Hell’s Kitchen (not the Gordon Ramsay BS, the film from 1939) is a remake just as They Made Me a Criminal is, of both The Mayor of Hell (1933) and the Dead End Kid’s very own Crime School. Is this allowable? Whatever, that means once again the sextet is getting sent to a crooked reform school, where they become pawns in an ethical struggle between criminality and lawfulness. The only major distinctions are in the details – again the lads bear new monikers, which always amuse me: Tony, Gyp, Joey, Bongo, Ace and Ouch. Ouch?!
What matters is the caliber of the cast and crew. The director is a step down (they could barely go up) in the form of Lewis Seiler, whose filmography is solidly in the realm of competent B-pictures, including the aforementioned Crime School. Having neither seen that one, it’s hard to gauge what might’ve been, and my only exposure to Seiler (Charlie Chan in Paris) is not a film with any particular distinction.
What of the actors? In the lead is Stanley Fields. Per Wikipedia, he is an American biologist, so…that’s clearly the wrong page. Ah, but his costar! Now he needs no further research…
Ronald Reagan!
Man, I really wish I could’ve seen this! I need more filmic exposure to the Arnold Scharzenegger of the ‘30s.
Oh, and somehow Hell’s Kitchen was rated “X” in England…Just…how does that happen?! Even under Hays’ anal eye, still the British find American output too violent?
The Angels Wash Their Faces continues Reagan’s career with the “Dead End Kids,” even as it does Ann Sheridan (whose ever-improving looks grace awkwardly tilted posters). She is a welcome connection back to the Kids’ greatest effort, Angels with Dirty Faces, the title being changed from the uninspiring The Battle of City Hall to take further advantage of that popular film. Which is a good thing, since it seems by now quality has taken a possible slide, as evidenced by the perfectly workmanlike and anonymous director: Ray Enright.
The plot sounds somewhat like Angels with Dirty Faces, in that it concerns a recently paroled (or in this case, released from reform school) would-be criminal who does good by the Dead End Kids. Here, it’s Gabe Ryan (Frankie Thomas). Unlike James Cagney’s role in the earlier film, Gabe truly intends goodness, even while he gets mixed up with the local gangsters. These gangsters quickly get the better of him, framing Gabe for a string of arson of all things. One of these fires even kills one of the Dead End Kids – anti-continuity or no, that’s a pretty brave move.
The Dead End Kids remain strong in their faith, even amassing the neighborhood kids to fight on Gabe’s behalf now a trial has started. On the adult side, Ronald Reagan shows early political inclinations as he uses his position as Assistant District Attorney to examine the possibility of Gabe’s innocence – and to get closer to Ann Sheridan, a very understandable desire.
Though On Dress Parade is the final film released under the Dead End Kids banner, it is a milestone of things to come. It is the first time the “Dead End Kids” headline a picture entirely without other well-known actors, suggesting just how 85 further films could be wrung from them. But with On Dress Parade being the major credit for director William Clemens, it’s clear Warner Brothers was through with efforts to maximize quality in the Dead End Kids films. This is the reason the series was dropped from Warner Brothers’ production slate. Contracts being what they were, all six lads were just starting much more prolific series at other studios (to be examined soon). Warner Brothers remained one of the most respectable outfits in the film business, and better they create a few stone cold classics with the Dead End Kids than be the ones to run them into the ground.
Anyway, On Dress Parade exchanges the occasional reform school setting for a military academy. With outside adults no longer the dramatic focus, the Dead End Kids will have to become more diverse characters than they’ve previously been – up ‘til now their gang has been a sort of group character. This switch creates specific roles for different members of the troupe, as fortunes rise and fortunes fall.
While Billy Halop had so far been the lead boy, here the focus is switched to Leo Gorcey, on his way to the temporary top of the Kids’ heap. Gorcey plays Slip (quite a change from former characters such as “Spit”), the handle he would take on for the whole of the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys franchises.
Slip’s father, a decorated WWI hero, has passed on, leaving Spit in the care of Colonel Mitchell, overseer of the academy. Mitchell is not a crook, like in the Crime School model; he’s simply the necessary bland adult presence. Slip’s true conflicts shall be with five other cadets, the remaining “Dead End Kids.” Their leader is Halop, in the role of Cadet Major Rollins, who struggles to cure Slip of his rough and tumble ways. (Leo Gorcey’s onscreen persona is being molded into a tough guy, perhaps a necessary step as the actors age.) Slip remains malcontent, and even pushes Rollins out of a window for his troubles.
But in the end he’ll earn the cadets’ respect, save one of their lives, and be granted his father’s service medal. And in the process, lesser “Dead End Kid” Bernard Punsly will see his screen time diminish more and more – even more than in The Angels Wash Their Faces, and he died in that one! (Indeed, Punsly’s stint with the troupe is among the shortest, what with WWII and medical school and all.)
One further reason for Warner Brothers’ dissolution of the Dead End Kids was the Kids’ continued tomfoolery on the studio lot, a problem which earlier saw Warner Brothers take them over from United Artist. This time, though, the lads would not retain their big box office name (“Dead End Kids”) as new studios took them on. Universal had already been developing their parallel franchise with the boys simultaneously – this is Little Tough Guys, the next stop on our adventure. That was under a separate contract, in a way I do not yet fully understand. As for the contracts Warner Brothers gave up, well, if studying the ‘30s and ‘40s has taught me anything, it’s that Hollywood abhors a free agent. As in Charlie Chan and The Three Mesquiteers, the “Dead End Kids” would be sucked up by that great, soulless vortex at the lowest, ninth circle of Hollywood’s ladder: Monogram Studios. [Thunder crackle!] That very name fills me with dread, and so I am thankful I won’t have to immediately visit Monogram’s East Side Boys franchise (or its later Bowery Boys franchise – oh dear). Rather, I’ll have Little Tough Guys to toughen me up…
Related posts:
• No. 1 Dead End (1937)
• No. 3 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
• No. 4 They Made Me a Criminal (1939)
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