They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

Director:

Busby Berkeley

Writers:

Bertram Millhauser (novel) and
Beulah Marie Dix (novel) ...

Release Date:

28 January 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Sport

Tagline:

I am a fugitive! I am hunted by the mob! I am wanted by the cops! I am forgotten by decent women! (re-release print ad)

Plot:

A boxer flees believing he has comitted a murder while he was drunk.

Plot Keywords:

Ranch | Detective | Arizona | Police | Reporter

Cast

John Garfield	...	Johnnie Bradfield, aka Jack Dorney
The Dead End Kids	...	Tommy's Gang
Claude Rains	...	Det. Monty Phelan
Ann Sheridan	...	Goldie West
May Robson	...	Grandma Rafferty
Gloria Dickson	...	Peggy
Billy Halop	...	Tommy
Bobby Jordan	...	Angel
Leo Gorcey	...	Spit
Huntz Hall	...	Dippy
Gabriel Dell	...	T.B.
Bernard Punsly	...	Milt (as Bernard Punsley)
Robert Gleckler	...	Doc Ward (Johnnie's manager)
John Ridgely	...	Charles 'Charlie' Magee (reporter)
Barbara Pepper	...	Budgie Massey

Also Known As:

I Became a Criminal
They Made Me a Fugitive

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #4701)

Filming Locations:

Palm Desert, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Claude Rains at first turned down the part, feeling he would be miscast and look ridiculous as a tough New York City cop. Only after being threatened by the studio with suspension did he reluctantly accept it, but he always considered this one of his least favorite pictures.

Quotes:

Johnnie Bradfield, aka Jack Dorney: If you're rootin' for me, I'll go in there and bang the ears off the biggest guy in the world.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Projectionist (1971)

Soundtrack:

Cowboy from Brooklyn

A Swell Time for Classic Movie Buffs

Busby Berkeley is best known for choreographing dozens of beautiful girls in outlandish costumes, twirling and parading in early musicals, but here he tries his hand at choreographing boxing matches. John Garfield is terrific in this rough little melodrama, where he's a boxer mixed up in a murder committed by his manager. The manager takes his watch, his girl, and his car and is promptly mangled in a car accident so horrendous that the cops mistake him for Garfield. The unlikely misfortune continues to pile up on Garfield as he gets the worst legal advice ever from his crooked lawyer and takes it on the lam to Arizona.

The wonderful Claude Rains, with his theatrical carriage and a comically-bad accent sounding more Queensland than Queens, is way out of his element as a tough-talking New York cop, and that alone may be worth the price of admission. The Dead End Kids (AKA the Bowery Boys) appear here as delinquents transplanted from New York to an Arizona fruit farm(?!) Gloria Dickson is a bottle-blonde treat as feisty rancher girl Peggy who has lousy taste in men.

Garfield lays low for a while on the ranch, mostly getting the boys into trouble, but somehow wins the heart of Dickson despite lying to her every time he opens his mouth thru the entire film. He enters an exhibition match with a professional fighter on tour who is taking all comers and offering big cash to anyone who can stay in the ring for more than two rounds. Garfield hopes to win enough to start a gas station and save the ranch at 16 cents a gallon. Rains naturally shows up and throws a wrench into his plans.

The dialog is weak but the plotting isn't completely predictable (unbelievable, maybe, but not predictable). It's a fun diversion for those who like the era of pork-pie hats and swell lingo. However, seeing the teens fleece a 12-year-old military school cadet in a game of strip poker is... disturbing.