User Reviews

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.

Brilliant adaptation of a hit Broadway play about life in the slums of New York during the Great Depression. A gangster on the run from the law returns to the neighborhood he grew up in to plot his next move. Add to that a little romance and a gang of street kids getting into trouble and you've got a first-rate Warner Bros. urban drama picture (only this wasn't made by Warners). Humphrey Bogart plays the gangster character 'Baby Face' Martin. In some ways it was a very familiar role to many others he'd played up to this point, but this one was a bit more layered and gave him a chance to flex his acting muscles some. Solid turns from Joel McCrea, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, and Marjorie Main. Allen Jenkins is always fun to watch. Next to Bogart, I'd have to say the standout is the lovely Sylvia Sidney, one of my favorite actresses from this period. She had some of the most expressive eyes in the business.

Among other things, the film's notable for being the first screen appearance of the Dead End Kids, who would go on to appear in several WB gangster pictures (in basically the same roles as this) before starring in a few series of their own under different names, my favorite of which was the Bowery Boys. It's interesting to see them here looking and acting much more like roughneck teenagers than later where they were clearly adults behaving like overgrown kids. Directed by William Wyler, this is a "message movie" from a time when those types of movies actually felt earnest and not phony or preachy. Yes it's pretty much a filmed stage play, which was very common in the 1930s, but the great cast, excellent sets, and Gregg Toland's beautiful photography goes a long way to bringing it all to life. Not one you'll want to pass up if you're a fan of the stars or the period.

It offers a vivid portrait of people caught up in a continual fight to somehow satisfy themselves despite the oppressive environment that seemed to quiet their every attempt…

Joel McCrea is a frustrated architect who dreams of tearing down the slums and Sylvia Sidney portrays a shopgirl struggling for identity and meaning in her life, a life made even more complicated by having to look after her brother (Billy Halop). The boy idolizes the decadent Bogart, an excessive admiration shared by the rest of the Dead End Kids, here recreating their original Broadway roles with noisy good humor…

Opposing these idealists is their real threat, Bogart, an assassin named Baby Face Martin… Bogart is impolitely rejected by a mother (Marjorie Main) who hates him and an ex-girl friend (Claire Trevor) who leaves him bitter and disillusioned when he discovers that she has become a hooker…

Rebuked by those he had been sentimental enough to want to visit, he rapidly reverts to represent beforehand and plans a kidnapping in order to rescue something from the consumed affair…

"Dead End" remains one of Bogart's best films, where the actor proves that he is capable of handling difficult material with considerable skill

Now here's a fascinating world from the late 1930s, where they're not really angels but they still have faces dirty, where the rich butt up with poor, as they wander through their backdoor, and the disconnect provokes and displeases. The kids of the Dead End are always causing trouble, as they live their lives in a ghetto like bubble, observed by 'Baby Face' Martin, who's returned to be disheartened, this villain prefers knife over knuckle. You're left with a feeling that the worlds on the cusp, a self-destructive nature that might leave it in dust, but four years later a falcon will rise, and a year after that a white house will surprise.

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.

Samuel Goldwyn's production is introduced: "Every street in New York ends in a river. For a many years, the dirty banks of the East River were lined with the tenements of the poor. Then the rich, discovering that the river traffic was picturesque, moved their houses eastward. And now the terraces of these great apartment houses look down into the windows of the tenement poor." This transatlantic "tale of two cities" made "Dead End" (1935) a Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway stage hit for playwright Sidney Kingsley; and, this adaptation is one of the best stage to film trips taken during the 1930s.

First of all, the film introduces the scene-stealing (and much cloned) "Dead End Kids" who, most notably, morphed into "The East Side Kids" and "The Bowery Boys" for two decades of crime drama and comedy. They are, more or less, fairly reflective of the stage show; consequently, they form a finely choreographed ballet of punk antics. The "Dead End Kid" leader is Billy Halop (as Tommy Gordon); others in the gang's classic line-up are: Huntz Hall (as Dippy), Bobby Jordan (as Angel), Leo Gorcey (as Spit), Gabriel Dell (as T.B.), and Bernard Punsly (as Milty).

