In Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), James Cagney played Rocky Sullivan, a gangster who returns to his old neighbourhood after prison and becomes a hero to a group of street boys. Directed by Michael Curtiz, the film pairs Cagney with Pat O’Brien as the priest who tries to save the boys from following Rocky’s path.
Cagney’s Rocky is charming, funny and dangerous all at once, and the film’s power comes from the tension between those qualities. The boys admire him, the audience likes him, and yet the story insists on the cost of that admiration. Cagney keeps Rocky human throughout, so the ending — in which Rocky faces execution — carries real weight.
Angels with Dirty Faces earned Cagney an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, and it remains one of his most quoted and most loved films, a gangster story with a moral heart.