REGENT THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1940, Page 2

REGENT THEATRE

“ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES.” The packed audience at the Regent Theatre on Saturday night had a most thrilling drama, “Angels With Dirty Faces,” placed before them, and its story was fully appreciated. “Angels With Dirty Faces” is a drama of high emotional conflict. Jimmy Cagney as a bigshot gangster, and Pat O’Brien as a fighting priest, boyhood friends, reveal the progress of their chequered careers, their entanglements and subsequent climax to an end, which for obvious reasons will not be disclosed here. One of the surprise features of the film, one which would remove much punch from the film if inexpertly handled, is the portrayal of the two central characters as kids by Frankie Burke, a Brooklyn kid who has been imitating Cagney for years with amazing resemblance, and William Tracey as O’Brien. The latter was chosen by O’Brien’s father, who saw him accidentally on the Warner lot one day. Slum kids being chased by the police for a robbery, Cagney not so fleet of foot as O’Brien, is caught; and thence forward the two tread different paths, Cagney, or rather Rocky, through reform schools and prisons to an eminent place in gangsterdom, while the other grows up to become a priest. When Rocky returns to his old neighbourhood after “doing a stretch,” he finds Father Jerry Connolly, the “Dead End” kids emulating him (Rocky), and Ann Sheridan, a childhood sweetheart. Of his stay in the neighbourhood, dodging rival gangster bullets, while the’“Dead End” kids glorify him, this pulsepounding film treats with one after another of exciting sequences. An exciting episode finds Rocky cornered in a warehouse shooting it out with squads of police, until Father Connolly requests all firing to cease while he, alone, goes up to bring down his boyhood friend. This and other scenes give “Angels With Dirty Faces” its pungent melodrama. Later, when Rocky walks “the last mile” with Father Connolly by his side, the emotional acting of Cagney is magnificent. The film is not without its comedy. The “Dead End” kids as tough a crew as ever, are playing basketball according to their own rules, that is, plenty of rough, no sportsmanship at all. When Cagney takes over the referee's whistle and proceeds to slap them around there is not only brilliant comedy but Cagney at his best —a tough, breezy, hard-as-nails lad who knows all the answers. Powerfully produced with stark realism, it is destined to be a great and memorable experience for all those who see it.

A superb array of varied featurettes completes the programme. The box plans are at Nimmo’s and the theatre.