Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) is a classic example of a Warner Bros. gangster/crime melodrama of the 1930s - a slick, action-packed, hard-hitting studio film layered with a touch of social conscience. Director Michael Curtiz blended the irresistible story with a great, tough cast of marvelous characters, especially James Cagney and Pat O'Brien as its two stars, along with gritty locales and the street-wise "Dead End" Kids (from their appearance in the 1935 play and the … mehrfilm Dead End (1937)).
The saga is the story of two childhood buddies from New York City slums on the Lower East Side in the 1920s: "Rocky" Sullivan (Frankie Burke as youth, James Cagney as adult), and Jerry Connolly (William Tracy as youth, Pat O'Brien as adult). The story of two kids on the opposite side of the law was a popular theme in other 30s films, such as Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and Dead End (1937). weniger