Chicago - angels with dirty faces

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Movie
German title Chicago - angels with dirty faces
Original title Angels with Dirty Faces
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1938
length 97 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Michael Curtiz
script Rowland Brown
John Wexley
Warren Duff
Ben Hecht
production Samuel Bischoff
music Max Steiner
camera Sol Polito
cut Owen Marks
occupation
synchronization

Chicago Angels with Dirty Faces is a 1938 American gangster film directed by Michael Curtiz .

action

Friends William Rocky Sullivan and Jerome Jerry Connelly grew up street boys in a poor Chicago neighborhood. Sullivan is arrested during a joint harmless break-in into a freight car, while Jerry is able to escape through a spurt. This event will change their lives. Rocky is sent to a juvenile prison, where he comes into contact with criminals and, after imprisonment, begins a career as a gangster. He is later sentenced to another prison term. After serving his prison sentence, Sullivan returns to the neighborhood where he grew up and where he started his criminal career. There he meets Connelly again. He is now a reformed Catholic priest and has dedicated himself to the fight against juvenile delinquency. One way to do this is to play basketball between young gangs , which fail again and again because none of the street boys want to abide by the rules of the game - just like in everyday life on the street, where the right of the strongest always prevails.

Jerry's care includes a group of street children whom he wants to get on the right track. This turns out to be difficult, however, as the young people are now also under the negative influence of Rocky, whom they revere as an idol and hero. Therefore, there are always conflicts and arguments between the former friends.

When Jerry one day publicly accuses attorney James Frazier and businessman Mac Keefer of bribery and corruption - information that their business partner Rocky had previously given him - they plan to murder the priest. Rocky, who by chance learns of the plot, decides to save his friend's life. He shoots Frazier and Keefer and is sentenced to death in the electric chair .

In prison he is visited by Jerry, who asks him not to appear as a “tough man” but as a crying “coward” before his execution on the electric chair . The priest wants to prevent Rocky from becoming a celebrated martyr for the street children through a heroic death . Rocky is initially reluctant, but shortly before his execution begins to plead loudly for his life. When the youngsters find out about it from the newspaper, they turn away from their idol in disappointment. Connelly urges the boys to "pray for a boy who couldn't run as fast as he could".

background

The street gang members are played by Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Huntz Hall and Bernard Punsly. These six teenagers were known as The Dead End Kids in the 1930s and are also featured by that name in the opening credits. From 1935 to 1939 they were seen in seven joint films and one play. The play Dead End gave them their name. The filming of the play then opened the series of films in 1937. The German title of this first film is Dead End , directed by William Wyler .

For his portrayal of the gangster Rocky, James Cagney drew on experiences he had made as a teenager in New York's Hell's Kitchen district .

To this day, it is still controversial whether Rocky is playing his fear of death and desperation at the end of the film just to do his friend a favor or whether he really panics at the electric chair. Cagney once said in an interview that it is up to you to interpret this scene.

Chicago - Angels with dirty faces was one of Humphrey Bogart's first great successes before his actual breakthrough to superstar in 1941 with a decision in the Sierra . The cast of the blonde James Cagney as a good-bad-guy, the bad guy with a heart who had gotten off the beaten track by the circumstances, and the dark-haired Humphrey Bogart as the bad-bad-guy, the heartless "just bad" gangster, was a cast model for several other gangster films. Shortly afterwards, Cagney and Bogart made the gangster film The Roaring Twenties and the Western Oklahoma Kid together.

In addition to the authors named in the opening credits, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur were also involved in the film's script . In Germany it was also published under the alternative title Chikago .

synchronization

The German dubbed version of Angels with Dirty Faces was created in the 1960s by Berliner Synchron based on a dialogue book by Fritz A. Koeniger and directed by Klaus von Wahl .

role actor German Dubbing voice
William 'Rocky' Sullivan James Cagney Wolfgang Draeger
Father Jerry Connolly Pat O'Brien Michael Chevalier
James Frazier Humphrey Bogart Gerd Martienzen
Mac Keefer George Bancroft Martin Hirthe
Soapy Billy Halop Wolfgang Condrus
Rocky as a teenager Frankie Burke Arne Elsholtz
Jerry as a teenager William Tracy Ulli Lommel

Reviews

“Despite the crude moralizing ending, the production is one of the most convincing works in American gangster film. The social background of crime, the fascination with crime as an outlet for social frustration, is clearly worked out. Also worth seeing is the intense game of James Cagneys and Humphrey Bogarts, who appear as a classic pair of opponents. "

- Lexicon of international film

“Excellent gangster film from 1938, which has already become classic, about the bad development of a boy from the slums of the big American city up to his death in the electric chair. The sympathies of the manufacturers, which they obviously showed towards their negative hero, overlay the moral (and unfortunately emotional-sentimental) conclusion. Therefore only something for discerning friends of this tough genre. "

- Protestant film observer

Awards

DVD release

  • Chicago - angels with dirty faces . Warner Home Video 2005

Web links

Commons : Angels with Dirty Faces (film)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | Chicago - angels with dirty faces. Retrieved February 4, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Chicago - Angels with dirty faces. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Critique No. 217/1965, p. 402