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Angels with Dirty Faces Overview:

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) was a Crime - Drama Film directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal B. Wallis, Jack L. Warner and Samuel Bischoff.

SYNOPSIS

Cagney, Bogart, and O'Brien in one of the greatest of gangster melodramas. Two boyhood pals, now a parish priest and a hardened criminal, find themselves at odds when the thug returns to his old neighborhood. O'Brien already has his hands full keeping the Dead End Kids out of trouble and now that they idolize Cagney his good works may come to nothing. Unforgettable scene of Cagney on his way to the chair.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Academy Awards 1938 --- Ceremony Number 11 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorJames CagneyNominated
Best DirectorMichael CurtizNominated
Best WritingRowland BrownNominated
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Angels with Dirty Faces BlogHub Articles:

Anjos de Cara Suja (1938) / Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

By Lê on Jan 12, 2019 From Critica Retro

Anjos de Cara Suja (1938) / Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) Nós começamos a moldar nosso futuro ainda na juventude. Os amigos Jerry e Rocky aprendem essa lição do jeito mais difícil. Depois de roubarem canetas da carga de um trem, apenas Rocky é pego, e ele pede que Jerry fique calado ... Read full article

DOUBLE BILL #12: The Public Enemy (1931) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

By Carol Martinheira on Mar 9, 2018 From The Old Hollywood Garden

DOUBLE BILL #12: The Public Enemy (1931) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) On March 9, 2018 By CarolIn Uncategorized James Cagney once said about acting, ‘Learn your lines, find your mark, look ‘em in the eye and tell ‘em the truth.’ And he did. That was the t... Read full article

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 31, 2017 From 4 Star Films

Whaddya hear, whaddya say ~ Jimmy Cagney as Rocky Sullivan If he hadn’t been on the stage and screen, it’s easy to get the sense that James Cagney, born and bred on the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan could have easily been a gangster. And it’s true that in films like P... Read full article

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)

By 4 Star Film Fan on Aug 31, 2017 From 4 Star Films

Whaddya hear, whaddya say ~ Jimmy Cagney as Rocky Sullivan If he hadn’t been on the stage and screen, it’s easy to get the sense that James Cagney, born and bred on the streets of the Lower East Side of Manhattan could have easily been a gangster. And it’s true that in films like P... Read full article

Angels with Dirty Faces (1938, Michael Curtiz)

By Andrew Wickliffe on Mar 16, 2015 From The Stop Button

Angels with Dirty Faces runs less than ninety minutes, but doesn’t really fill them. The first fifteen minutes of the film are flashbacks, tracking James Cagney’s character from troubled boyhood to juvenile detention to prison. Once the present action starts, Cagney immediately reunites ... Read full article

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Angels with Dirty Faces Quotes:

Mac Keefer: I'm taking care of this job myself. Get Blackie up here right away.
James Frazier: Now, listen Mac. I don't care how you handle Sullivan. But it's got to look like an accident with that priest.
Mac Keefer: Leave that to me.
James Frazier: [to Rocky and Mac] Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, gentleman. There's no sense in running too far ahead of ourselves. Don't forget, there are all kinds of grand juries and there's all kinds of ways of handling them. That's why you got me for.
Rocky Sullivan: [on the phone to Mac] Mac, did I get you out of bed? Oh, I'm so sorry.
[to James]
Rocky Sullivan: I think he's sore.
James Frazier: [to Mac] Sullivan picked me up at my home. He's got everything that was in my safe: Account books, receipts, names, addresses, bank books, everything. If he's prosecuted for this kidnapping hell talk. And he's got evidence to back it up. He'll tear this whole town wide open.
Jerry Connolly: It's true, boys. Every word of it. He died like they said. All right, fellas. Let's go and say a prayer for a boy who couldn't run as fast as I could.
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Angels with Dirty Faces Facts
A montage features a shot of gangsters bombing a storefront. This shot is actually an alternate angle of the bombing of a store in The Public Enemy.
For years, viewers have wonder whether or not "Rocky" Sullivan (James Cagney) really turned yellow as he was being strapped into the electric chair. Some have wondered if he was faking it in order to keep his promise to Father Jerry. When asked about the scene years later, Cagney says he chose to play it in such a way so that the audience could make their own decisions as to whether or not he was faking.
The moment in which Rocky forces a trailing hood to take his place inside the phone booth in the pharmacy to get killed was inspired by the death of New York gangster Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll. In the real incident, Coll was locked in a gang war with "Dutch" Schultz. During the war, Coll hid in an apartment above a pharmacy and would only come out to go into the pharmacy and call his girlfriend from the phone booth. Dutch found out about this and when Coll went to make his routine phone call, two of Schultz's gun men walked in and shot Coll to death.
To play Rocky, James Cagney drew on his memories of growing up in New York's Yorkville, a tough ethnic neighborhood on the upper east side, just south of Spanish Harlem.. His main inspiration was a drug-addicted pimp who stood on a street corner all day hitching his trousers, twitching his neck, and repeating, "Whadda ya hear! Whadda ya say!" Those mannerisms came back to haunt Cagney. He later wrote in his autobiography, "I did those gestures maybe six times in the picture. That was over thirty years ago - and the impressionists have been doing me doing him ever since."
The third of seven movies featuring The Dead End Kids.
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