The Mayor of Hell

Racketeer James Cagney takes over a reform school that's being run like a prison. With help from pretty nurse Madge Evans, he turns the place around and helps the boys get back on the right track. But the scummy guy that used to run the school is determined to destroy all the good work they've done, no matter what harm it does to the kids.

Intense, gritty drama that tackles the issue of juvenile crime and how to deal with it. Strong writing with some good characters. Cagney's excellent in one of his best and probably most underrated films. The kid actors are all terrific and believable. Dudley Digges is a particularly evil villain. Backed up by a typically solid WB stable of supporting actors. Jaw-dropping climax is one of the best finishes to any movie of this decade. Remade as Crime School, with Humphrey Bogart and the Dead End Kids. That one's not bad but it's not nearly as powerful as this one.

The great James Cagney, top-billed in big letters, doesn't show up till the movie's second third, and probably has less screen time than Dudley Digges, who plays the eee-vill reform-school potentate. But when Jimmy arrives, as a deputy commissioner of something-or-other out to reform reform schools, he slashes the air with his hands and jumps on the balls of his feet and spits out punchy Warners-First National dialogue with all the customary, and expected, panache. The psychology in this crisp antique, one of Warners' many efforts to assert its place as the "socially conscious" studio, doesn't run deep: Digges is bad just because the script requires him to be, and there's the quaint notion that juvenile delinquents will turn into swell kids if they're just given a dash of autonomy. But it's made in that spare, fast style that the studio specialized in, and it never bores. Frankie Darro, who got into all kinds of onscreen trouble during a brief tenure as Warners' favorite Rotten Street Kid, is an ideal JD -- a handsome, charismatic toughie with a pug nose and a hate-filled stare that could wither steel. No kid actor today can touch him.

Five years before the film Dead End hit theaters, this film was produced. This was definitely a film that tried to show what reformatories were really like. In most cases, the kids who were sent there didn't become reformed, they only came out harder and moved on to bigger crimes. James Cagney is great in this early role as Patsy, the racketeer who tries to keep the kids from making some of the same mistakes that he did by making conditions better for the boys in the camp. Dudley Digges played the perfect villain in Thompson, the warden of the school. He pretty much showed how when the odds were against Thompson and his cronies that he was nothing more than a coward. Also Allen Jenkins, who ironically would appear a few years later in the aforementioned Dead End, provided a lot of the humor as Patsy's stooge "Uncle Mike". Too bad this little gem is rarely shown on television anymore or that it is currently not out on DVD.

This one of those social dramas that WB knew how to put together and were guaranteed boxoffice hits in the thirties. This early "dead end kids" are sent to a reform school where they are mistreated. Cagney, a gangster as part of a deal is appointed as the commissioner of the school. He doesn't take it seriously at first but he changes and makes the necessary changes to improve the lives of the boys. The idea is to let the boys rule and administer their community. Whether this is sound social reform is beyond my belief but it's a movie. It's a lot like Boys Town with a slight darker tone. A useless happy ending deluges what impact the scene prior hard but is still good. WB would later make this same movies with Bogart in the Cagney/fatherly role.

Jimmy Smith leads a group of thieving kids. Jimmy and five others are caught in their hideout and sent to reform school run by the heartless superintendent Thompson. Dorothy, the nurse, is concerned about the conditions. Well-connected street gangster Patsy Gargan (James Cagney) had been appointed deputy commissioner as a political payoff. With no particular interest in the political work, he is tasked to write a report on the school. After witnessing Thompson's brutal treatment, he decides to take an interest in the kids.

This is Cagney playing his good guy gangster. It's solid. The kids are solid pre-Dead End Kids. The morality is pretty simple. My only complaint is nurse Dorothy would never quit. She needs to be outright fired and be carried out kicking and screaming. She's basically abandoning the boys. The guard who gives the boy his coat should be replaced with Dorothy. Patsy's call to Thompson should be replaced with a call to Dorothy. That way the story could still end the same way. This is a very simple moral gangster film.