Rating of
3/4
"Angels With Dirty Faces" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 02/19/12
When two young tearaways are interrupted trying to steal from a railway car, one gets away while the other is caught which leads to a life of crime and infamy as a notorious gangster. Angels With Dirty Faces reunites Cagney and Bogart, each once again playing a charismatic gangster and slimy backstabber respectively, and once again they're both fantastic. The central idea of the film is priest Pat O'Brien's "there but for the grace of god go I" attitude, having never given up on his childhood friend but at the same time resenting him for cutting such an attractive figure for the neighbourhood kids who would rather follow his example than take the less glamorous path of the straight and narrow. O'Brien is actually a little dull and wooden compared to the other leading men and as such you can see the attraction but to be honest I would have been happier with the film as a whole if it stayed with Cagney a bit more and we had less of the knockabout sentiment of the Dead End Kids. It definitely gets better and better as it goes though, ending with a fantastic shoot out and a brilliant closing sequence when Cagney finally has one last shot at redemption. Not as good as The Roaring Twenties, but definitely up there.
