Charming and brutal

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

This is one of the greatest movies from the 1930 decade, yet it doesn't seem to be all that remembered, which is a shame.Practically the whole movie is deeply involving. The film is well- made, the plot is solid, the image quality is 5 stars (without the "scratches" typical of most movies from that generation) and the cast is brilliant. We have, for example, the fabulous Dead End Kids and the great Humphrey Bogart, but it's James Cagney who really shines as "Rocky" Sullivan. "Rocky" is a very intense character and even though he is a gangster, somehow he is likable. James Cagney shines in an absolutely peerless performance. His face was very memorable too, as were his facial expressions and his fiery voice. Unmistakenly one of the all-time great actors, with a talent and charisma comparable to Peter Lorre and Vincent Price, for example.This movie has many surprises as well. One of them is the fact that the actor who played "Rocky" as a boy looks exactly like James Cagney. When "Rocky" grew up, I thought it was the same actor playing him from the start, because adult "Rocky" looked exactly the same as himself as a kid. By the way, the kids who play "Rocky" and Jerry as kids have terrific performances either.My absolute favorite part of this gr8 gangster-movie is the sequence in which "Rocky" is stuck in a building surrounded by the police and attempting to resist the toxic gases which are asphyxiating him, and how, despite his pride and efforts to resist, he realizes he won't get away so easy this time. The funniest scene, whoever, is when Ann Sheridan finally gets even with "Rocky" after 15 years by yanking his hat down over his ears and slapping him and then he sits down on that old bed and it collapses! So hilarious!The ending is unexpected because the penalty for "Rocky" is to get cooked in the "Old Sparky". Whether his cries are genuine or only to fulfill Father Jerry's final wish is unspecific, although I'd believe that they are genuine. I do feel bad for "Rocky", though. That penalty was too terrible for him and over the top for his crimes. What made me discover this movie was 'Home Alone' because of the movie that Kevin watches, 'Angels with filthy souls'. Until very little time ago I thought that the movie he was watching was real, but I found out that it was fictional and that those scenes were only made for 'Home Alone'. What a pity, I always wanted to see that movie. But I also found out that it was a parody to a real movie called 'Angels with dirty faces'. That was what took me to this great movie. But, much to my disappointment, there aren't such lines as «Keep the change, ya filthy animal!». I was expecting some line like that in the whole movie and I was very disappointed that there isn't any. Having that said, I don't like the movie any less for that.Title in Portugal: 'Anjos de cara negra'.

I remember the first time I seen this film, I was 13 and my Religious Education teacher in school made up watch it, well we ended up watching the first 40 minutes then he never mentioned it again. I still to this day do not have a single clue as to why he made us watch it, he was an odd fellow to say the least. After he never put it back on for us I decided to rent it to finally watch the whole thing this was when I was about 16/17, and it is safe to say this is one of the movies that made me fall in love with movies to this day! Gangster films flew to the top of the watch lists during the great depression era in America, there was so many released during the 1930's it was obvious that they would be the more favoured films. James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson paved the for gangsters on the big screen. Cagney was a perfect choice to play Rocky Sullivan, he had the swagger of a gangster, the fast talking of a con man, had unbelievable comic timing along with these great traits he was also an intense actor with real raw talent.In my honest opinion this is one of the greatest Gangster flicks of all time, and I genuinely think people will be saying that in another three quarters of a century! Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly played by Frankie Burke and William Tracy respectively are a pair of New Yorker youths who grew up on the very poor Lower East Side end up caught up in the robbery on a railroad car (a railway carriage to us Brits ha). Jerry escapes without any difficulty I mean boom this kid is gone, Rocky on the other hand is not as lucky. Staying true to his tough upbringing Rocky upholds his "code of silence", refusing to snitch on the identity of his accomplice which leaves Rocky stuck in a reformatory before he will be bumped into a full prison.After realising how bad Rockys fate actually is, Jerry turns his life around and becomes a man of the cloth. After many years pass, Rocky returns to his old neighbourhood now being played by Cagney he looks up his old friend Jerry to find out he is no Father Jerry (Pat O'Brien) whom has taken in on himself to look after a rag tag bunch of boys played by Billy Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell who would all go to become The Dead End Kids. The boys are overjoyed that they get to meet a big-time gangster like Rocky, they pretty much worship the ground he walks on, much to the disappointment of Father Jerry who is trying to guard the boys from a life of crime.Cagney pays a call to his Lawyer, played by Humphrey Bogart who has been keeping $100,000 (which according to DollarTimes is roughly $1.6 million today) stashed away for him. He meets racketeering boss Mac Keefer (George Bancroft), both of whom promise to cut Rocky in on a highly lucrative operations, however this is where we hit a twist they are plotting to have him whacked (MY WHOLE LIFE have I wanted to use that phrase and it too actually work, and now I think it fits! ha) Father Jerry runs a campaign over the radio and newspaper against Rocky and his partners, with Rockys blessing that is. Laury by now played by the beautiful Ann Sheridan has fallen in love with Rocky.When Rocky learns of the plot to kill Father Jerry due to his smear campaign, Rocky kills both men which results in him being caught in a shoot-out with the police in a warehouse. His trial is quick and he is sentenced to death, before Rocky is about to be executed Father Jerry turns up asking for possibly the BIGGEST favour in movie history. He wants Rocky to die like a coward so the boys will go on the straight and narrow, Rocky refuses, however as he is being put to death Rocky suddenly breaks down an loses it crying and pleading for his life! The paper the next runs the story "ROCKY DIES YELLOW!" to help the boys cement the belief that he well and truly is coward.So overall this movie is action filled, full of laughs, full of great performances all across the board giving us viewers an unbelievable movie experience! A little fact I learnt while writing this review is that during the warehouse scene, LIVE AMMO was used, how on earth did they get away with that ha. All these parts come together cultivating in what is one of the greatest movies of all time! This will be one of the easiest ratings that I will give to a film, if I could go any higher than 10 I would! "Whaddya hear, whaddya say?"

