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Angels with Dirty Faces
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Scene from Angels with Dirty Faces showing Rocky Sullivan, played by James Cagney, flanked by Father Jerry Connolly, played by Pat O'Brien, and the warden, played by William Worthington, leading a procession with police officers in a prison corridor.
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Scene from Angels with Dirty Faces showing Rocky Sullivan, played by James Cagney, flanked by Father Jerry Connolly, played by Pat O'Brien, and the warden, played by William Worthington, leading a procession with police officers in a prison corridor.
Angels with Dirty Faces Scene from Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), directed by Michael Curtiz.

Angels with Dirty Faces

film by Curtiz [1938]
Written by
Lee Pfeiffer
Author/co-author of numerous books about the cinema and is regarded as one of the foremost James Bond scholars. His book The Essential Bond: An Authorized Guide to the World of 007 (written with...
Lee Pfeiffer
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
History

Angels with Dirty Faces, American gangster film, released in 1938, that is considered a classic of the genre, influencing countless subsequent movies. The story centres on boyhood friends Rocky Sullivan (played by James Cagney) and Jerry Connolly (Pat O’Brien), who take radically different paths as adults. Rocky becomes a criminal, while Jerry serves as a neighbourhood priest desperately trying to influence young boys to take the “straight-and-narrow” path in life. When Rocky becomes an idol...

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