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Is there anything left to say other than…. (more…)

Dead End?

The film with Joel McCrea and what finally became known of as The Dead End Kids?

Saw it … in its entirety … for the first time, two nights ago.

The authors, of course, Sidney Kingsley and Lillian Hellman had been, at the time of writing and production at any rate (mid 1930’s), the early radical Leftists of Hollywood. John Steinbeck’s successful but highly controversial Grapes of Wrath was yet to come.

Dead End (1937)

It dawned on me how Dead End might be the best starting point for a history of Hollywood film that eventually ended up producing an unashamed love song to American Communists in Warren Beatty’s Reds.

If you haven’t seen Dead End or don’t recall the story instantly, it’s a tribute to the Marxist theory that what creates crime is poverty.

The Latin American drug cartels and the Mafia … they are not comprised of poor people. (more…)