Rue sans issue

Dead End is one of my personal favorites, as I watch it 10 or more times a year. The 1930's New York City setting lends itself to a host of interesting perspectives. The talent assembled for this production is why the film withstands the test of time and makes Dead End a movie which I never get tired of viewing. Greg Toland's cinematography is masterful. Max Steiner's musical score is brilliant. He perfectly blended the feel of a fast paced urban theme which then becomes a beautiful and dramatic orchestral piece. Max Steiner had a real genius for bringing the right mood to whatever the film demanded. Of so many brilliant Steiner scores, I find this to be among his finest. William Wyler's direction is awesome, as always. I particularly like the constant background flow of pedestrians going about their day throughout the entire picture. The movie's cast is stuffed with talent. Character actors like Marjorie Mane and Esther Howard fill small segments with memorable scenes. Claire Trevor's portrayal of a sweet girl who became disillusioned and wound up as a prostitute, is poignant while remaining gritty and realistic. The Dead End Kids are great throughout the movie. Ward Bond brings a plus to the movie in his role as the upscale apartment's doorman. I like Allen Jenkins and think no other actor was better suited to play the sidekick to Bogart's character as the prodigal gangster, returning to his old neighborhood. Dead End is one film that has countless elements to enjoy. The level of talent on both sides of the camera keep me watching it over and over again.

The main credit of "Dead End" lies in the stunning visual beauties. The studio reproduction of a New York slum is really magnificent, worth of other major achievements of the same kind, like, say, the set of "Rear Window". A true joy for the eyes. The work of the camera and William Wyler's direction are outstanding, as well. And, of course, the job of the cast is great. Bogart, still in the role of the villain, McCrea and Sylvia Sidney are excellent, and save their rather straightforward characters and lines. In my opinion, the best one is Claire Trevor, in the small part of the lost girl. I normally dislike kids on the screen, but I must concede that here they give great performances, playing the gang of street-boys.

The story is conventional, with a noble message, but few and predictable twists. The script is often clumsy and preachy. Luckily enough, the director gives a quick pace to the narration and inserts a number of humoristic touches. There's a main flaw in the plot: I think that, even in the States of the 1930s, a common citizen couldn't freely shoot a gangster.

Anyway, I've found in the screen-play an interesting and modern theme, namely the psychological ambiguity of some characters, whom even the all-knowing viewer cannot fully understand. For instance, Claire Trevor is apparently the cliche disgraced girl, the innocent victim of poverty, lack of opportunities, social injustice. To end as a prostitute is her unavoidable doom... But, when her former boy-friend Bogie gives some money to help her, she makes the horribly vulgar request of "twenty more bucks"... with a grimace worth of a hardened prostitute (great stuff by Trevor!). So we see that, after all, perhaps that girl is not so innocent as she pretends to be... And what about Drina's brother, the leader of the street-boys? The audience is perfectly aware that, in spite of his whining, weeping self-apologies (when he's in dire straits), the boy is a REAL criminal. We see that he deliberately harms people, steals, brutally thrashes the rich kid, wants to slash his gang-mate. And he just mocks his affectionate sister and his friend McCrea when, in tears, he cries that he's good, that he didn't intend to harm, and all that. So, are we supposed to feel sympathy for this hideous boy? Interesting ambiguity, which creates a fine artistic effect... perhaps beyond the actual intentions of the writer Lillian Hellman.

All in all, we may forgive the defects of the movie. it is worth seeing "Dead End", enjoying the beauty of the set and the work of director and actors.

Considering all the talent involved, it was hardly surprising to find this a first rate movie. Didn't you want to slap Bogart around ... well, that is actually what compelled me to make this entry. Among the handful of superlative cameo (say 2 to 8 minutes in length)performances I have seen in my 40 plus years of movie-going, Dead End features one of them.

Marjorie Main, almost as unlikely a film character (think Ma Kettle!) as one could imagine, turned in what I consider a masterpiece. Read that she repeated her stage role, and wow, that slap, that dialog and that role. Bravo!

Dead End the film adaption of Sidney Kingsley's play that ran for 687 performances during the 1935-1937 seasons, was a harbinger of what Alfred Hitchcock tried to do in such films as Rope and even more so in Rear Window. The whole story is told on one very complex set showing the stark contrast of the rich penthouse dwellers with the inhabitants of the nearby tenements and flats.

Building that set on stage and for the screen must have been one expensive proposition so it was a good thing Sidney Kingsley wrote a hit.

It may be one set, but the plot of the film involves three stories and how they interconnect. Story number one is about Joel McCrea, a former slum kid himself who still lives down there while he tries to get a job as an architect. He's involved with two women, rich socialite Wendy Barrie who lives in the penthouse and Sylvia Sidney who played more working class women than anyone else during the Thirties.

Sidney works as a seamstress in a garment factory and she's currently on strike and she's got a younger brother to support who causes her much grief. The younger brother is Billy Halop and Sidney worries about the gang he runs with, the kids who later became known as the Dead End kids, later East Side Kids, later Bowery Boys. Their a rough bunch and they get a visit from a celebrity of sorts.

Which leads us to the third track in the person of Humphrey Bogart who grew up on this same block and is now a wanted fugitive of the John Dillinger variety. The kids and McCrea recognize him, the kids worship him and McCrea is willing to give him a pass for now, he's no rat. All their stories mix in this plot which does hold the interest through out the film.

Besides the Dead End Kids who didn't all play the same roles you see them play on the screen only one other player came over from Broadway for the screen version. Marjorie Main who we usually know as the rambunctious and brassy Ma Kettle plays a very serious part indeed as Humphrey Bogart's mother. You'll not forget her as she rejects her hoodlum son both the anger and sorrow she expresses, it is haunting.

Bogart got another jolt in his trip down memory lane in the slum in the person of Claire Trevor. She's usually a good time girl with a heart of gold. Her heart may be golden in Dead End, but she's a woman who's seen the seamy side of life as a prostitute. Very few prostitutes were portrayed as such during the days of The Code so in that sense Dead End was quite daring.

The film is firmly set in the Depression Thirties. That same area where in certain shots you can see the Queensborough Bridge in the near distance is some of the richest real estate on earth now. Those same buildings that are portrayed as slums now rent to yuppies at obscene figures if in fact they survived.

Though Dead End is a dated piece of work, it does offer a great glimpse into urban life for the rich and poor. This is one of Samuel Goldwyn's best productions and William Wyler gets uniformly fine performances from his talented cast of players.

This movie is not only a great story, it is a great social commentary on the divisions between rich and poor. The main story concerns the return of a gangster to his old neighborhood, but a couple of side stories concern the gang of kids who seemingly idolize the hood and the rich people who live in a luxury apartment that is next to the slum. This film could be made today because the conditions that are in the film still exist today only they are a hundred times worse because the gap between the rich and the poor in this country have widened even more. This film should be shown more on television