Me convirtieron en un criminal

They Made Me a Criminal is a remake of an earlier Warner Brothers film, The Life of Jimmy Dolan which starred Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as the prizefighter on the lam.

Even with the restrictions now upon production by the Hays Office, this remake actually turns out to be better than the original. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., is horribly miscast as a pugilist. John Garfield with his background and style steps into a part he was born to play.

They Made Me a Criminal was directed by Busby Berkeley who Jack Warner believed in keeping busy in between musicals. Berkeley in fact would soon be leaving Warner Brothers for MGM.

Berkeley does do a fine job here, keeping the action flowing at a good pace. I particularly like the scene where four of the Dead End Kids and Garfield are swimming in a water tank and get stranded there when the water level goes down. They get it out of it quite narrowly and with some good ingenuity.

Other performances besides Garfield and the kids to remember are May Robson who runs the summer camp for the kids and Claude Rains as the obsessed detective on Garfield's trail.

The young John Garfield turned in a fine performance in the 1939 "They Made Me a Criminal." Celebrating a ring victory in a jammed locker room, boxer Johnnie Bradfield emotes about his love of mom, rejection of booze and clean living style to fans, including cops, who eat it up. Later in the evening he's plowed and tussling with his bimbo gal while his manager, in on the con, shares the evening. And the whiskey.

A problem develops when another couple arrives. The guy is a newspaper reporter and he says he'll expose Bradfield's phony life on the front page. The manager kills the reporter and he and the floozy depart. The murder discovered, cops, later, are on the lookout for the now somnolent boxer whose car is driven by the manager with his new girlfriend-Johnny's now instant ex. A police chase ends with a fiery car crash. Manager and girl are dead and unrecognizable.

Johnny discovers that he's supposed to be a killer. But he's also presumed dead. Seeking advice from a lawyer, he entrusts the counselor with the key to a bank deposit box holding his sole savings, $10,000. The lawyer later gives Johnny $250 and tells him that the balance is his fee for giving him professional advice: get out of town, fast, and go far away. (I would never charge a client more than $5,000 for such pithy, succinct and wise direction.)

Johnny, now a freight train hopping hobo, winds up conveniently passing out at an Arizona date ranch where he's nursed back to health by beautiful Goldie West, Ann Sheridan, a fine actress whose career was in the ascendancy. Taking Jack Dorney as his moniker, the pugilist loses some of his rough edges as he falls in love with Goldie. He becomes a mentor and pal to - The Dead End Kids. Familiar screen characters to pre-war moviegoers.

A chance to make money arises when an exhibition boxer shows up challenging any suckers to last several rounds in the ring with him. It's a natural temptation for Bradfield/Dorney but there's a fly in the ointment. Who should show up but New York detective Monty Phelan, the laughing stock of the department? He's been on morgue duty for ages because of a slight mistake early in his career that sent an innocent man to Old Sparky (we all make mistakes, don't we?) Phelan recognized Bradfield from a news photo and he's there to watch the fight and make the pinch. Claude Rains is the cop who's endured slights and barbs from his fellow officers for years.

What follows is predictable but it's well acted. I hope this was a main feature when it was released-it's too good to rank as a "B" second on a marquee.

Busby Berkeley, best known as an outstanding choreographer, directed "They Made Me a Criminal" and Max Steiner, one of Hollywood's all-time prolific score composers, wrote nice but not extraordinary music for the film.

Now available on DVD from Alpha Video, the movie set me back a mere $4.99 and gave me real pleasure. I'll view it again.

8/10

It's a Warner Bros. production, in spades—from Garfield to the gritty subject matter to the seedy surroundings. If MGM was the glamour studio, Warner's was the no-nonsense Plain Jane. Here boxing champ Johnnie (Garfield) hobos it to the California desert to escape a New York murder rap. There he hooks up with tough blonde (Dickson) and her juvenile delinquent date pickers (Gorcey, et. al.). Trouble is that Detective Phelin (Rains) won't give up the chase, and now Johnnie's in a pickle he can't fight his way out of.