The "ensemble" cast focuses on four main characters. Young Halop, despite his lowly appearance in the credits, is central. He faces two paths in life: will he will succumb to the temptations offered by crime, and become like well-heeled and charismatic Humphrey Bogart (as "Baby Face" Martin), or grow into the poor but morally upstanding Joel McCrea (as Dave Connell)? Helping tie the much-imitated plot threads together is hard-working, but striking Sylvia Sydney (as Drina Gordon); Halop's supportive big sister, she is also suffering from an unrequited love for Mr. McCrea.

Halop and Ms. Sydney offer, arguably, the film's most consistently fine performances; for openers, they never appear too "staged" - which is not to suggest that theatrically-styled acting is a distraction, considering this picture. Halop, in his movie debut, is an especially noteworthy stage-to-film actor; his troubled juvenile delinquent character was repeated numerously. When Halop grew out of the role, "Dead End" co-star Jordan (an endearing tyke in this film) successfully filled his shoes. Of course, Sydney is excellent; a marvelous stage and film actress, her work in the latter was underrated for decades.

Also making a fine impression is Claire Trevor (as Francey); although her part is no more than a cameo, she received an "Supporting Actress" nomination for artfully suggesting the syphilitic prostitute toned down for movie audiences. "Dead End" received nominations for "Best Picture", "Art Direction" (Richard Day), and "Cinematography" (Gregg Toland). Arguably, Mr. Day's beautiful New York City set would have won, had it not been his third annual award. Additionally, it would have been a nice idea to see Halop receive one of the irregular "juvenile performance" Oscars awarded at the time. And, in hindsight, William Wyler's direction certainly seems slighted.

********** Dead End (8/24/37) William Wyler ~ Billy Halop, Sylvia Sydney, Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea

i'm a huge Bogey fan, so naturally i'll watch anything with his name in the credits. however, i was not prepared for "dead end." this is one of the most brilliant films i've ever seen and i can't understand why the eberts and roepers and maltins never talk about this one. it begins as a familiar story, rich vs. poor along the east river. a gang of kids hang around outside the ritzy, new apartments in the neighborhood. tommy, it's leader and his "friends" notice a boy who has been earning pocket money as a babysitter. when tommy steals his money, a fight breaks out. off in the distance, two men in silk suits watch the fight. tommy's sister drina breaks up the fight. drina is a working class woman on strike, trying to earn the money she deserves. Dave is her on-again, off-again love interest who has done everything in the book to try to rise out of poverty, but still can't get ahead. Dave has been seeing Kay, a young woman torn between a future with a man she thinks she may love (Dave) and the comforts of wealth. we find out the two men in silk suits are gangsters, one being the famous killer, baby face martin, who has returned to his home to see his mother and old girlfriend. he is rejected by his mother, who is disgusted by his profession and track record and his girlfriend, who has become a common prostitute. their are a million intertwining story lines that add up to one incredible climax, but essentially this film is about the cycle of poverty and class issues. the performances are terrific. Sylvia Sidney (not a big name today, but a damn good actress) and Joel mccrea are perfection as the films heroes. Bogart is unforgettable. this is one of the dozens of gangsters he played, but i would rate this performances as high as duke manatee in petrified forest. he's tough and street smart, but with each disappointment we see evidence of his emotions leaking out. the gang of kids remind me of the jets in west side story- they don't like anyone, not even each other half the time. look for Marjorie main (ma kettle before she was ma kettle!) in a touching, but heartbreaking scene as Bogey's frail, aging mother and Claire Trevor (another fine, forgotten actress) as Bogey's sweetheart turned greedy streetwalker. the best thing about this film is they way each character believes he or she can overcome the way of life he or she seems fated to live with. each character tries desperately and fails. this is the way real people are. there's no Hollywood, sugar-coatedness about any of it. no over-dramatic music or made-for-the-previews lines. it's grossly realistic. this film would be on my top 50 list, maybe even my top 25. it's that good.

