... I swear there is a supporting actor among the street kids in this one that is a spitting image of Jerry Mathers of Leave It to Beaver Fame, but I digress.
This is one of Jackie Cooper's first post-pubescent roles. Cooper had to leave MGM after he was no longer the cute little kid. Because there is a name for the 30s child stars MGM kept around after puberty, and that name is Mickey Rooney. He is actually 15 here playing a boy, Chuck Brennan, who is 16-17 years old. He lives in a New York tenement, has his own loosely organized street gang that frequently has it out with a neighboring street gang, plays pranks on the police, and partakes in some light thievery and fist to cuffs. His mother (Marjorie Main) is worn down by life and by the broken promises of her husband, who claims he is a political operative but is actually just a poser. Nora is a well liked neighborhood teen girl whose mother has been sent to a sanitarium for tuberculosis treatment, and she is in danger of being picked up by the authorities and sent to what amounts to a work house for orphans. Complications and social problems related to generational poverty ensue.
If I had a finer graded rating system I would probably give this one a 5.5 rather than a 5/10. The script is plodding and the dialogue has all of the finesse of Ed Wood, but there are three good actors here - Jackie Cooper, Robert Emmett O'Connor playing a cop as he so often and so skillfully did, and Marjorie Main just as she was getting noticed and before she got picked up by MGM. Their performances save the film. This was the only filmed appearance of Maureen O'Conner who plays Nora. Unfortunately, Monogram seems to be unsuccessfully trying to make her into their own Deanna Durbin with her operatic screeching. I can't blame Ms. O'Conner - This was something all of the studios were trying to copy, usually with very limited success.
This is one of Jackie Cooper's first post-pubescent roles. Cooper had to leave MGM after he was no longer the cute little kid. Because there is a name for the 30s child stars MGM kept around after puberty, and that name is Mickey Rooney. He is actually 15 here playing a boy, Chuck Brennan, who is 16-17 years old. He lives in a New York tenement, has his own loosely organized street gang that frequently has it out with a neighboring street gang, plays pranks on the police, and partakes in some light thievery and fist to cuffs. His mother (Marjorie Main) is worn down by life and by the broken promises of her husband, who claims he is a political operative but is actually just a poser. Nora is a well liked neighborhood teen girl whose mother has been sent to a sanitarium for tuberculosis treatment, and she is in danger of being picked up by the authorities and sent to what amounts to a work house for orphans. Complications and social problems related to generational poverty ensue.
If I had a finer graded rating system I would probably give this one a 5.5 rather than a 5/10. The script is plodding and the dialogue has all of the finesse of Ed Wood, but there are three good actors here - Jackie Cooper, Robert Emmett O'Connor playing a cop as he so often and so skillfully did, and Marjorie Main just as she was getting noticed and before she got picked up by MGM. Their performances save the film. This was the only filmed appearance of Maureen O'Conner who plays Nora. Unfortunately, Monogram seems to be unsuccessfully trying to make her into their own Deanna Durbin with her operatic screeching. I can't blame Ms. O'Conner - This was something all of the studios were trying to copy, usually with very limited success.