Jordan), Bim (Leo Gorcey), Patsy (Gabriel Dell), Crabface (Huntz Hall), and Hunky (Bernard Punsly), idolize Rocky, and Jerry attempts to keep his former friend from corrupting them.
Meanwhile Rocky gets involved with Frazier (Humphrey Bogart), a crooked lawyer, and Keefer (George Bancroft), a shady businessman and municipal contractor. They try to dispose of Rocky, but he finds the record book that they keep where they list the bribes to city officials. Jerry learns of these events and warns Rocky to leave before he informs the authorities. Rocky ignores his advice and Jerry gets the public's attention and informs them all of the crooked government, causing Frazier and Keefer to plot to kill him. Rocky overhears this plot and kills them to protect his childhood friend.
Rocky is then captured following an elaborate shootout in a building, and sentenced to die. Jerry visits him just before his execution and asks him to do him one last favor - to die pretending to be a screaming, snivelling coward, which would end the boys' idolization of him. Rocky refuses, and insists he will be "tough" to the end, and not give up the one thing he has left, his pride. At the very last moment he appears to change his mind and has to be dragged to the electric chair. The viewer is never told whether Rocky genuinely was afraid, a "rotten sniveling coward", or if he does it for the Father and the boys. The boys hear about what happened and decide he was a coward. Then Father Jerry asks them to say a prayer with him, "for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could".
Cast
Awards and honors
James Cagney won the 1939 New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his role. In addition, the film was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role (James Cagney), Best Director and Best Writing, Original Story.
Memorable lines
- Father Jerry: "All right, fellas... let's go say a prayer for a boy that couldn't run as fast as I could".
- Rocky Sullivan: "Whadda ya hear; whadda ya say?!"'
- Rocky : " like sitting in a barber's chair.. " just before going to the electric chair.
When first offered the project, Cagney's agent was convinced that his star property would never consent to playing a role where he would be depicted as an abject coward being dragged to his execution. Cagney, however, was enthusiastic about the chance to play Rocky. He saw it as a suitable vehicle to prove to critics and front office honchos that he had a broad acting range that extended far beyond tough guy roles. Bogart, for one, was very impressed by the death house scene and informed Cagney as such.
In popular culture
- Warner Brothers created a 1939 cartoon that spoofed the movie called Thugs with Dirty Mugs.
- During the 1950s, three Argentinian footballers - Antonio Angelillo, Enrique Sivori and Humberto Maschio - formed a talented inside forward line for their Country. They acquired the nickname "Angels with Dirty Faces" when they all moved to Italy in the latter part of the decade to play for the likes of Juventus. The name was given on account of their typically South American colour and ability. They were also known as ‘The Trio of Death’ because of their clinical finishing.
- A parody of the film appears in Home Alone as Angels with Filthy Souls. In the parody, Gangster Johnny fires a lengthy machine gun salvo before remarking, "Keep the change, ya filthy animal". Hardcore band, Angels with Filthy Souls, are named after this reference.
- In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, we see scenes from a sequel to that film, Angels with Even Filthier Souls. In the sequel, Johnny fires his Tommy gun before saying "Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal. And a Happy New Year". In the two movies, Kevin uses the movies as an illusion to make others think that they were talking to Johnny, and that he was shooting at them.
- In the mid 80's Cannon Pictures, headed by Menahem Golan, planned a remake with Sylvester Stallone in the Cagney role and Christopher Reeve in the Pat O'Brien part, with Golan himself directing. It got negative response in the press, and the project was abandoned.
- It's Never Too Late, an episode of Batman: The Animated Series, alludes to Angels by telling the story of the Stromwell brothers, one of whom grows up to be a mob boss, the other a priest.
- The famous Irish bar "Rocky Sullivan's Pub" in New York City was named after Cagney's character.
- Several musical artists, including Sugababes and Tricky, have used the title "Angels with Dirty Faces" as the name of their album. Others, including Sum 41, Sham 69 and Los Lobos, have songs entitled "Angels with Dirty Faces", although Sum 41's version is actually a reference to another band's name. The band Hawthorne Heights named a song after this movie: "Angels with even filthier souls".
- In the early 90s an Indian version of the film was made. Called Ram Jaane, it cast Shahrukh Khan in the role of Rocky. The movie was quite faithful to the original (albeit Indianized).
- Tiny Toons also parodies the death row scene, featuring Hampton the Pig as the Priest and Buster Bunny as the condemned going to the Principals office.
- Angels with Dirty Faces is often cited as the favourite film of Dr. Edward Fitzgerald in the hit UK television drama Cracker.
External links
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