Recently watched this film with Bogart, Mcrea and the Dead End Kids. Pretty depressing film. The Bowery boys as kids. Swimming in the East River. High rise apartments overlooking the tenements of 1930s NYC. Anyone else seen the film?

Sylvia Sidney was one of the female leads in Dead End. She had a very long Hollywood career. You may have seen her in her later years as Juno in Beetlejuice and as the Grandmother in Mars Attacks.

^^^
Did not know that. The abject poverty in the film was something. Wyler did a good job directing. It was interesting how they would refer to Francey as being sick, not a prostitute with syphillis. Those New York accents of the kids about drove me crazy.

Yes, very interesting and fine film.
The dark "Dead End Kids" morphed over time into the comical "Bowery Boys" over something like a 20 year span of films.

Oh, the great William Wyler. Every film he touched turned to gold- Jezebel, Ben Hur, Mrs. Miniver, The Big Country and more. A strong argument can be made that Wyler's 1940 version of Maugham's The Letter is the first Film Noir.

Dead End contains, among other things, a good, early performance by Humphrey Bogart, as evidenced in the clip below. Claire Trevor plays Bogart's ex, and although it is only implied (because of the production code), she won't kiss him because she has contracted syphilis. Disgusted, Bogarts asks her "Why didn't you starve first?" It's a poignant scene, something not usually reserved for gangsters in 1930s Hollywood.



TCM also broadcast Dodsworth a couple of days ago, and I just love Walter Huston's portrayal of Sam Dodsworth in this film adaptation of Sinclair Lewis' great American novel. But, the success of Dodsworth was primarily due to Wyler, and this was the case in almost all of Wyler's work. Ben Hur was an exception. Charlton Heston was Judah Ben Hur. Without him, this film might still be great, but not as great.

Another example of Wyler and a controversial theme:
The Childrens Hour.
After John Ford, Wyler gets my vote for the best American director. He was very versatile.
The Big Country.
Friendly Persuasion.
The Desperate Hours.
Detective Story.
The Westerner.
The Best Years of our Lives.