Okay, nothing unusual about the plot, except maybe the setting. Nevertheless, director Busby Berkeley manages to blend the elements into a good gritty little tale. Well, that's except for the fight scenes, which prove Berkeley was better at arranging dancers than boxers. Even so, he makes maybe the best use of that ragamuffin outfit that would become the Bowery Boys that I've seen. Even the usually buffoonish Huntz Hall is under firm control. But maybe the biggest challenge was getting aristocratic Claude Rains to impersonate a street wise New York cop, of all things. Fortunately, that excellent actor pulls it off better than expected. And, of course, there's the great Garfield showing why his brand of feisty urban grit was so perfect for the times.

Then there's the one scene that still has me sweating. Johnnie and the boys are cooling off inside a big water-filled irrigation tank. Okay, no problem. Except, farmer somebody decides his date trees need water, and before they know it, the boys are clawing at the bare metal sides, trying to escape the ten feet of water he's left in the bottom. Sure, they're okay, but only so long as they keep swimming and swimming, trapped like flotsam in a fish bowl. It's a sweaty doomsday setup that comes out of nowhere.

Anyway, this is the type of film that made me a fan of hardscrabble Warner Bros. of the 1930's. So catch up with it if you can.

John Garfield stars in "They Made Me a Criminal" from 1939, also starring The Dead End Kids, Mae Robson, Claude Rains, Ann Sheridan, Gloria Dickson, Billy Halop, and Ward Bond.

This is a remake of the Douglas Fairbanks film, "The Life of Jimmy Dolan."

Since the Garfield character plays a boxer, Johnnie, it's easy to see why he would be a better fit for the role than Fairbanks was, though Fairbanks was wonderful when he wasn't in the ring.

The film opens with Johnnie winning a big fight and humbly sending love to his mother. Actually he's a big drinker and womanizer, and he doesn't have a mother.

At a party after the fight, he keeps himself busy boozing and making out with his girlfriend, Goldie (Sheridan), before realizing one of the guests at the party is a reporter and can't wait to tell the world about the real Johnnie.

He tries to keep the man from leaving, but he passes out. At that point, his agent hits the man on the head and kills him. When Johnnie regains consciousness, no one clues him in that he didn't do anything. That night, his agent and Goldie are in a bad car accident and die. Now there is no one to help prove his innocence.

Panicked, Johnnie goes on the run with what little money he has - he was cheated out of most of it - and when the money runs out, he lives as a hobo. He ends up on a date farm run by Peggy and Grandma (Dickson and Robson). He also encounters some kids (Dead End Kids) as Peggy and Grandma run a summer camp for them.

At first he's hungry and dehydrated, and passes out as he's trying to leave - Peggy nurses him back to health. He stays on, and softens getting involved with the kids and falling for Peggy.

Phelan, one of the cops in New York (Rains) doesn't believe Johnnie was the male victim in the car. The agent had removed Johnnie's watch while he was unconscious and put it on his own wrist. The wrong wrist, which Rains picks up on. He believes Johnnie is still alive and starts to search for him.

Directed by Busby Berkeley of all people, They Made Me a Criminal is an entertaining film, bolstered by the performances of the cast. Claude Rains was woefully miscast as Phelan - he was forced to do the role or be put under suspension. However, Claude Rains really couldn't do anything bad, it was just an odd part for him.

The best scene is Garfield and the boys going swimming in a water tank, and when the irrigation pumps are turned on, the water level goes lower and lower.

Garfield is in good form here, and so young. Thanks to the blacklist and a weak heart, he only lived 13 more years. In a short time, he left a marvelous legacy.

A mix of comedy and crime that doesn't quite work and is woefully dated. But there is some charm that remains and it is an entertaining, if somewhat forced, blend that may suffer from a bit too much of some things and not enough of others.

The first half of a deadly serious frame up and setup is effective as an innocent man is sent on the lam. Then the films switches tone and locales and the combination of slapstick and over the top acting does not fare as well.

To be kind it is a good effort but the parts don't do the whole justice. There are some exciting scenes and some funny and tender ones, the problem is that they don't always make a satisfying connection.

John Garfield is always a force on screen and delivers, as usual, a knockout performance, but Claude Raines is miscast to the point of distraction. The Dead End Kids do their usual routines and the Director is competent enough, although competent would hardly describe his excellent, eye-popping, ground-breaking musicals.