Excellent drama of the New York tenements of 1937 where the rich people live along the same street as the poor people. Movie focuses on two young lovers (Sylvia Sydney, Joel McCrea), killer Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) and the Dead End Kids (later to become the Bowery Boys). From the incredible opening shot it basically focuses on the kids--it shows the harrowing lives the kids have to live through and how Sydney and McCrea try to keep them good while Bogart teaches them how to rob and kill. Pretty graphic for its day and still strong. Excellent performances by all, especially Bogart, Sydney and Billy Halop (as one of the kids). Also Marjorie Main, Claire Trevor and Ward Bond shine in supporting roles.

This had huge censorship problems--it was adapted from a play and was HEAVILY cut (the language was MUCH stronger in the play and when the kids went swimming they weren't wearing bathing suits!) and Warner Bros. had to fight to keep it strong. Aside from a nice, moral ending this is pretty gritty. A must-see and seeing Bogart, Sydney and McCrea so young is amusing.

The Goldwyn-Wyler production of Sidney Kingsley's hit Broadway play, Dead End, is a very mixed bag. First of all, though it deals with crime, gangsters, urban poverty and tough punks, it is not remotely a gangster picture. Goldwyn was Hollywood's top independent producer, Wyler his favorite director. This project was handled with the same reverence that Hollywood accorded Dickens and Jane Austen, or for that matter James Hilton and Edna Ferber. Dead End is a prestige picture from start to finish. Although Humphrey Bogart has a key role in the film, it's certainly not a Bogart vehicle. Nor does the presence of the original Dead End Kids make it a Dead End Kids picture. Dead End is a quite serious study of the urban poor, badly dated in some respects, tendentious in others, the years have not been kind to this one, either as a tract or a play.

As a movie, however, it sometimes works. Much credit should be given to Richard Day for his magnificent single set, with its tenements to one side, luxury apartment buildings to the other, extending forward to the ancient wharf and the greasy river. The scuttling about of the various impoverished teens provides much of the film's action, drama and humor, and the young actors are excellent even when the dialog stinks, which is most of the time. Sylvia Sidney's working girl and Joel McCrea's dreamy architect add nothing to the story and could have been edited out of the movie altogether, no fault of the actors. These are boring, poorly written characters. Things perk up a bit, as they usually do, when Bogart is around. He plays a neighborhood kid grown up to become a famous criminal, whom the boys idolize. I like especially the way his character cuts against one's expectations. Instead of warning the boys against the perils of a life of crime, he encourages them, and even helps them brush up on their knife-throwing. Yet his character has a sentimental streak, as when he visits his poor old mother, who, rather than welcoming him with open arms, calls him a no-good dirty yellow dog, and wishes him the worst.

Adapted by no less than Lillian Hellman, the movie is hideously plotted. Never having seen or read the play I cannot say who is more at fault, Kingsley or Hellman. The ending is both melodramatic and predictable. Only Bogart and the famous Dead End Kids give the movie what class it has. A big hit in its day, the picture did nothing for the careers of stars McCrea and Sidney, but worked wonders for Bogart, already on a roll from the previous year's Petrified Forest. It also made stars out of the actors who played the "Kids", who went on to Warners, where they were teamed with various of the studio's tough guys (Bogart included) before moving to various other studios, where they eventually were metamorphosed into the Bowery Boys, and it is by this name that they are best-remembered. In her first major movie role, actress Marjorie Main excels as Bogart's weary, careworn and decidedly not-so-loving mother. After several years of character actress success she hit pay-dirt when cast as the jovial, boisterous (and very loving) Ma Kettle in the Ma and Pa Kettle series of rural comedies that ran well into the fifties. A strange place, Hollywood. One wonders if Goldwyn and Wyler knew what they had hatched back in 1937.

It's unfortunate that now morons write gangster films in which all they do is try to "outsadist" everyone else's comic book bad guy.

This film showed so much not just about gangsters, but how they fit into the world, and how other characters fit it. Joel McCrea is a trained architect who makes small change as a painter in the run down tenement. The Dead End Kids are varied characters themselves, with the nerdy voiced Gorcey, the later stooge Huntz Hall, and the likable Jordan, for example.

