They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

They Made Me a Criminal
Directed by Busby Berkeley
Written by Sig Herzig from a novel by Bertram Millhauser and Beulah Marie Dix
1939/US
Warner Bros.
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to Members)

Speed: She took eight gallons. That’s a dollar twenty-eight.

Wow! Here I have been happily traversing through the 30’s and all of a sudden run into a movie that would have felt at home in 1946.

John Garfield plays Johnny Bradfield, your standard anti-hero champion boxer. He gets drunk at an after-bout party and reveals that the mother he is constantly sending greetings to does not exist. A reporter is eager to smear this all over the press. Johnny slugs him, the reporter slugs back and, while Johnny is unconscious, his manager beans the reporter with a bottle and kills him. The manager and Garfield’s girlfriend Goldie (Ann Sheridan) flee the scene leaving Johnny holding the bag. They both die in a fiery crash and the police believe the male victim was Garfield. That is all but Detective Monty Phelan (Claude Rains).

Bradfield’s lawyer steals all his money and he sets off with $250. Before long he is a tramp traveling under the name Jack Dolan. He finally settles on a date farm being run as a reform school for the Dead End Kids by pretty blonde Peggy {Gloria Dickson).  But can Jack maintain his disguise forever?  With May Robson as Peggy’s mother.

This isn’t among the best film noirs ever made but it is impressive for being so early in the cycle. Garfield looks so young! James Wong Howe’s cinematography certainly doesn’t hurt. Worth a watch.