(1938)
Also part of The Warner Gangsters Collection

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Product Description

A gangster on the run takes people hostage in a roadside diner. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/27/2005 Starring: James Cagney Humphrey Bogart Run time: 97 minutes Rating: Nr

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6940 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-01-25
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 78 minutes

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Customer Reviews

Only Cagney could make Bogey sweat
Michael Curtiz' "Angels with Dirty Faces" is one of those movies (like his "Casablanca" and "Mildred Pierce") in which the planets and stars were perfectly aligned. James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien, Ann Sheridan, and the Dead End Kids are completely believeable. In fact, even the actors who played the young Cagney and O'Brien were right on.

But it is Curtiz' direction that runs the show. Curtiz moves seamlessly from the crowded streets, to the claustrophobic tenements, to the glitzy gambling joints. And his mastery of shadow and light cannot be overstated, as historian Dana Polan points out in his insightful commentary.

All these elements combine to create a great movie, and not just a great gangster movie. The complex relationships between Rocky Sullivan, the kids, and Fadda Jerry (O'Brien)--and the astounding ending to the film--make it as poignant and widely-appealing as any other movie of its time or any other time.

Angels With Dirty Faces
It's no coincidence that both "Angels" and "Casablanca" were directed by Michael Curtiz, since there's very little wrong with either picture. Cagney is the quintessential gangster with a heart of gold, and his real-life friend Pat O'Brien is equally strong as Father Connolly. Beautifully realized in every respect-- one of the all-time champs.

Gangster Film With More Texture
What's interesting about "Angels With Dirty Faces" is it does not so much concern itself with the how someone would turn to a life of crime but the why. James Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a tragic figure of sorts because his lot in life was determined by an indiscretion as a youth which snowballed into stretches in the correction system and various organized crime ventures. On the flip side of the coin, his best friend Jerry Connolly(Pat O'Brien) became a priest. The film also draws an extraordinary canvass of the working class milieu to illustrate the squalor that would encourage someone to turn to crime. The Dead End Kids are used to great effect here to demonstrate the underbelly of the lower-class existence that most people would not want to acknowledge. Humphrey Bogart is effective also here as Sullivan's double-crossing lawyer. Credit director Michael Curtiz for pulling all of these elements together for wholly satisfying experience. This is Cagney's show ultimately, because, in a multi-hued performance he is able to allow the audience to empathize with him and mourn for him even though we disagree with his choices in life. This DVD contains a decent documentary of the film, a pretty good Technicolor short subject about a budding ballerina who wants to make it at Warner Brothers, and a Porky Pig and Daffy Duck cartoon.