The Repenting Gangster
Sarah Vazquez
ENFL 357 - American Film Beginning to 1945
Fall 2014
Professor Art Simon
When it comes to the classic gangster genre of the 1930’s, films like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy immediately come to mind. They tell the glorified story of the rise and fall of the charismatic “badman” gangster. However, toward the end of 1930’s there was a drastic change in the film industry where societal concern over moral standards depicted in film shaped the way these gangster’s stories were told. No longer were these men, who represented such depravity and illicit behavior, able to be triumphant in their evil crusades. One prime example of this new kind of gangster film was Warner Brother’s 1938 film Angels With Dirty Faces. In this film, there is a deviation …show more content…
Instead, we see the negative aspects of being influenced by a life of crime and the demise of the gangster at the hands of two entities: law enforcement and his own conscience. In a rare circumstance, in one of the foremost examples of the Hollywood Production code at play in the genre, we see the gangster not only be defeated in the end but acknowledge his actions and end his story on a note of repentance. The spectacle that is Angels With Dirty Faces revolves around two childhood friends from the New York slums of the 1920s and the dramatic contrast between them as adults. While they are both hoodlums in their youth, they turn to entirely different lifestyles as adults. Rocky (played by James Cagney) continues down the wrong path and becomes a shady career criminal who has been jailed countless times where Jerry (played by Pat O’Brien), on
Sarah Vazquez
ENFL 357 - American Film Beginning to 1945
Fall 2014
Professor Art Simon
When it comes to the classic gangster genre of the 1930’s, films like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy immediately come to mind. They tell the glorified story of the rise and fall of the charismatic “badman” gangster. However, toward the end of 1930’s there was a drastic change in the film industry where societal concern over moral standards depicted in film shaped the way these gangster’s stories were told. No longer were these men, who represented such depravity and illicit behavior, able to be triumphant in their evil crusades. One prime example of this new kind of gangster film was Warner Brother’s 1938 film Angels With Dirty Faces. In this film, there is a deviation …show more content…
Instead, we see the negative aspects of being influenced by a life of crime and the demise of the gangster at the hands of two entities: law enforcement and his own conscience. In a rare circumstance, in one of the foremost examples of the Hollywood Production code at play in the genre, we see the gangster not only be defeated in the end but acknowledge his actions and end his story on a note of repentance. The spectacle that is Angels With Dirty Faces revolves around two childhood friends from the New York slums of the 1920s and the dramatic contrast between them as adults. While they are both hoodlums in their youth, they turn to entirely different lifestyles as adults. Rocky (played by James Cagney) continues down the wrong path and becomes a shady career criminal who has been jailed countless times where Jerry (played by Pat O’Brien), on