Rocky and Jerry were childhood friends who grew up in Hell's Kitchen in New York. After being rumbled, robbing a train car they run away. Being the quicker runner, Jerry gets away leaving Rocky to Juvenile hall. Rocky grows up in a life of crime and Jerry becomes a priest. As adults they meet up in their old neighbourhood where Jerry runs a centre for kids to keep them on the straight and narrow. Rocky turns up looking for a place to stay whilst he gets back into his racketeering business. His old partner Frazier isn't so pleased to see him. Cue plenty of gunfights and no good deeds.
James Cagney's Rocky is the charismatic gangster who had been much parodied; Pat O'Brien's Father Jerry is played like a stiff old nag, however it's in no doubt at the conclusion whos viewpoint is for the greater good. Rocky finally succumbing to Jerry's wishes to 'go yellow' at his execution to show the right message to the gang of reprobates that hero worship him. It's actually quite an odd scene to swallow as his demise is filmed in siolhette. I'm still not sure it's a way out the character would have settled for.
Cagney plays the wisecrack to a tee and the comic relief as he hangs with the kids in the local street gang adds a much needed as a balance to the social lecture.
'Dames' don't fair well here. What comes across as the potential for an equally wisecracking character in Laury (Ann Sheridan) turns into another wimpy female victim of this era.
Despite it's sanctimonious ending, this isn't so bad a sermon and a rather good film.
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