Crime School is an interesting film for many reasons. First of all it was the second film to pair up up and comer Humphrey Bogart with the Dead End Kids, the first being Dead End. This time around though Bogart is playing a more straight laced character foil to the kids as opposed to his less squeaky clean gangster role in the former film. The kids have grown up a bit, too making their antics a little less believable at times but also adding to the overall stark tone at other times. The violence is more visceral and the kids’ attitudes throughout often turns dark and disturbing.
The Dead End Kids: Frankie (Billy Halop), Squirt (Bobby Jordan), Spike (Leo Gorcey), Goofy (Huntz Hall), Fats (Bernard Punsley) and Bugs (Gabriel Dell) live in the slums. To make money they work for a junkman (Frank Otto) selling various items they “come across” in their wanderings. When the junkman refuses to pay them what was initially promised a scuffle breaks out and Spike strikes the man over the head causing him to fall to the ground, unmoving. The boys are quickly arrested but none of them are willing to squeal until Frankie confesses to the assault. They are all sentenced to two years in the reformatory.
Upon arrival it doesn’t take long for the boys to run afoul of the harsh warden, Morgan (Cy Kendall) and before the first night is through Frankie tries to escape. He is swiftly caught and flogged, left in bed battered and in need of medical attention. Meanwhile, newly appointed superintendent of the state reformatories, Mark Braden (Bogart), visits the school and is appalled to find the conditions the kids are living in. They are served poor quality food and forced to wear uniforms that don’t fit. When he finds Frankie in the hospital ward, his wounds untreated, Mark has seen enough to take action. He quickly fires half of the guards, the reformatory doctor and Morgan, retaining the head guard, Cooper (Weldon Heyburn). Mark takes control of the reformatory himself and attempts to win over the boys but finds himself facing an uphill battle with the jaded youth. Meanwhile, Cooper, and Morgan, are concerned that Mark will dig to deeply in the books and discover the two have been skimming money.
The title of the film, Crime School, is a bit of a misnomer probably to make the film seem more exciting to 30’s audiences. Aside from brief mentions of people “graduating” reform school into a life of crime, nothing much plays into that name. Warner Brothers tried to play that title up by rebranding The Bowery Boys as The Crime School Kids in this film and Angels With Dirty Faces later the same year but that name was unpopular and eventually the troop ended up with the moniker The Dead End Kids, the name they are officially credited as in the films titles. They would star alongside Bogart in a total of three movies: Dead End, Crime School and Angels With Dirty Faces with s being the only time among the three films where Bogart played a heroic figure.
Bogart seems comfortable enough in the roll of the noble superintendent, determined to do right by the boys in his charge. It’s a roll that could come across as sanctimonious were in handled by the wrong actor. There are moments on screen where it looks like he is playing things too broadly but that actually isn’t the case. When he’s trying to work with the boys, to get the, to see his as more than just the man in charge, the character tries to hard and the boys resist him. It’s not until an accident caused by Frankie and the boys puts one of their own in jeopardy and Braden risks his life to save him that Frankie begins to see that Braden really does care for them. It’s at this point that Frankie starts to see the destructiveness of his actions and make an honest effort to turn things around.
After seeing the kids in Dead End it’s interesting to see them mature in their performances since. Each has a very distinctive personality that stays consistent throughout the picture. The big standouts here are Billy Halop and Leo Gorcey. The central conflict lies between these two as Spike (Gorcey) committed the assault that got them all arrested yet Frankie (Halop) took the blame. When tensions ramp up after Frankie starts towing the line and not making any more trouble, head guard Cooper uses this tension between Spike and Frankie to plant misinformation in Frankie’s head that will result in a breakout that he hopes will result in Braden killed and Morgan reinstated before the embezzling can be revealed. This leads to the films biggest weakness.
There are no well defined villains to the film. Cooper and Morgan and cookie cutter baddies who abuse their offices as well as the kids under their care. There is a degree of menace to Morgan but he is so poorly developed that it stifles that menace somewhat. Then he disappears from the film only to turn up in the final act for a brief and I’ll conceived plan of revenge. It’s unsatisfying after the much more gratifying comeuppance he received upon being fired much earlier in the film.
There is much to like in Crime School. The kids are charismatic and engaging and we get a real sense of the conflict Frankie has in his own personal life as he wants to help his sister, his guardian, find decent work and get out of the slums. We even get brief, if somewhat clichéd, looks at the family lives of the other boys, something other films of this sort failed to provide. These glimpses help humanize the boys and compel us to root for them to succeed or fear for them when they go down more destructive paths. This propels Crime School above many other similar films that over emphasize the messages while skimming over the people involved. It’s not a perfect film, not even a great one. But it is a very good film with some truly jarring, sometimes brutal, visuals that keep it several steps above mere mediocrity.
Running Time: 86 minutes
Starring: Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Bernard Punsly,
Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Weldon Heyburn, Cy Kendall
Directed by: Lewis Seiler
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