And Bogie is the main gangster. We only see two gangsters for most of the film, and it moves at such a great pace that we forget it is only a meager setting, basically a city block.

Bogie's bad guy would shine today. He goes back to his old neighborhood to see his mother and ex girlfriend, and their reactions, and his, are totally believable. This film is so well written, that modern gangster film writers are put to shame. No wonder they try to hide this film.

There is so much in this film, that it is hard to say more without writing an essay, but it is exciting, dramatic, and adventurous all at once. All the actors, and all the crew, shine.

This is an important film in that it introduced The Dead End Kids, who would later become The Eastside Kids and then The Bowery Boys. Watching these little tough guys here, it's obvious how long ago 1937 was; their mannerisms and speech was very much of its day ("awww, I'll moiduh ya, see? Nyyeahhh!") I thought there was some nice style on display here, although the sets are so obviously just that - sets - and so the film felt as stage-bound as the play it was taken from. It was a bit jarring to see the approach that these bad kids are portrayed as the ones to care about. I don't buy into the film's idea that poverty automatically creates a society of bratty and uncontrollable children. While this is undeniably true for certain kids, I don't think it's as universal as presented here. Even Humphrey Bogart, as a former hood and criminal returning to the old neighborhood, stands on the sidelines watching with glee as these mischievous punks raise hell and beat up a rich kid. Bogart is very good, and the scene with his disapproving mother (Marjorie Main) is very emotional. I think this is a narrowly "good" film that will grow for me with repeated viewings; I consider it a fine directorial job by William Wyler. Still, I think the similar ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES is the superior film, with a better payoff. *** out of ****

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

One day, I accompanied a friend who wanted to show it planned to buy a house because he wanted my opinion about it. Convinced that the observation must go beyond housing to consider the environment, I took tremendous surprise when, in the midst of this humble neighborhood of steep streets and cracked, with wet and poorly constructed housing, and with difficult access for any vehicle on a plateau emerged, terribly conspicuous, an imposing mansion, flashy and full of comforts. It was not hard to imagine what kind of person could occur to such an idea, but the scenery was more bizarre and distasteful.

Seeing the movie by William Wyler "DEAD END", I find that it was not unusual that I witnessed that day. We, then, in the New York of the 30s (20th century), where some rich, attracted by the picturesque landscape of the river with its monumental bridges, opted to build their luxurious homes in the midst of extreme poverty and contrast housing. Of course, integration does not exist. They guard their homes with armed guards, demanding the constant presence of the authorities and look with complete indifference to those who are not like them.

The poor, meanwhile, are accustomed to learning their disdain and even to mock it. And occasionally, someone charged, somehow, the stingy attitude with which they treat their fellow men. It is found here a bunch of mischievous boys who skirts the crime, and between them and the sudden presence of "Baby Face" Martin, the new gangster appeared in the neighborhood, things will have a strong significance throughout a whole day.

With an uplifting script, written by Lillian Hellman (second of four collaborations that would occur between them) based on a play by Sidney Kingsley, director William Wyler lucidly recreates that atmosphere of balance and full of contrasts where the most ominous is bright, perhaps the gradual discovery of his own life, is taking the tanning Martin. Humphrey Bogart makes a secondary role effectively protagonist and his character is of greater significance and penetration throughout the film.Joel McCrea, as the man who beat her mischievous teens to become a professional candle for peace in the neighborhood, weighs much less at the deep nuances with which he recreates silk dress gangster who now finds that "flourished" at the expense of the dearest.

Attention is also drawn to the gang, represented by a group of young actors who first became known in theatrical representation, which caused such an impact with this film, which began to be called the "Dead End Kids", and as a group appear more then six films with notable success.

If you want to witness the deplorable social contradictions that still face in our society, this is the kind of movie you can not miss.

