Dead End
In this film, Humphrey Bogart plays Babyface Martin, a man who has murdered many people, who has come home to collect his girl and see his mother and then disappear out West. Home is a tenement neighborhood on the East River that is overlooked by encroaching upscale buildings. In this neighborhood, gangs of kids fight, people do odd jobs to make ends meet and sole-supporters of families go off to stand on the picket lines every morning in an effort to force management to raise everyone's pay. In short, this film that came out in 1937 is a tale that makes you think, "Wow, the more things change, the more they stay the same."
That being said, it was very good. Bogart plays an excellent murderous psychopath. Sylvia Sydney is strong and thoughtful as the striking sister doing everything she can to move her younger brother away from the gangs and the poverty, and Joel McCrea is also excellent as the out of work architect/moral backbone/cynic of the neighborhood.
This film was based on a play and that shows in the pacing (and, the moral summation given by the brother of a judge towards the end.) But, it warrants a watch.
