They Made Me a Criminal continues the rotating roster of the ‘30s’ best directors, this time with Bubsy Berkeley. Here, in place of Michael Curtiz and his eye for action, is the director basically responsible for the entire musical genre, films such as 42nd Street and Footlight Parade, with his geographically arranged dancing girls. You know, all that kaleidoscope stuff in The Big Lebowski’s “Gutterballs.” But Berkeley was not only known for his musicals. This picture was his 1939 effort (that Greatest Year In All Movies Ever) to branch out into hardboiled territory at a time when he felt musicals were becoming passé (never mind The Wizard of Oz came out that very same year).
The adult leads also remain at the highest caliber. They Made Me a Criminal represents one of John Garfield’s better early efforts (he being the actor who paved the Method approach for Marlon Brando and James Dean). As hardboiled as any Dead End Kids lead, Garfield can be found in exemplary ‘40s noir like The Postman Always Rings Twice. He isn’t quite as great here as he would become, and the overall effect is somewhat less than the efforts of Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney in Dead End and Angels with Dirty Faces, but Garfield remains a commanding presence. Which is good, because again the dramatic focus is on an adult hero, with the “Dead End Kids” once again there as support. (Though they were the box office draw.)
They Made Me a Criminal moves somewhat away from the gangster focus of previous films, into the boxing subgenre. This was a popular genre in the day (now represented almost entirely by Rocky and Million Dollar Baby), making the career of screenwriter Barton Fink. This is where we find Garfield’s character, Johnny Bradfield, having just won the world championship. Life is as good as it could be for Johnny. He’s achieved ultimate success in his profession, never drinks, and has the love of a good mother.
At least that’s what he tells the press. In truth, life is good for Johnny because this victory allows him to celebrate in a drunken stupor, look out for # 1, and enjoy the physical pleasures of “Oomph Girl” Ann Sheridan – as gold-digger Goldie. Before I get ahead of myself, let me make my visual point about Goldie:
She’s no Rita Hayworth, but she’ll do.
Now, the fact is that Johnny’s a hypocrite, and desperate to keep his lies a secret. So when it turns out the drunken reprobates at his orgiastic foofarah are all reporters, Johnny panics. He pleads them to not take the story to the papers. Then his manager, Doc, goes right ahead and clonks a reporter named Magee over the head with a champagne bottle. This kills him (Magee). And with Johnny passed out on liquor, Doc and Goldie, those upstanding citizens, pin the rap on him and make a run for it. For good measure, they also deposit Johnny’s prone hulk out in a country house, in a thought process which is pretty drunk itself.
Leaving Johnny to stew in his own dipsomania, Doc and Goldie run for the border. But the reporters have reported their purported deporting, and a pair of motorcycle cops gives chase. Think things are bad yet? Doc crashes his mighty jalopy into an apple tree, roasting himself and Goldie. Thus with two unidentifiable corpses in Johnny’s car, the cops (and spinning newspaper montage) make the assumption Johnny is dead.
Once the montage newspaper has spun its way to Johnny’s doorstep, Johnny sobers up and learns of his predicament. Johnny knows himself innocent – he wasn’t that drunk – but that won’t hold any sway with the justice system – he’s been made a criminal, as they say. Johnny’s lawyer says there is only once option: Johnny must change his name to Jack Dorney, and live the noble life of the ‘30s hobo. But don’t worry, Johnny, here’s 0.002% of your championship winnings to get you started.
The bum lifestyle takes Johnny far afield, montaged all the way to Arizona. Johnny is more bedraggled than necessary, as he’s been self-consciously withholding his patented left hook in order to hide his identity. And thus, unable to even fight for himself, he straggles along to a date farm, Rancho Rafferty.
Here, at long last, is where the “Dead End Kids” come into play – once we’re well invested in Johnny’s scenario. Behold Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell and Bernard Punsly, as Tommy, Dippy, Angel, Spit, T.B. and Milt. That’s right, it’s the same names they used in Dead End – and the back story they give for being in Arizona (sent here in desperation by a reform school) slightly suggests an actual continuity with that film. If it is so, it doesn’t really matter; the boys personas remain the same, and that’s all that counts.
Also here on the ranch is Tommy’s big sister, Peggy (Gloria Dickson). Johnny – er, “Jack” – instantly confuses her for Goldie. See, her memory hangs over this whole enterprise, which is why it’s so important they cast a major starlet like Ann Sullivan in such a minor role. Peggy thus becomes Johnny’s love interest, quite against her own will at first.
There’s also Grandmother Rafferty (May Robson), the same basic salty old battleaxe character that dominates the era.
Johnny is taken on, reluctantly, as a worker on the ranch. The drama now centers on his growing relationship with the Dead End Kids. On one level, this is no different from the central stories of former Dead End Kid pictures, and yet there is a major departure. This is the first time there hasn’t been a duality of competing interests, law versus crime, with the Kids at the center. This time it is only Johnny, with the Dead End Kids serving to slowly shatter his philosophy of self-interest. So it’s an inner turmoil, with a character that isn’t quite as compelling as those who preceded him. They Made Me a Criminal remains a wholly professional production – nothing less from Bubsy Berkeley – but without that extra special “oomph” to push it into classic.