I recently watched this film for the first time in many years and I would like to comment in particular on Humphrey Bogart's performance as Baby Face Martin. In the Depression days of the 1930's many citizens admired top criminals who successfully opposed the law (i.e., John Dillinger), in the belief that the law itself was part of the corrupt, elitist system that brought Depression woes upon them and theirs. Martin's character fit this role to a "T" and it shows in his bravery, courage and hatred of the police. A many-faceted character, it also reveals his love for mother and former girlfriend and his gut desire to settle down to a normal lifestyle, abandoning his bloody career. Of course, it is too late for him to turn it around. I believe that although not yet a star, this was Bogart's greatest role, arguably on a par with The Treasure of Sierra Madre. Incidentally, a little known and seldom shown "B" film from the 1940's, the spooky Return of Dr. X, had Bogart as an absolutely chilling "Dr. X", resurrected from the dead. I highly recommend this for Bogie fans. This multi-talented actor could definitely have become a star of horror films had he been so inclined.

Allen Jenkins, as his devoted cohort "Hunk" in Dead End, gave a fine performance in probably his only serious role in a long career as a supporting actor in comedy parts. Really a shame. His fight, gun in hand, with Joel McRae in the alley could not have been more realistic, to my way of thinking. The rest of the cast, indeed, was flawless. And how about those Dead End Kids? Although only six years old when the film came out it was reissued frequently and I clearly remember the mothers of that day did all in their power to prevent their children from seeing the film, fearing, perhaps not unrealistically, that they would emulate the "Kids". Wouldn't happen today, now would it? One contributor here thought that Dead End should be remade, citing all the problems of today's youth. I totally disagree. This would only be duplication, ad nauseum, of the same third rate trash -- for the most part -- that never ends in today's films and on the tube. Dead End, however was the forerunner in showing juvenile delinquency and it's connection to -- and likely development into -- serious crime. This last is just another reason to heap praise upon this eminently laudable film. And in closing, I would like to say that while 1937 was not a particularly notable year for the country in general, being in the throes of The Great Depression, as far as the efforts of the film industry went, it was a very, very good year. I for one, am thankful for it.

Just recently I finished the 1971 autobiography "Cagney By Cagney". During the filming of "Angels With Dirty Faces" which one might say is a sequel to "Dead End", Cagney ran afoul of the Dead End Kids, in the person of Dead End Kid Leo Gorcey, who was proving uncooperative and insolent. Cagney, in reality a tough guy, gave Gorcey an elbow to the head that ended his behavior. Cagney says further that "in a film with the Dead End Kids" the Kids' took issue with a statement by Bogart and then took off his trousers. Bogart, the consummate gangster in film, was nothing of the sort in real life. The film would have to have been "Dead End" -- the idea obviously emanating from de-trousering the rich kid.

With William Wyler at the director's helm, Lillian Hellman writing the screenplay, and Richard Day's stage-bound but artful sets, DEAD END has plenty of fine ingredients going for it. And the cast is great--JOEL McCREA, SYLVIA SYDNEY, WENDY BARRIE, HUMPHREY BOGART, CLAIRE TREVOR, MARJORIE MAIN, ALLEN JENKINS and WARD BOND, as well as "The Dead End Kids" themselves. Interestingly, the usually comic Main and Jenkins have straight dramatic roles here.

The image of a luxury apartment building adjoining a slum area in the Lower East Side is strikingly presented and makes for the conflict in a story where poverty breeds crime and the rich have to suffer for it.

Joel McCrea is the idealistic architect who'd like to eliminate the slums, Sylvia Sydney is a poor shop girl limited by her meager surroundings, and Wendy Barrie is a wealthy society girl. The story is more a series of vignettes than a well-constructed story, but interest is held with forceful scenes directed well by William Wyler, who was always able to get the best from his cast and crew. Claire Trevor makes the most of a brief role as a prostitute, a warm-up for a similar role in STAGECOACH--and deserved her Oscar nomination.

Dated in some respects, it's a well-written play that Kingsley wrote and it still has the power to command interest even though much of it borders too much on melodrama.

In "Dead End" the nominal stars are Sylvia Sidney and Joel McCrea but it is the supporting players that steal the picture. Great performances are turned in by the Dead End Kids (Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Bernard Punsley), Humphrey Bogart, Claire Trevor and Marjorie Main. It also benefits greatly from the direction of William Wyler who keeps the story moving and makes the characters interesting.

