Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

RyothChatty ridiculous rating

Nonureva Really Surprised!

DipitySkillful an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

writers_reign The element that prevented my enjoying this film wholeheartedly was the sound; in 1937 they had yet to perfect the sound department and provide 'natural' sound which includes 'atmos' the normal background noise that you would expect to hear especially in a movie like this where 90% of the action occurs in the street. Though set in the street it was clearly shot in a studio and the mic was in a soundproof booth so that what we hear is 'clean' sound which is, of course, unnatural. Screenwriter Lilian Hellman has 'opened out' the Broadway play as little as possible so that no imagination is required to visualise the story on stage. Probably the stage version of Street Scene was very similar. Wyler retains the theatricality by having the disparate characters come together in an area no larger that a Broadway stage and exaggerate the social divisions. The drawback in this approach is that the characters don't seem quite real and give the impression that they are playing solitaire just out of camera range while waiting for their cue to move to stage centre, say their lines and exit. Having said that there are several fine performances to admire and it remains watchable close on eighty years later.

Edgar Allan Pooh . . . because if you do, Mom will slap you in the face, your neighborhood will be "gentrified," your best girl will now be a hooker, your old buddy will rat you out to the coppers, and your local bulls will put five in your stomach, four in your chest, and three slugs in your head. In DEAD END, the NYPD serves to do the bidding of the Rich. When the wealthy One Per Centers yell "Jump!" these functionaries stammer "H-H-H-ow H-H-H-Igh, S-S-S-Ir?" Though this tale COULD be ripped from today's headlines, many of its actors have been dead more than 50 years now. Yup, this 1937 flick from the Great Depression Era proves that in America, the more things "change," the deeper the 99 Per Centers get stuck in our rut. The Myth of Upward Mobility is the Great Lie. For every "self-made" Millionaire there are a million ripped-of "Thousand-Naires." If one is brave enough to take economic justice into their own hands, The System virtually guarantees that they'll reach a DEAD END, along the lines of Joe "Baby Face" Martin in this flick.

feodoric 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.

drystyx 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.