L'école du crime

Enjoyed this 1938 film dealing with a young boy named Frankie Warren, (Billy Halop) who is placed in a reform school which is in bad condition and the leadership does not care about the young men and treats them all like hardened criminals. Mark Braden, (Humphrey Bogart) is assigned a Deputy Commissionier of Correction and decides to take off the bars on the reformatory and sets a new policy of giving the young men jobs to keep them busy and educate them for the outside world. Mark Braden meets Frankie Warren's sister named Sue Warren, (Gale Page) and they fall in love with each other after Sue sees how Frankie is improving and has changed his personality towards people and himself. Mark Braden discovers that there is corruption going on in his correction institute and he confronts his chief guard and finds out that Reformatory Superintendent, Morgan are working together stealing funds from the reformatory. All the "Dead End Kids" appear in this film and they give lots of comedy and drama throughout the entire picture. Great 1939 Classic.

"Crime School" is clearly from the same mold as "San Quentin" and Cagney's "The Mayor of Hell."

It is a predictable vehicle for the Dead End Kids, in which Bogart played, in a dull, unemotional style, a deputy commissioner of correction who takes over the running of a reformatory housing the Kids when he finds the warden is a sadist…

There is a threat to Bogart's plan when the Kids escape as part of the warden's calculated attempt to prove Bogart's regenerative prison policies are valueless, but the ruse fails as Bogart gets the boys back winning the solemn recognition of merit

Warner Brothers decided to save a bundle on purchasing new properties for the Dead End Kids. The boys did They Made Me a Criminal a year later which was a remake of The Life of Jimmy Dolan and Crime School is a remake of The Mayor from Hell.

Fellow gangster icon James Cagney starred in The Mayor from Hell which I also reviewed here. Such things as Cagney's motivation and commitment to the reform school and the manner with which the boys take matters into their own hands is pretty grisly. None of that in this kinder, gentler film.

Sleepers has a lot of the same elements in both The Mayor from Hell and Crime School. It's certainly better than Crime School. This was one film whose message was watered down to nothing.

Nevertheless Crime School does have Humphrey Bogart in it and the Dead End Kids are always entertaining.

I wonder what kind of stuff the Dead End Kids would have been turning out had they come along pre-Code?

The Dead End Kids gets into an argument with a junkman called Junkie and Spike hits him over the head. The kids are brought in front of a judge for the assult but they refuse to cooperate. They are all sent to the state reformatory school run by the sadistic warden Morgan for two years. New deputy commissioner Mark Braden (Humphrey Bogart) attends the Kids' case and grows concerned. He checks up on them at the school. After some horrific discoveries, he fires four guards and the discredited doctor. He sets out to reform the reform school. The guard Cooper cozies up to Braden but secretly sows dissention among the boys.

It's the second movie for the Dead End Kids. Their disruptive antics have already caused issues on the lot. Their antics on screen can be quite rough also. The movie starts with Spike almost killing a guy. These are no angels. That is interesting. The whip marks are really brutal. The characters are also oddly naive at times. Some of the Kids are interesting as they continue to rotate in and out from one movie to the next. There is no continuity which does devalue their story. It is an interesting aspect of depression era cinema.

Humphrey Bogart takes over a reform school and tries to straighten out the Dead End Kids in this fine urban drama from Warner Bros. It's the second movie featuring the Dead End Kids after their debut in "Dead End" and their first for Warner Bros. This one is essentially a remake of a great Pre-Code movie called "The Mayor of Hell," which was also made by WB and starred James Cagney. That movie was grittier than this one and, since it didn't star the Dead End Kids, was less comedic. That isn't to say this movie is a comedy but the mugging of the Kids brings levity to even the most serious of scripts. Eventually someone would realize the boys were better suited for comedies but in these early dramas they were used to illustrate the plight of tough street kids.

The Dead End Kids have their share of detractors among classic film fans today. Read through some of the reviews of their movies here and you'll come across some very vocal 'haters.' I like them myself, particularly the later movies they did as East Side Kids and Bowery Boys where Leo Gorcey was the leader of the gang instead of humorless Billy Halop. Anyway, the Kids are good here despite drama not being their forte. Humphrey Bogart shines as the good guy, an unusual role for him at this point in his career. Bogart also appeared in "Dead End," although he was a gangster in that one. Gale Page is nice in a sympathetic role as the sister of Halop's character. It's a good movie of its type and I have no doubt fans of the urban crime pictures WB specialized in will like it. And, of course, Bogart and Dead End Kids fans will enjoy it most.