They Made Me a Criminal

This is breezy highly entertaining drama with an excellent cast. Garfield is fine as a boxer hiding from the police with that motley crew the Dead End Kids. Most notable of these is the beautiful Billy Halop who has some very moving moments. Gloria Dickson, who in real life died very young in a house fire, is strong and very attractive as Halop's sister, and in the early scenes Ann Sheridan, on the brink of stardom, is a knock-out. May Robson is very funny as a crusty old granny, but Claude Rains proves here that even a great actor can flounder if mis-cast (whoever thought of casting him as a tough New York cop?).

Busby Berkeley proves here that he was a fine director with or without musical numbers. The film moves at a terrific pace and the water tower sequence is very suspenseful and well photographed. The ending is contrived, and the plot nothing startling or original, but I still found this a highly enjoyable experience.

Known for his wonderfully cinematic dance sequences, Busby Berkeley went for a different genre in this fine 1939 crime drama. A youthful John Garfield plays Johnnie, a tough NYC boxer who scores a big break in the ring. He attends a drunken private party where a news reporter is murdered. The killer himself dies in a flaming auto wreck, but not before he successfully shifts the blame to Johnny. Johnny flees the city and hides out at a small boy's camp out west, populated by everyone's favorite wayward street gang, The Dead End Kids. All seems fine in this hide-out until a NYC detective (Claude Rains) who was on the murder case, happens by. Berkeley keeps the film going at a terrific pace. Berkeley would never settle for a point-and-shoot look to his film. His camera is all over the place, even underwater when the kids take over a water tank. There's all the stock characters of old cinema her e- the nice girl who softens Garfield's heart, the spry old grannie, the tough NYC cops and reporters. Fun movie.

I have never been a big fan of John Garfield but seeing this movie gave me a different opinion. This is a well done remake of one of my all time favorite films "The Life of Jimmy Dolan" (1933) with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , Loretta Young , a very young Mickey Rooney and a cameo by a guy named John Wayne. That film had one of the best love songs ever "How Deep Is the Ocean" as a background to the love scenes.

Garfield plays his boxer a little more as a looser than did Doug Fairbanks but he is great in the part.

What really drew me to this film was the "ensemble" cast of the Dead End Kids as the tough reform school guys on the farm that Garfield's character helps. The ever superb (and I feel also unrated) Leo Gorcey says it all with his body language and that face as the tough mug with a ice cube for a heart. He is wonderful. As for the rest of the Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids, they are also fabulous. How they play off each other is a lesson in acting.

I would recommend this film but for the classic take on this story see the Fairbanks film. It is outstanding.

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

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.