"Dead End" was originally produced on the Broadway stage. The Dead End Kids re-enact their Broadway roles. The story takes place on the banks of the East River in New York where posh apartment buildings co-habit the neighborhood with the tenement slums. The plot centers on the activities of the people of the neighborhood one summer's day.

Dave Connell (McCrea) is a struggling architect looking for his big break. Drina (Sidney) is a struggling shop clerk who is involved in a labor dispute and hopes one day to be able to leave the neighborhood. Gangster "Baby Face" Martin (Bogart) returns to his childhood haunts hoping to see his mother (Main) and hook up with his old girlfriend Francey (Trevor). Hanging around the wharf are a group of teenage toughs (The Dead End Kids) one of whom, Tommy (Halop) is the brother of Drina.

The boys taunt rich kid Philip Griswald (Charles Peck) and lure him down to the street. There he is beaten up by the boys. His father (Minor Watson) is highly influential man who insists on justice for his son. One of the boys, "Spit" squeals on his pal and Tommy is arrested after stabbing Mr. Griswald in the hand.

Meanwhile Martin goes to see his mother and is shocked when she slaps him and calls him a murderer. Martin's pal "Hunk" (Allen Jenkins) locates Francey and arranges for her to come meet "Baby Face". Martin is doubly shocked when he learns that his former love has pursued a career on the streets.

During an altercation with Dave over the influencing of the boys, Martin stabs him and throws him into the river, leaving him for dead. Martin then hatches a plot to kidnap the rich kid Philip Griswald. But Dave returns, confronts Martin and..............

This film is arguably Bogey's best film of the 1930s. Oddly enough, it was made on loan out to Samuel Goldwyn. His expressions of surprise and disgust after meeting with his mother and Francey are a treasure to watch. Trevor's performance, however brief, was moving enough to garner her a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Marjorie Main also only appears briefly but evokes great sympathy in her role as the tragic Mrs. Martin.

The Dead End Kids to a man turn in what are the best performances in the film. They would go on to appear in a series of Warner Bros films in the next two years before moving into several "B" series in the 40s and 50s. Also, look for Ward Bond as the doorman to the rich apartment building and Don "Red" Barry as an abalones doctor.

An excellent film.

The Dead End Kids, an unemployed architect, and gangster Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart) interact with an East Side neighborhood over one day and night.

Based on a play, this is a great cross-section of New York in the 1930s. We have gangster, street kids, and a man who tried to live legitimately. We have love and death. Perhaps most interesting, we open with the idea that the new houses on the East River overlook the slums. This is especially relevant in the 1930s when poverty was probably at it worst.

Bogart is given a place of honor on the DVD cover. That is no surprise. But the real star is Joel McCrea, and on a personal note, I think it's a real shame that McCrea -- despite playing a fine leading man many, many times, seems to have been forgotten by the general public. Everyone knows Bogey, whether they watch his films or not... but not McCrea. Is it just because one is easier to parody?

This is a great film about which much has been written, and there are many such thoughtful comments included on this website. I don't really need to add any comments about what a true American classic it is.

Instead, I will comment on the character actors, always my favorite part of a Hollywood movie. Once I've seen the picture, and appreciated the stars and understood the plot, I like to watch it for the supporting players --I don't think there were ever any better character actors than those in the Hollywood studio system in the 1930s through 1950s.

In this case, I am thinking of the young men who were known as the Dead End Kids. I grew up in New York City with just such kids. They are portraying the real thing, and they do it so well. It's unfortunate that they devolved into those silly characters called the Bowery Boys (still true to life as the neighborhood slackers) in those silly movies made in the 1940s and 1950s. They deserved better, although I suppose it was a living.

My particular favorite kid in Dead End is Leo Gorcey. That Spit -- what a little punk. I think he plays the part with just the right mix of teenage bravado, danger and insecurity, and I think he is actually pretty sexy. I could see him playing smooth, urban (not necessarily urbane) villains in other films, but that never happened. Too bad. He would have been very interesting.

Dead End's story is a very serious-minded drama depicting the antagonistic "culture clash" that prevails on a daily basis between the "haves" and the "have nots".

