Dead End
|
Our Price: $18.99 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $14.55 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Dead End
Movie Review: Vivid Recreation of Life in the Tenements
Summary: 5 Stars
Director William Wyler effectively translates playwright Sidney Kingsley's account of life on the Lower East Side of New York where the tenement classes uneasily co-exist with the upper classes in the high-rise apartments. Wyler is assisted by vivid characterizations as penned by screenwriter Lillian Hellman, breathtaking art direction where you can feel the roaches and lice that share quarters with the residents, and beautiful cinematography by Gregg Toland, best known for his work on "Citizen Kane". A great ensemble is on hand here with a young Humphrey Bogart playing Baby Face Martin, a killer hood who finds out that you can't go home again. Claire Trevor, in a performance of great subtlety(probably because of the production code) plays Baby Face's old flame who has turned to the world's oldest profession as a means of survival. It's the Dead End Kids that give texture to the film. It is they who get the brunt of their elders' wrath as well as formal society for the audacity of being impoverished. All you have to do is look in the eyes of these urchins and see that they have seen and experienced things that no human should have to endure. One of the great films to emerge from the 1930's and another excellent Samuel Goldwyn production.Movie Review: "I'm tired. I'm sick. Can't you see it?"
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie depicts the trials and tribulations of life on a city slum street. Humphrey Bogart plays a killer (Baby Face Martin) on the lam who returns to the old neighborhood (after disguising himself with plastic surgery to his face) to see his mom (Marjorie Main) and the girl he left behind (Claire Trevor). But Main calls him a "dirty dog" and slaps him, and Trevor is now a diseased hooker.
Joel McRae meanwhile thinks he's in love with a rich dame (Wendy Barrie) until he sees her turn her nose up at a cockroach and realizes their two different lifestyles won't ever mesh; he then gets with the right girl (Sylvia Sidney) for him, one who's on the same (wrong) side of the tracks as he. Bogart has a price on his head and eventually McRae kills him and collects the reward money.
At the heart of the movie are the Dead End Kids, tough talking hooligans who because of their rotten environment (so says the movie) are on the road to ruin (like Bogey). The picture is a little frayed at the seams today, but it was considered a tough-minded, realistic view of skid row when it first came out and was highly praised. William Wyler directed, with care and fervor. Definitely worth a watch.
Movie Review: Gem Of A Moral
Summary: 5 Stars
Without adding yet another critique of the actors, limits of the soundstage, and story recap that too many seem bent on reprising...I would just like to make the observation that this story was refreshingly unique compared to some similar productions that I would label as pro-FDR/New Deal propaganda. While some of Hollywood's preachier attempts alluded to the notion that the Federal Government would be the "Big Brother" (CCC, NRA, WPA) taking care of the people who were/are either too poor or stupid to take care of themselves, Dead End clearly illustrates the simple truth that "we" (the people) are our brother's keeper. Not "them" (the government).
Some people today could benefit from the moral of this film. "Joe Architect" (McCrea) does the right thing. He doesn't keep his yap shut and look the other way when a crime is about to go down. He steps up and incidentally ends up taking out the murderous weasels (Bogart/Jenkins) as well as playing an active role in the lives of his neighbors in trouble (Sydney/Halop), giving of HIS time and money to better their lives. THAT is the mark of a better society. The generosity of it's people...not the feckless waste of it's government.
Movie Review: Dead End
Summary: 5 Stars
Based on a stage play by Sidney Kingsley and scripted by playwright Lillian Hellman, Wyler's gritty, compelling fable of tenement life in the 1930s was touted in its day as a hard-hitting social drama about class tensions and the origins of crime. Bogart, in one of his first starring roles, is a ringer as the rotten Martin, though a key scene with his disapproving mother shows a vulnerable side, too. McCrea and Sidney carry their weight as the moral heart of Wyler's mean streets, and teen actor Halop plays ragamuffin gang leader Tommy with lots of heart.Movie Review: I DIDN'T GET THE JOB, SO I'LL GO AFTER BABY FACE AND COMPANY
Summary: 5 Stars
DAVE WAS UPSET, BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET THE JOB THAT DAY. BABY FACE HAD
SO MUCH AS CALLED HIM AN "IDIOT", BECAUSE HE HAD SIX YEARS OF COLLEGE
AND WAS "STARVING". I GUESS ALL OF THAT CROSSED HIS MIND, SO HE WENT AFTER BABY FACE AND FRIEND. HOW DID HE GET THE BEST OF NOT ONE, BUT
TWO TOUGH GANSTERS?