They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is really a strange film. John Garfield is a champion boxer who thinks he killed a reporter in a drunken brawl, and is then mistakenly thought to be dead himself. He goes on the run and ends up in Arizona working on a ranch for delinquents ... where he meets the Dead End Kids. Claude Rains, doing a really weird American accent, is a disgraced NYC cop, who's the only one who believes that Garfield is still alive and tries to track him down. Not a bad film ... but a really strange bag of incompatible tones, all directed by Busby Berkeley of all people.

John Garfield is a promising but dissolute boxer in New York. He gets boozed up at one of his parties, takes a swing at a guest, and passes out. His treacherous manager hits the offending guest with a bottle and kills him. Then he arranges things so that it looks as if Garfield has killed the man in a drunken rage. The manager takes off and is killed in a car accident. Result, Garfield is about to be arrested for the crime and instead takes to the road with only $250 in his pocket, with a police detective, Claude Raines, keeping a keen lookout for his whereabouts.Garfield becomes a bum, riding the rails, looking for work, hiding the fact that he's a boxer because any popularity along those lines might lead to Raines' attention.He winds up at a cozy reform school for boys in Palm Desert, California, run by a warm blond, Gloria Dixon, and her oh-so-Irish mother. Their only consignment is half a dozen kids from the New York slums, the Dead End Kids, who pick dates from the groves and sell them to the few passers by in this isolated little farm.The problem is that the place is going broke and they're cut off from any outside financial help. One of the kids has a dream of opening a gas station. They are the only house on a 60-mile stretch of empty road so the prospects are good, but a gas pump costs $2000. They don't have $2000. Dixon, grandma, and the kids have barely enough to live on.Then, through the seasonable interposition of a gracious Providence, a big brute of a fighter, Gaspar Rutchek by name, comes to town offering a couple of grand to anyone who can stay in the ring with him for three rounds.At first, Garfield is excited because, after all, he's a professional fighter himself, though far outweighed by the much larger Rutchek. He signs up for the contest and goes into training, but a photo of him alerts Claude Raines and brings him to Palm Desert.Garfield knows this, but gets into the ring anyway. He's clobbered by Rutchek but gets through three rounds and wins enough to buy the pump and open the gas station. The moment he recovers, he's placed under arrest, but Garfield's parting scene with Dixon convinces Raines that Garfield is kewl and Raines lets him go back to his sere paradise and his juicy blond.Well -- "they" didn't make him a criminal. He made himself a criminal by acting like one after having been labeled a "murderer" by Claude Raines. After all, instead of running away, he COULD have gone to the police and hired a good defense counsel. In real life, I expect he would have been convicted anyway, but not in movies like this.It's a near-perfect illustration of labeling theory in sociology. Anybody interested can Google it, but I'll give one example taken from a study of wounded veterans. Many were in pain and given morphine, to which they became somewhat addicted. Their withdrawal was distressing. Some were never told the reason for their distress, and they went on to normal lives. Those who were told that they were addicted to morphine went on to careers as drug addicts because they'd been "labelled" as such by the authorities. (I'm simplifying, but you can understand why.) The general idea is that if everyone treats you as a rat, then eventually you come to believe that you're a no-good skank and you act appropriately. We derive our identities from the way others treat us. That's what happens to Garfield in New York, with his manager and Raines telling him he's a murderer. So he acts like one and becomes a fugitive. I'll skip any further details.Garfield is as good as he usually is, which is to say he's professional. I understand there are viewers who like him a lot, and indeed he was in real life a stand-up guy, but as an actor he's no better and no worse than most others in the Warner Brothers' stable -- Alan Hale, George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, and the rest. Gloria Dixon doesn't make much of an impression. Grandma is a comic stereotype. The Dead End kids still were integral to a serious plot -- not yet part of a formula -- and aren't bad, especially in a scene in which they're about to drown in a water tank in the desert. Busby Berkeley, of all people, is responsible for the direction of this depression-era story. He's pretty much functional, no more than that. His innovative impulses seem to be reserved for expression during fantasmic shots of multitudes of girls shaping themselves into roses and signs displaying the benign features of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.It's an interesting story, though, without much in the way of ambition or style. Not memorable, but not insultingly corny either.

This is a poor excuse for a movie. A film noir done by Busbee Berkeley? Please! First, let's forget about the plot, a truly simple-minded version of a cynical tough guy turned into a saint by the love of a pretty blonde. Yechh. So what turns her from despising him to loving him? Along with a group of other guys, he helps keep a kid from drowning as they all swim in a water tower and try to survive as the water is siphoned off, stranding them. It isn't exactly heroics, but she's suddenly smitten. It's truly painful to watch Claude Rains trying to portray a hard-bitten, tough-talking, noir-type cop. A crooked grimace is his main and rather pathetic acting tool, along with a growling voice. Most of his energy seems to go into trying to hide the intelligence that shines in all his other roles. How he ever got talked into taking this job I'll never understand. Enjoy it, if you can, for a few period details, the old cars and gas pumps, but don't expect a decent film experience. It wasted 1-1/12 hours of my life.

I wasn't expecting a great deal from this film, so I was pleasantly surprised when I watched it and found it to be most noteworthy. It's noteworthiness is mainly due to the talent and appeal of it's star, John Garfield.Garfield plays Jack, a boxing star who is framed for murder. He must go on the run, and ends up out in the sticks with Gloria Dickson and the Dead End Kids. Here is offered a chance for redemption, yet will the past catch up with him yet? Garfield was an actor ahead of his peers. Before the term 'Method' was even coined and before Brando ever screamed 'Stella!' he brings 'natural' to the screen. His earthy quality and amazing acting talent dominate this production. Also interesting is that his role here as a boxer has shades of that 'Golden Boy' role he so desperately wanted to covet on screen. Garfield looks the type and goes the distance as a boxer, proving his acting worth.Ann Sheridan is here in a small role at the beginning as Jack's trampy girl Goldie. I haven't ever thought much of Sheridan, but I liked her here. She plays well off Garfield. Dickson's' performance is a little tired and she does not share good chemistry with Garfield. The Dead End Kids are here, and Garfield seems their natural idol (even more so than Cagney). Claude Rains is miscast, and he looks uncomfortable in the role in many a scene. Strange, as he always was such a reliable actor.Also interesting to note is the director- Busby Berkeley, best known for his early musicals with dancing girls and kaleidoscope images, directs a different genre here with remarkable ease. He maintains a gritty atmosphere throughout admirably.A very good film that deserves greater attention 8/10.