AFI Dallas International Film Festival - ‘Boys Town’

(USA, 1938, 96 mins)

Directed By: Norman Taurog

“There is no such thing as a bad boy,” intones Spencer Tracy in his Oscar-winning performance as Father Flanagan, the real-life founder of the famous Nebraskan home for wayward young men. Mickey Rooney, as tough kid Whitey Marsh, puts Flanagan’s motto to the test. Rooney’s performance spans the gamut from streetwise swagger to physical comedy to unabashed tearjerking. The success of this film, along with MGM’s series of Andy Hardy films, would catapult Rooney to the top of the box-office the following year. The film also helped lead a trend in the late-30s--along with Dead End (1937) and Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)--of showing young hoodlums being turned from a life of crime by an upstanding paternal figure. Boys Town is a perfect example of the classical Hollywood cinema produced by MGM at its creative zenith.

Information from the AFI website