In the course of Johnny’s growing friendship with the Dead End Kids, a very important event takes place. Dippy (Hall), in the dry-as-sin act of exposition, accidentally pronounces “regenerate” as “degenerate.” This is a malapropism, pure and simple, an actorly error, not only left in the film, but elaborated upon throughout. Indeed, from this point on, Huntz Hall would make his name with patented linguistic fallacies, allowing the troupe’s films to slowly morph from drama-thrillers to slapstick comedies. This is the start of that.
Other fun dialogue, without a larger context: “You ain’t got the noive!”
As Johnny takes the majority of his young charges out for a swim, Tommy reveals his hopes and dreams. The ranch’s funds from New York are drying up, and the only chance for them to stay there is to open up a gas station. The only problem is they haven’t the startup funds. Let’s just let that thought sink into Johnny’s head, as the boys go for their swim.
Then, while swimming in the irrigation tank, it gets used for irrigation – or “irritation,” in Dippy’s dippy estimation. Who’d a-thunk? Like a death trap in an Indiana Jones movie, the water level drops so they cannot climb out, but not enough so they can reach bottom. And Angel cannot swim, it turns out, which seems quite the oversight. They’re only saved when Johnny swims down to the bottom to drain the remaining water out. Then it’s a simple matter of forming a human ladder in order to reach the regular ladder, pull it in, then hope editing patches up whatever they didn’t feel like filming.
Peggy’s terror over the boys’ disappearance is soon nullified by her thankfulness that Johnny saved them. This is the start of a mutual romance, and the end of drama at Rancho Rafferty. That means it’s time for an outside threat to emerge, which it will do in the form of a boxing tournament. Johnny learns that for every round her survives against the mad Russian Gaspar Rutchek, he will earn $500. Four rounds will be enough to buy Tommy his beloved gas station. The problem: Johnny cannot risk exposing his identity as a boxer.
The further problem: Back in New York, Johnny is being sought by Detective Monty Phelan (Claude Rains, of Casablanca and just about everything else), who is both desperate to gain face with the department, and who knows Johnny’s fighting style. (Phelan also appeared way back at the start, which is again why it’s so essential to use recognizable actors in important small roles.) And with Johnny’s stance appearing in the newspaper, Phelan is on his way to watch the fight.
A pretty much disposable sequence follows, as the Dead End Kids raise the money to buy Johnny a set of boxing gloves. True to their personas, they get the funds by conning the clothes off the back of a stereotyped 18th century British/Russian prince, or something. It’s kind of an odd little detour, notable only because it seems a formula element that the “Dead End Kids” must always harass a bratty wealthanista in each entry. Maybe it’s “funny.”
In more important plot developments, Johnny’s time spent down at the boxing arena keys him in on Phelan’s arrival. And even though he’s promised to help Peggy and her brother with his winnings, he now considers dropping out. Unable to explain his status as a wanted man, Peggy instead takes Johnny for a coward and a liar. Well, he is a liar.
Anyway, Johnny is all set to go back on the road in his hobo finest when Tommy resolves to go with him. Hearing words of genuine respect from Tommy, far more heartfelt than anything he encountered formerly as the champ, this is enough to keep Johnny around. So it’s back to the makeshift training ring in the date groves. And Johnny has one more trick up his hobo sleeve: if he switches his stance, uses his right hand (no, don’t betray your left-handed brethren!), just maybe Phelan will not recognize him.
Fight night comes! The fighters who precede Johnny barely last the time it takes to type this fact. Then Johnny is up against the fearsome palooka Rutchek, trying out his untested new right-handed method. Thus at a disadvantage, Johnny is barely able to keep in the fight, but he is also able to escape Phelan’s scrutiny – maaaybe.
This cannot last. When Johnny faces his imminent knock out, he has to choose between his own freedom and the boys’ future. Guess what Johnny does?
Phelan drags Johnny to the rail yard for his trip back to New York, granting Johnny final tearful farewells with Peggy and Tommy. But Claude Raines’ heart always melts at the end, so rather he lets Johnny stay in Arizona. Besides, Phelan states, Magee was killed by a right hook – something he knows now Johnny couldn’t have done.
They Made Me a Criminal is a remake of 1933’s The Life of Jimmy Dolan, which was not an unusual circumstance in 1930s cinema – and not even so substantial as to make that earlier movie a part of this series. It’s like how His Girl Friday derives from the earlier The Front Page, but with enough changes it’s essentially an original work. But then as now, Hollywood needed adaptation material to rely upon, and without video or even strong audience memory, pilfering six-year-old movies was a perfectly viable option.
Which would explain why They Made Me a Criminal is so notably anomalous in the franchise so far. It is the only entry without an urban setting, and it is barely even a thriller. That cannot entirely be attributed to the boxing milieu, for it is the boxing where this feels most like its predecessors. Of course, I am judging the Dead End Kids by everything except the “Dead End Kids.” Their performances remain consistent, even with the addition of “hilarious” malapropisms. It’s odd, putting them in Arizona, proving in this troupe’s case that the fish-out-of-water situation doesn’t wholly work. Oh well, experiment complete, let’s take it back to the city, guys.
Related posts:
• No. 1 Dead End (1937)
• No. 3 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
• Nos. 5 - 7 (1939)
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