- Angels With Dirty Faces' Rocky Sullivan (James Cagney) is easily one of the most morally ambiguous cinematic gangsters of the 1930's. On one hand, he is a habitual criminal who enters the film (as portrayed by the uncanny Cagney lookalike, Frankie Burke) running from the cops. The wonderful montage that follows his arrest proves that such behaviors soon evolve into lifelong habits. On the other hand, he's a genuinely charming, generous, and likeable guy. His twitchy mannerisms and machine-gun rapidity of speech may mark him as a wiseguy, but he obviously loves his boyhood pal Jerry (Pat O'Brien) like a brother. He also comes to love the formerly pigtailed neighborhood girl Laury (Ann Sheridan) in a completely different manner, but the events of the film ensure that their love is never consummated.
- The trouble is, Rocky feels he's owed a hundred grand for going to jail and not snitching on a crooked lawyer named Frazier (Humphrey Bogart). The situation recalls that time Rocky shielded Jerry from the law back when they were boys, but Frazier proves to be decidedly less grateful than Jerry ever was. In fact, while Rocky sat in a cell, Frazier and his new boss Keefer (George Bancroft) got rich investing in a gambling nightclub that they have no intention of sharing with Rocky. Before long, their evasion turns to aggression, culminating in a botched telephone booth assassination attempt. Now Rocky needs to find a way to even the score with these villains before they get the chance to hurt Jerry and Laury, too.
- Like Rocky, however, the film has two sides. The other half depicts Rocky's affectionate interactions with Jerry, Laury, and their adopted set of rough-and-tumble orphans, played by the group known alternately as the Dead-End Kids or Bowery Boys. Modern audiences will undoubtedly find the rowdy teenagers' exaggerated accents, slang, and horseplay ironically funny or even obnoxious (imagine Bugs Bunny or Moe from The Three Stooges, but not intended for laughs). Regardless, the boys give Rocky a welcome opportunity to prove he's a real man of courage, and Rocky's riveting final scene with Jerry demonstrates that such courage can take many forms. Director Michael Curtiz may have made better films than this one (including the same year's The Adventures of Robin Hood and, of course, Casablanca), but I'm not sure anybody ever created a more admirable gangster than Rocky Sullivan.
- I'm just guessing that this film is the one most responsible for a century of bad Cagney impressions. "Whaddaya hear, whaddaya say?"
- The imdb claims that Cagney socked one of the kids in the face for being obnoxious, which nobody can really blame him for.
