Off-screen pals James Cagney and Pat O'Brien teamed for the sixth time in this enduring gangster classic. Cagney's Rocky Sullivan is a charismatic ghetto tough whose underworld rise makes him a hero to a gang of slum punks. O'Brien is Father Connolly, the boyhood chum-turned-priest who vows to end Rocky's influence. Other ace talents join them: Humphrey Bogart as a scheming lawyer, Ann Sheridan as Rocky's hard-edged girlfriend and the Dead End Kids a worshipful street urchins, all ably directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca). The 1938 New York Film Critics Best Actor Award came Cagney's way, as well as one of the film's three Oscar nominations. Watch the chilling death-row finale and you'll know why.

Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA) directs James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Pat O'Brien in one of the greatest gangster melodramas made during the Hollywood studio era. William "Rocky" Sullivan (Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (O'Brien), partners in mischief as boys, are separated when only Jerry is fast enough to get away from the cops after the duo steals fountain pens from a railroad car. Rocky, refusing to give the name of his friend, is sent off to a reform school where he falls under the influence of criminal elements. The grown-up Rocky's triumphant return to the neighborhood complicates the efforts of Jerry, now a parish priest, to keep a local group of boys (the Dead End Kids) out of trouble. When the gang begins to idolize Rocky, Connolly fears his good works may come to nothing. Meanwhile, Rocky vies for control of the criminal rackets in the neighborhood with mob boss Mac Keefer (George Bancroft) and a corrupt, double-crossing lawyer, James Frazier (Bogart).

Curtiz's taut, suspenseful, yet suprisingly sensitive handling of the gritty urban morality play turned ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES into the first unqualified masterpiece of his stunningly prolific career. The archetypal gangster thriller, brimming with the magnetism and explosive dramatic energy supplied by the three male leads, was nominated for three Academy Award Nominations: Best Director, Best Actor (Cagney), and Best Original Story.