Angels with Dirty faces was a film shot in the late 1930’s and is within the genre of a classic Gangster film.
Genre of a film is determined by codes and conventions found in a film through its iconography, by looking at its setting, costume and props, sound and editing, therefore the iconography within Angels with dirty faces stuck with the conventions of a Gangster film. The camera framing and movement in the film was naturalistic and very much typically Hollywood. The setting of this film was in an urban city, where the streets looked grimy and crowed and there was a clear difference between the rich and the poor. The lighting within the film was low key which showed a lot of shadows, this was done to add more melodrama in certain scenes, but on the outside scenes it remained naturalistic. The costumes and props in the film showed direct reference to its genre through the characters wearing smart suites, and hats, also through the usage of hand guns pistols and knifes. Therefore all of the iconography in the film made a direct link to the films genre.
The main narrative of the film sees two hoodlum kids who are very rebellious and naughty grown up into two totally opposite grown men.
Rocky played by James Cagney grows up to continue in his bad boy ways where as the other boy Pat O’Brien turns away from his past into repentance and become a man of God called Priest Connelly. Priest Connelly later meets up with Rocky and tries to persuade him to live a morally correct life and give up his Gangster ways and help with a crusade against gangsters, Rocky eventually get caught up and executed.
The Narrative structure of the film shows notion of good verses evil a type of Cain and Able sub-genre storyline, and Gangsters verses the law. The character types of the film are the crooked lawyer, Anti-hero who is Rocky Sullivan, the moll/love interest Laurie Martic, and the Boss Humphrey Bogart known as Mac.
