Cinema History Analyses
The Dead End Kids - Little Tough Guys - East Side Kids - The Bowery Boys Career Timeline
June 30th, 2025
In 1935, a group of young kids, including Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Bernard Punsly, and Gabriel Dell, were hired to star in Sidney Kingsley's New York City Broadway play entitled 'Dead End'. In 1937, Samuel Goldwyn, the founder of Samuel Goldwyn Productions, was impressed by the play and offered the kids film contracts. As a result, the kids embarked on a career-defining transition to Hollywood and formed a group known as the 'Dead End Kids'. In turn, Goldwyn adapted the Broadway play into the motion picture Dead End (1937), directed by William Wyler, with a cast consisting of Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, and Sylvia Sidney. During the production of Wyler’s Dead End, however, the kids caused trouble and began breaking the studio's sets; therefore, Samuel Goldwyn decided to sell the kids’ film contracts to Warner Bros. once production ended. Under their new contracts with Warner Bros., the Dead End Kids were immediately thrown into two motion pictures in 1938. The first Warner’s studio picture the kids worked on was Lewis Seiler's Crime School (1938), alongside Humphrey Bogart for the second consecutive time. The third picture was Michael Curtiz's Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), wherein James Cagney mentored the kids, while Humphrey Bogart played a supporting role.
Keep Reading →