TALKIES

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 112, 19 January 1940, Page 3

TALKIES

"ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES"

James Cagney and Pat O'Brien are co-starred, and such stars as "Dead End" kids, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan and George Bancroft are the chief supporting players, in "Angels With Dirty Faces," a thrilling stark, grim and yet intensely moving Warner Bros melodrama. In this production, the inimitable Jimmy returns to the type of role f ,vhich first brought him fame and in which the public has always liked him best. Re is again a gangster, a killer, a grim, ruthless, relentless, dynamic personality of Ihe type that he alone has been able to make completely convincing on the scren. "Angels With Dirty Faces," however, cannot be adequately described as simply a gangster picture. While it has thrilling scenes of murderous combat between its central character and his underworld enemies and also depicts him, in one of its most effective sequences, stand ing at bay a virtual army of policemen, its interest goes far beyond such episodes. It is a biography of the tough youth played by Cagney, carrying him from his boyhood to the e}eetric chair. At the same time it contrasts his life with that of the character played by Pat O'Brien. "DEAD END" BOYS' AMBITIONS DIFFER When Leo Goreoy, ex-plumber's assistant, came to Hollywood to play in "Dead End." he wanted to go back to plumbing. After a year an;l a half and several pictures, Gorcey has changed bis mind. He wants to be. a writer. Gorcev is the onl3 r one of the six "Do-id End" kids, now oppearing in Warner Bros "Angels With Dirty Faces." Not all the boys wan!; to be actors, however. ['.;py j?:i: :'eys he e:: :->ee'.s to direct piciures some day. Gabriel Deli wants to act and direct. Hunt./ 'Hall -wants to be a jjroduecr. He

claims he knows more about picture making than most men in Hollywood right now. Bernard Punslev hopes he can spend the rest of his life acting in the movie's. O'BRIEN'S CAREER PARALLELS PAL'S A sturdy friendship which took root in their parochial school days together back in Milwaukee has followed Pat O'Brien and Spencer Tracy throughout their careers. After playing baseball and football together, falling victim to the wanderlust at about the same tim/\ leaving their old Irish parish in Milwaukee together, drifting gradually •nto small jobs around the theatie at about the same time, enlisting in the Navy with the same ratings in the World War, and taking advanced lessons in dramatics together in New York, they emerged as promising young actors in successful Ncav York stage casts at the same period. And they got to Hollywood within a yeir of each other.

Since then, the two well-known actors' paths have crossed many ti'mes, and their careers have occasionally paralleled each other, just as they did while the pair of them were scrappy, ambitious kids, getting started together around Milwaukee . When Pat recently played the role ! of a priest, in Warner Bros "Angsls. j With Dirty Faces," with Jim Cagney, Pat was again falling in step with Spencer, who had already done a memorable assignment as an intensely human man of' l ! iie cloth irs "San Francisco." i | "I had always wanted to play the role of a padre/' O'Brien said. "Although I realised that I probably would fall short of doing such justice to the part, and to our old i friends, the reverend fathers in Milwaukee, who had been such an inspiration to both of us, as. Spencer did."