Humphrey Bogart meets the Bowery Boys!

One of my favorite movies that I discovered on vhs while working at the video store was Dead End. Made in 1937 and starring Humphrey Bogart, the movie was adapted from the Broadway play which starred and introduced the world to the Dead End Kids. Later to become known as The Bowery Boys in a successful series of films in the 1940s and '50s, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Billy Halop, and Gabriel Dell all got their start with this original more serious urban drama. Bogart who was on loan from Warner Brothers to Sam Goldwyn turns in one of his best performances of his early film career. As 'Baby Face' Martin, Bogart plays a gangster on the run returning to his childhood home on the banks of the east river in NYC. While there he hopes to see his forgotten mother (Marjorie Main) and old girlfriend played by Claire Trevor. Trevor won an Oscar nomination for her brief performance, but it is Main who steals the movie with a startlingly tragic cameo, one that will surprise any fan who grew up thinking of her as only Ma' Kettle. The film also stars Joel McCrea, one of the most underrated film stars of all time. McCrae plays a a struggling architect who like Bogart's character grew up on the mean streets of the old neighborhood, but he chose the righteous path instead of a career in crime. The film was directed by William Wyler, the most nominated film director of all time with 12 Best Director nods. Wyler takes a stagy screenplay and adapts it nicely to fill his movie screen. Often working with female stars like Bette Davis, Wyler projects strong independent women in his films, as is the case with Sylvia Sydney in Dead End. Sydney plays a working single woman trying to keep her younger brother, Halop out of trouble in the streets. For 1937, none of the female characters come off as simple or vampy as in other gangster pictures of the time. Greg Toland, who shot Citizen Kane pulls off another visual feast for the eyes with his black & white photography of Art Director Richard Day's convincing recreation of east side New York. Legendary composer Alfred Newman underscores memorable opening and closing title sequences, but his music is scarce throughout the rest of the fim. Available now on DVD,

Dead End [DVD](1937) DVD
Landmark drama of life in the crime-ridden slums of Depression-era New York stars Humphrey Bogart as a hoodlum who returns to his old neighborhood and is idolized by the local youths (the Dead End Kids, in their film debut). William Wyler's classic crime tale, scripted by Lillian Hellman, also stars Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, Wendy Barrie. 92 min. Standard; Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital mono, Spanish Dolby Digital mono; Subtitles: English, Spanish, French.