After watching this fascinating movie for the first time, I picked up a book, in one of those coincidences that life gives to us that are completely unlikely, with the name Famous Quotes From Famous People. And in one of the various quotes that were printed in the pages of that little book, there was one that caught my attention, because it corresponded to the opinion I formed about this excellent work of art that my eyes had the pleasure to behold. The quote is from Robert Frost, one of the greatest authors of north-American poetry, and he says: "It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound — that he will never get over it." And if we change the "Poem" mentioned by Frost for "Movie", the opinion of the writer perfectly suits to Angels with Dirty Faces... and to many other movies I love, I confess. I say this because I think this film, directed by Michael Curtiz (the filmmaker who would make, some years later, that unforgettable classic called Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart too, but here in Angels he has a supporting - but terrific! - role), has always been in the shadow of other great movies, much more popular, and this one had just endured because it obtained, over the decades, a legion of numerous fans of the treasures of Cinema (the picture has now a score of 8.0 on IMDb, which is very good). But if it were only "time" causes, as Frost said, Angels with Dirty Faces would be lost in that decade (not so) far away that was the thirties. If we expected the film would endure over the years (having neither great acclaim from critics the following decades, or the recognition of major institutions such as the American Film Institute), it would be as if it never existed. I mean, watching the quality of the negative (and we do not know if it is "the" negative) that was converted for the DVD so-so special edition of this motion picture, it's noticeable that it never had appropriate conditions of conservation (there are various faults, very visible, in the reels and in many frames, throughout the film).But I said the movie was in the shadow. And then I talk again in Casablanca. That is, probably, the most popular title from Michael Curtiz's filmography. But it hid many other great movies of the director, such as this one. And I love Casablanca, it is one of my other favorite movies of all time. But it's sad when a motion picture almost "destroy" all the work of a filmmaker who, by the way, was one of the greatest professionals in his area at that time, because Curtiz has so much to explore (in quality and in quantity - in the year Angels was release, Curtiz made three other movies, almost simultaneously. And today, that's a big achievement, if we compare with the super- productions, many of them so uninteresting, that take too long to be made...), and this wonderful picture is the example of that quality, of the American classic Cinema that is impossible to remake today, because they are of a decade and of a period of Hollywood where the excellence of the production of the great directors were so inspiring, touching, and original. Angels with Dirty Faces is a movie of a genre that was fashionable at the time it debuted: the gangster movies, and when were made terrific and terrible and "standard" titles in that genre. It is like the westerns. Many of them were made in the "golden ages" of the cowboy movie stories, but very few of them stood out. Many of the gangster movies had just beatings, corruption and vulgar love stories...However, there are always isolated spots in the middle of the ocean, and Angels with Dirty Faces elevates the genre of the gangster film to a higher level, as can also give some touches of film noir and good drama that attach to this work a superlative quality. The story is told in a fluid way, very quickly but without losing any shred of credibility.The result of this variety of stories (which are all very simple, but with more depth than they appear) is a powerful and unparalleled work in the Classic Cinema. Michael Curtiz's achievement is intelligent and emotionally overwhelming, and I enjoyed the strong use of light in the scenarios, the photography of the scenes (which loses some of its glimmer because of the degraded copy of the DVD), the performances of the actors, the script, which has great quotes and is very well planned, executed and interpreted. The soundtrack is excellent and fits perfectly with the whole film, being well selected and organized. I emphasize also the camera angles, approaching us from the characters and the environments that surround them (and with that Curtiz showed one of its greatest strengths and talents), and that was the cause of my excitement with the last moments of the film ((such as the apotheosis of Cagney and O'Brien, showing that friendship and human dignity has no limits, regardless of the environment in which we were born). Angels with Dorty Faces is, for me, and I say this without fear, a masterpiece. This movie shows how certain classics, even if they can not withstand the time, the lists of critics and all those things, they can always, if they're good, get a cult of fans delighted with it, managing to increase interest in discovering this movie treasures.

Long before they simply became public nuisances as the bumbling Bowery Boys, the Dead End Kids were a definite threat to New York City law enforcement. In their second film, they are further downtown and have taken over the territory once controlled by James Cagney, who has just gotten out of prison, and Pat O'Brien, who has become a priest. A sick hero worship grows towards Cagney, and his old pal O'Brien desperately tries to stop it before it is too late. But with Cagney becoming involved with two-timing crook Humphrey Bogart, it is only a matter of time before Cagney crosses the line and there is no return.An exciting and brilliantly acted expose on the dangers in society, still riddled with crime following the end of the depression, this is just as much of a classic as its predecessor. Cagney instills his misguided character with identifiable human frailties, subtle humor and the obvious revelation that he really had no other alternative to any other life but crime based upon his unfortunate circumstances. However, crime has no acceptable spot in our society, so those who engage in that life must pay for it. Anne Sheridan is excellent as an old acquaintance who is equally tough and loving, and O'Brien's priest extremely well defined. Bogart is secondary to the plot, just as he was to other gangsters during this era like George Raft and Edward G. Robinson. Ironically the same year, Spencer Tracy would win an Oscar for playing a real life, similar character to O'Brien's in "Boy's Town".