Thu 10 Sep 2020
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: DEAD END (1937).
Posted by Steve under Films: Drama/Romance , Reviews[8] Comments
REVIEWED BY DAN STUMPF:
DEAD END. Goldwyn/UA, 1937. Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrae, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Alan Jenkins, Marjorie Main, and the Dead End Kids. Screenplay by Lillian Hellman, from the play by Sidney Kingsley. Directed by William Wyler.
A year after The Petrified Forest (recently reviewed here), Bogie found himself again playing a gangster on the run in a film based on a popular (and somewhat self-important) play. But in that year, he had learned how to act for the screen, and the difference is agreeable.
Let’s dispense with the bad news first: Dead End is as pretentious and mannered as The Petrified Forest was, and even more didactic. Sylvia Sidney’s noble working woman; the insulated, uncaring rich people; the feral youths; and especially Joel McCrae as the voice of Progress… they’re all types first and characters as an afterthought. The film only flickers to anything like real life when it leaves them to check in on “Baby Face” Martin’s tragic homecoming.
That’s Bogart, ably abetted by Alan Jenkins as his dubious stooge, and if you can wade (or fast-forward) through the other stuff, the payoff is rewarding indeed.
First there’s Marjorie Main as Martin’s weary-unto-death mother, carrying the infamy of her notorious son like a dead baby in her womb. When they meet, we see the first chink in Martin’s tough-guy façade, and Bogie plays it splendidly, like a fighter trying not to show how bad he’s been hurt, taking his punishment and hoping to make the next round.
When that round comes though, it’s only for Martin to find out his old girlfriend is now a hooker, and not a very classy one at that. As played by Claire Trevor in a moving cameo, her face is a mask of tragedy cast in brass. And Bogart’s face as he realizes the truth is a study in disillusion: disappointment giving way to disgust and disintegration.
Kingsley writes a small but telling moment into this scene. Anxious to be rid of her, Bogart shoves a wad of money at Trevor, who stashes it away without counting, then asks Martin if he can spare another Twenty! The mix of need and greed in her voice evokes the character as few could, and when she caps it off by asking for one last kiss, for old time’s sake the effect is incredible.
Director Wyler and the players do what they can with the rest, but it’s all as artificial as the massive and deliberately stagey set built for the film when Producer Sam Goldwyn refused to shoot on location. That said, it’s still worth seeing for Bogie’s bits.
And yes, the juvenile delinquents in Dead End became stock players at Warner’s as The Dead End Kids, then elsewhere as the East Side Kids and the Little Tough Guys, before settling down at Monogram as The Bowery Boys. Which makes me wonder if Sidney Kingsley ever got any royalties for Bowery Buckaroos.
September 10th, 2020 at 6:56 pm
It is sanctimonous all right, but far superior in every way to The Petrified Forest; it is has sex and sensuality, supplied by the four romantic leads, and I put Claire Trevor in with Sylvia Sidney, McCrea and especially Bogart in this. Humor and energy, guess which group of kids bring that to the table, and as a relic of depression, it scores as well. Oh, and better written, produced and directed.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:24 pm
I agree with Barry about the four leads, and frankly I think that set is a fifth star, and impressive visual notation of the theme of the film, the rich people on the balcony looking down on the Dead End Kids roasting potatoes in a barrel and McCrea caught between ambition above and his heart below.
Preachy as it is, the acting skills of the four leads and a strong supporting cast rein in the pretension as best they can and deliver even the most pretentious and preachy lines with some dignity (for some reason McCrea’s role in this one reminds me a bit of the almost impossible role he has to play in Preston Sturges THE GREAT MOMENT where he has to lurch from slapstick, to All-American good guy, to pretension with some of the same awkwardness of the dialogue here).
This may be the first time we really see Bogie’s potential, and I agree with Dan that scene with Main is remarkable, certainly considering her later penchant for scene stealing comedy. That scene feels painfully real (as does the Trevor scene) in a film that too often strains its point with preaching.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:46 pm
I neglected to mention that set. Thank you, David.
September 11th, 2020 at 9:56 am
I see the screenplay is by Lillian Hellman. Any chance Hammett helped her?
September 11th, 2020 at 11:05 am
I’d say there was a very good chance. On the other hand, looking online just now, I could find nothing to confirm it. Someone more knowledgeable than I may know more.
September 11th, 2020 at 11:50 am
Just watched it on Amazon Prime. Was admiring the photography by Gregg Toland. He certainly captured the contrast between the grit and grime of the slums and the clean homes of the newly arrived rich.
September 11th, 2020 at 9:00 pm
There are some who contend all of Hellman’s work from her best period is influenced by Hammett. I don’t know about that.
February 21st, 2021 at 9:20 am
I think this is Bogart’s forgotten great role.
He makes ‘A nasty piece of work’ a human being.
and he doesn’t even get billed above the title.