Set in NYC's Lower East Side where the streets of the city all come to a "dead end" halt at the edge of the East River - This tale of troubled lives introduces the viewer to the conflicting attitudes of the punks, the gangsters, and of those who long to rise above the oppressiveness of the slums (but they just can't seem to find a reasonable way out of this stifling jungle).

Filmed in stark b&w - This straight-faced, 1937 social commentary was directed by William Wyler (adapted from the screenplay penned by Lillian Hellman).

It's a dead end street in New York that ends at the river. It's here that a wide assortment of characters from different walks of life come together in a pressure cooker setting. Rich, poor, kindhearted and hardhearted all come together. In Dead End, a young woman and her teenage brother struggle to survive. An architect works for a better life. A gangster comes home to visit his mother. A well kept woman chooses between love and wealth. The rich and the poor get glimpses of one another's lives at the waters edge.

This movie draws us into a unique place and time. It gives us intimate portraits into peoples lives. It makes contrasts and it shows similarities between people. It's one of a kind and director William Wyler has given us something special here. Sylvia Sidney, Humphrey Bogart, Marjorie Main, Allen Jenkins, the Dead End Kids and Ward Bond give standout performances. The 1930's atmosphere is palpable. I rate this film 91/100. It's unique and absorbing.

Sadly, I'm not as enthusiastic as other reviewers. I have seen much of Bogart's filmography, from The Petrified Forest to his last (The Harder They Fall), and my collection now includes nearly 30 of his movies. I watched this film with reasonable expectations, being aware that his part there is a support one. After all, Bogart was stealing the show even in his early years, when his contributions were merely secondary.

Well I just watched Dead End for the first time yesterday and was left rather cold and even disappointed by it. As appropriately mentioned by others, it's really very (like in 'too much') theatrical, but not in a good way, at least for me. I was not familiar with these "Dead End Boys" and unlike others, I was far from impressed and was in fact irritated by their performance. It's one thing to deal with the overall atavistic overwrought style so typical of so many '30s movies, but it's another to try packing up as many pointless rough exchanges between young street brats as you materially can within an hour and a half. I mean, what is the point of keeping these absurdly annoying "misérables" relentlessly and dumbly insulting either each other or their opulent oppressors? As long as they're yapping their brains out and erase any silence or moment for reflection that might subsist in that blatantly dated movie play (a deliberate choice of words on my part...). Reading about how these young actors, who had been sent over to Hollywood to transpose their NY theatrical act to cinema, caused absolute chaos and sheer havoc offstage, I am almost tempted to think that Wyler, an otherwise very competent and often brilliant director, dealt with this wild bunch as best as he could, but likely experienced serious difficulties while piloting the making of this movie, with mixed results, to say the least. After Dodsworth the year before, what a turnoff! In his career, Wyler succeeded a lot in entertaining his viewers, and I was hoping that this one would be no exception. However...

I am able to cope with most typical '30s movies along with their exaggerated declamatory style and machine-gun stance delivery. That's not the point.... I'm afraid that the Dead End play has failed to be adapted to cinema and is in fact a rather grating Frankensteinian creature with too many theatrical parts and functions to be palatable in the cinematographic language. The movie tries too hard to deliver social messages while attempting to narrate a potentially enlivening story and to present characters to whom we should somehow relate, but who end up leaving us indifferent at best (e.g. most of the main adult characters, including Bogart) or worse, extremely annoyed as with many of the Dead End bunch, I'm afraid to say.

As for the major characters, there isn't enough space and time left for them to grow on the viewer and to become well-formed entities. I have seldom watched a Bogart as wooden as in this movie, and this has nothing to do with this being a support contribution. Bogart almost always stole the show before he started playing lead parts. No. As I see Dead End, it was in the end a showcase for the Dead End Brats and a list of their socio-political statements, a sort of 90-min allegory of the abysmal gap between rich and poor. Anything but a well-designed movie. There have been countless films dealing with this subject matter, and I'm afraid that Dead End is .... well, quite aptly named, after all. In more ways than one.