User Reviews

" . . . for a boy who could not run as fast as I could," is one of the two key points illustrated by sound clips in ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES: WHADDYA HEAR? WHADDYA SAY? This line from actor Pat O'Brien as Father Jerry Connolly refers to the fact that American Determinism (or Predestination, a.k.a., money) would doom the slower runner among Jerry and his childhood pal "Rocky" to being caught by cops, institutionally criminalized, and being fried in the electric chair, according to the talking heads here. (Reading between the lines, the faster Jerry won a free ride through seminary by virtue of a track and field scholarship). It did not hurt that Mr. O'Brien had longer legs than James Cagney, who plays grown-up Rocky. Most of the guys I see around here have six packs or kegs in their middles, and would not stand a chance against Mr. O'Brien, either. I just read that Michigan (up North) has just produced the only male two-time winners of the American prep cross country championship (guys named Dathan and Grant). Michigan may be too cold for Kevin Costner and his upcoming allegedly "true story" running epic McFARLAND USA (probably a case of "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"), but it's better to shiver and stay alive up there than it is to be dying in one of the world's most prolific execution chambers down here because YOU WERE TOO SLOW TO GET AWAY! Therefore, Go North, young men! Secondly, the film "experts" point out (and show clips) that Humphrey Bogart got gunned down by Cagney in all three flicks that they made together. Bogart plays lawyer "James Frazier" in ANGELS, so in the montage where Cagney was shooting him in the back so many times, what kept running through my head was Howard Cosell's shouts at the end of one of Muhammad Ali's bouts: "Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier, Down goes Frazier!!!"