The Contenders:
Michael Curtiz: Angels with Dirty Faces
Norman Taurog: Boys Town
King Vidor: The Citadel
Michael Curtiz: Four Daughters
Frank Capra: You Can’t Take it with You (winner)
Showing posts with label Boys Town. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boys Town. Show all posts
Friday, April 28, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Friday, November 11, 2016
Friday, July 22, 2016
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Boys Town
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen. 
I’ve mentioned WGN and Family Classics here before, and Boys Town is another film that showed up there at least once a year. It’s been years since I’ve seen this, but it’s also probably the sixth or seventh time I’ve seen it and the first time as an adult. I remembered a few key points but also forgot huge swaths of it, which is the primary reason I rewatch everything for this blog before posting about it.
Boys Town tells the story, partly realistic, of Father Flanagan (Spencer Tracy), a Catholic priest, who is called to a prison in the moments before a prisoner is put to death. He offers an impassioned speech about why he went bad, citing mostly the state homes he lived in as a child. This sparks something in Flanagan; when he returns home to Omaha, he immediately encounters a group of boys getting in trouble. At this point, Flanagan has run a home for transient men (read: hobos), but decides, based on the speech of the doomed prisoner, to switch his focus to the young. With the assistance of a local merchant, Flanagan buys a house to keep a group of boys under his protection and tutelage. Eventually, so many boys show up that Flanagan buys a large tract of property and creates an entire town run for and by the boys.
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