warner brother's had a stable-full of actors that graduated from the school of hard knocks w/. edward g. robinson,james cagney and humphrey bogart.While sharing the billing w/. Sylvia Sidney and Joel MacCrea,Bogart smolders w/. menace as his 'coming home party' fails to live up to his expectations.Cozying up to street urchins the Dead End Kids,Bogie hatches a plot to make his visit worthwhile. At the end is the inevitable showdown between the forces of hope (Joel MacCrea),good (the cops)and evil(Bogie).

It was an ok movie. Bogie did well. The film was typical of the times. Definitely one of his minor pictures.

Attracted by the picturesque river view, the rich rub elbows with the poor on the dead end street of the title when a ritzy apartment building is constructed there. In the shadow of plenty, several characters try to scratch out futures for themselves, most notably an out of work architect (Joel McCrea) who is having an affair with a rich man's mistress (Wendy Barrie), a shopgirl (Sylvia Sidney) trying to get her younger brother (Billy Halop) a better life away from street gangs, and a fugitive gangster (Humphrey Bogart) returning to his old neighborhood for a nostalgic visit with his mother (Marjorie Main) and old girl-friend (Claire Trevor). All of them will be changed by the end of the film. The movie retains the staginess of its Broadway origins. While consistently entertaining, the strictures placed on films at the time prevent it from being as gritty as it wants to be, causing it to come off as a bit too moralizing and melodramatic. This film is perhaps best known for introducing the Dead End Kids, who would go on to make a string of B-pictures.

This is such a wonderful movie from 1937 which stars Joel McCrea, Sylvia Sidney, and a quite youthful and convincing Humphrey Bogart. But in my eyes the real stars of the movie are the Dead End Kids. Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Bobby Jordan and Bernard Punsly were the original Dead End Kids in the Broadway play "Dead End". When the studio brought it to Hollywood to be filmed, they also brought the kids with them - much to the chagrin of studio head Louis B. Mayer! They wreaked quite a bit of havoc while on (and off) the set. Their contract was ended after the movie was made and they went to different studios where they went on to become the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys.
The movie itself is rich in the detail and style of the time. It tells the story of life on the New York riverfront where the rich built luxurious homes amidst the run-down, filthy tenaments. Times are hard and jobs are even harder to get. Dave (McCrea) has gone to college and is a degreed architect but cannot find steady work. He has fallen for Kay (Wendy Barrie), a socialite/mistress who lives in the luxury apartments but who is afraid of poverty. Drina (Sidney) is his childhood friend who still carries a torch for him. She is out of work at the time because the workers are on strike against their company. Drina's younger brother, Tommy (Halop), is the leader of his small gang of boys who hang out at the dock near the apartments. She genuinely loves her brother and desparately desires to get him out of the slums.
Enter "Baby-Face" Martin (Bogart) who used to be one of the kids in the neighborhood but is now a hardened killer come back to pay a visit to his mother and former girlfriend. He and Dave knew eachother when they were kids and Dave recognizes him despite his plastic surgery.
The gang beats up a rich kid who lives in the apartment and while Tommy is being held by the boy's father, he stabs him with a pocket knife and runs into hiding. Meanwhile, Martin is distraught to find that his mother wants him to die and his childhood sweetheart is now a prostitute. He decides that he will not leave the city empty-handed - he plans to kidnap the rich boy for ransom. Dave finds Martin and, after a struggle, Martin is killed. Spit (Gorcey) is nearby and is recognized as being one of the gang who beat up the rich kid. He snitches to the police that it was Tommy but, unbeknownst to him, Milty (Punsly) overhears him and runs to tell Drina.
Word gets to Tommy and he intends on giving Spit the "mark of the squealer" which is a cut across the face. Dave stops him and convinces Tommy to turn himself in. With the reward money he will get from killing Martin, Dave tells Drina that, together, they will get the best lawyer they can for Tommy and everything will be alright.
The ending scene is classic as it shows the gang hanging out at the dock, talking over a trash can fire...as life goes on.

Far too many movie goers are forgetful. They forget what movies were like in the early days. They forget that the times themselves were different in the early days. To truly enjoy a film made all those many years ago, you have to transport yourself into the time when it was made, when it was released. You have to place yourself totally in a different world, one without cell phones and home movies and the internet. When that happens, the movies themselves take on a whole new meaning. To truly enjoy the film DEAD END you have to transport back to those days, the first rather than last half of the 20th century. And in so doing you find yourself appreciating the story as well as the craftsmanship behind it all the more.

Okay enough speech making.

DEAD END is a classic in film storytelling, offering Humphrey Bogart at his most sympathetic and frightening in one fell swoop. And he isn't even the single main character!

Taking place in New York's lower east side in the 20s/30s era, the film takes place almost entirely on the dock there. A group of toughs (who later went to fame as the Dead End Kids then the Bowery Boys) hang out on the dock, watching the high and mighty that live in the upper class apartment high above their tenement slum.

Drina (Sylvia Sydney) is a young single girl who longs for a better life, a way to escape with her young brother and take him away from all of the squalor. But her brother has already fallen in with these kids and things don't look good. Even with the help of the man she longs for, Dave (Joel McCrea). Moving from job to job, Dave rarely notices this young woman who's interested in him having grown up with her.

Dave too wants out. He wants to move on to bigger and better things. But these seem to be nothing more than pipe dreams and his chances look slim. Even when he begins to go out with one of the upper crust citizens from the apartment building.

Enter Baby Face Martin (Bogart). On the run from the law and after some minor plastic surgery, Martin has returned to his old haunts one last time. He sees himself in the youthful gang and they worship him once they know who he is. Martin has come back to find his mother and see her before heading out.

The time he spends in the old neighborhood rekindles memories of everything from his own misguided youth to the girl he left behind. When she turns out to not have lived up to his hopes and expectations, Martin crumbles and his more violent side is revealed.

The only person who may be able to stand up to Martin is Dave. But the costs could be dear. And the future of Drina's young brother is held in the balance when he begins to follow in the footsteps of Martin.

Based on the stage play that was a huge hit at the time, DEAD END comes off as such, a play put on film. But the story itself, one of dreams and hopes of a better life for yourself and the ones you love, remains constant even in the world of today.

The acting may seem a little stiff at times, but one has to recall as I said in the beginning that this was the style of the time. It was acceptable then. It was how it was done. And at the same time, they seem to meld into their roles comfortably.

The movie stands as an indictment of the world of poverty. Its message remains true to not only those times but the present where locations such as this dead end cause countless people to turn to a world of violence as a solution. The movie may not inspire some to come out of it and walk the straight and narrow as much as it could have when it was released. But it couldn't hurt either.