The play opened at the Belasco Theatre on October 28, 1935 and ran for two years, totalling 684 performances. Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler saw the play and decided to turn it into a film. They paid $165,000 for the rights to the film and began auditioning actors in Los Angeles. Failing to find actors that could convey the emotions they saw in the play, Goldwyn and Wyler had six of the original Kids (Halop, Jordan, Hall, Punsly, Dell, and Leo Gorcey) brought from New York to Hollywood for the film. The Kids were all signed to two-year contracts, allowing for possible future films, and began working on the 1937 United Artists' film, Dead End.
During production, the boys ran wild around the studio, destroying property, including a truck that they crashed into a sound stage. Goldwyn chose not to use them again and sold their contract to Warner Brothers.
At Warner Brothers, the Dead End Kids made six films with some of the top actors in Hollywood, including James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield, Pat O'Brien, and Ronald Reagan, including Angels with Dirty Faces (1938). The last one was in 1939, when they were released from their contracts due to more antics on the studio lot.
Because the original Dead End Kids were now working for several studios, their Universal films were made at roughly the same time as the Warner Brothers' 'Dead End Kids' series, and later, Monogram Picture's "The East Side Kids" series. The final Universal film was Keep 'Em Slugging, released in 1943.
A total of 22 East Side Kids films were made, ending with Come Out Fighting in 1945.
One notable aspect of the group's history is their transition from stark drama to comedy. When they began, in "Dead End" and their other early films, their characters were serious, gritty, genuinely menacing young hoodlums. But by the height of their career, their movies were essentially comedies, with the Kids depicted as low-class but basically harmless, likable teens - comic caricatures of their former selves.
The original play has had two revivals. A 1978 adaptation played at the Quigh Theatre in New York and another in 2005 at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, where the family of the original Dead End Kids (Leo Gorcey, Jr., Bobby Jordan, Jr., Gabe Dell, Jr., and the nieces and nephews of Billy Halop) attended a performance together.
Leo Gorcey, Jr., Gabe Dell, Jr., Bobby Jordan, Jr., Zach Halop, Jennifer and Melissa Halop (nephew and nieces of Billy Halop), and other family members, had not met prior to the 2005 'Dead End' revival, at the Ahmanson Theatre. They were brought together for this event, which was hosted and organized by Colette Joel and David Key.
The Ahmanson Theatre's publicist Ken Werther, assisted Colette Joel in orchestrating the entire cast of Dead End, to meet with all of the family members of the original 'Dead End Kids'. Hollywood history came full circle when the actors (who played the parts of their predecessors) met the sons, nephew, nieces, grandson and granddaughter of the original Dead End Kids.
Also in attendance at The Ahmanson Theatre were various entertainment personalities and published authors, including Leonard Getz (From Broadway to the Bowery), Jan Alan Henderson (Speeding Bullet), Alexis Cruz (actor), David Mendenhall (actor/entertainment lawyer), Delilah Cotto (actress), Lesa Carlson (singer), Keiko Halop (concert pianist), DJ Rabiola and Anthony Rabiola (actors), and Anthony Tremblay (production designer).
Year !! Movie !! Distributor !! Notes | |||
1. 1937 in film | 1937 | Dead End | United Artists |
2. 1938 in film | 1938 | Crime School| | Warner Bros.>Warner Brothers |
3. 1938 in film | 1938 | Angels with Dirty Faces| | Warner Brothers |
4. 1939 in film | 1939 | They Made Me a Criminal| | Warner Brothers |
5. 1939 in film | 1939 | Hell's Kitchen (1939 film)Hell's Kitchen || | Warner Brothers |
6. 1939 in film | 1939 | The Angels Wash Their Faces| | Warner Brothers |
7. 1939 in film | 1939 | On Dress Parade| | Warner Brothers |
Category:American comedians Category:Film series Category:Articles about multiple people
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