"Angels With Dirty Faces" is one of my favorite films going all the way back to when I was a kid, but today was the first time I ever saw "Angels Wash Their Faces". I've been waiting a long time, so kudos once again to Turner Classics. The picture's title borrows from it's precursor pretty much in name only; it's not a sequel per se, much like "The Curse of the Cat People" capitalized on "Cat People" to draw in movie goers who liked the original. The connecting link here is the presence of The Dead End Kids, the first and most serious portrayal of the street gang that evolved into The East Side Kids, and later the goofy and slapstick Bowery Boys. Funny, but I don't feel compelled to favor one portrayal over another, I like watching them all.
The other returnee from "Angels With Dirty Faces" is Ann Sheridan, a completely different character here, moving into a new neighborhood with brother Gabe (Frankie Thomas) who was recently pardoned from reform school. I preferred her Laury Ferguson character in the prior film, where she showed more sass and parried her relationship with Cagney's Rocky Sullivan. Still, she lends good support here, which is kind of ironic because she's actually top billed above the Dead Enders, and romantically cast opposite Ronald Reagan as Assistant District Attorney Pat Remson.
There's quite a lot of hi-jinks involved in the picture, particularly in the latter half when Billy Shafter (Billy Halop) wins a Boys Week Contest to become mayor of the city for a week. Swearing in his pals, the gang goes on a tear with a goal of getting their new buddy Gabe out of State's Prison, framed for an arson fire after circumstantial evidence and tainted witnesses produced a guilty verdict. Before the picture gets there however, there's a real grim sequence in which one of the boys (Bernard Punsley as Sleepy) dies in an apartment fire as the rest of the gang watches helplessly. The following scene comes as close to a tear jerker moment as you'll find, with his mother (Marjorie Main) delivering one of the most poignant lines I've ever heard. Trying to console her after the loss of her son, Joy Ryan (Sheridan) tells Mrs. Arkelian that she ought to cry for a measure of release. Her response - "It hurts too much for tears. Crying is for little things". That one put a lump in my throat.
Considering that they were known as The Dead End Kids, I was a little surprised to hear the boys call themselves the Termites. The little buggers consisted of Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Gabriel Dell, with an assist from Bonita Granville as Gorcey's sister. 'Sleepy' was made an honorary member after his death in the fire, adding another somber note to the story.
In their own way, Warner Brothers did an effective job in presenting the character of an era to the big screen. Here they take on city government corruption using the Dead End Kids as foils using laws on the books against spitting in public and bowling on Sunday to bring bad guys to justice. What really got my attention however was the way a particular scene managed to highlight post-Depression poverty in an effective way. The boys were off on another escapade, and Bobby Jordan's character asks permission to opt out. It turns out his father just got back to work at a warehouse job, and having been paid, the family was going to have meat for supper. Think about that one for a while.
The other returnee from "Angels With Dirty Faces" is Ann Sheridan, a completely different character here, moving into a new neighborhood with brother Gabe (Frankie Thomas) who was recently pardoned from reform school. I preferred her Laury Ferguson character in the prior film, where she showed more sass and parried her relationship with Cagney's Rocky Sullivan. Still, she lends good support here, which is kind of ironic because she's actually top billed above the Dead Enders, and romantically cast opposite Ronald Reagan as Assistant District Attorney Pat Remson.
There's quite a lot of hi-jinks involved in the picture, particularly in the latter half when Billy Shafter (Billy Halop) wins a Boys Week Contest to become mayor of the city for a week. Swearing in his pals, the gang goes on a tear with a goal of getting their new buddy Gabe out of State's Prison, framed for an arson fire after circumstantial evidence and tainted witnesses produced a guilty verdict. Before the picture gets there however, there's a real grim sequence in which one of the boys (Bernard Punsley as Sleepy) dies in an apartment fire as the rest of the gang watches helplessly. The following scene comes as close to a tear jerker moment as you'll find, with his mother (Marjorie Main) delivering one of the most poignant lines I've ever heard. Trying to console her after the loss of her son, Joy Ryan (Sheridan) tells Mrs. Arkelian that she ought to cry for a measure of release. Her response - "It hurts too much for tears. Crying is for little things". That one put a lump in my throat.
Considering that they were known as The Dead End Kids, I was a little surprised to hear the boys call themselves the Termites. The little buggers consisted of Halop, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, and Gabriel Dell, with an assist from Bonita Granville as Gorcey's sister. 'Sleepy' was made an honorary member after his death in the fire, adding another somber note to the story.
In their own way, Warner Brothers did an effective job in presenting the character of an era to the big screen. Here they take on city government corruption using the Dead End Kids as foils using laws on the books against spitting in public and bowling on Sunday to bring bad guys to justice. What really got my attention however was the way a particular scene managed to highlight post-Depression poverty in an effective way. The boys were off on another escapade, and Bobby Jordan's character asks permission to opt out. It turns out his father just got back to work at a warehouse job, and having been paid, the family was going to have meat for supper. Think about that one for a while.