Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 7 September 1938 by Loew's Inc. Presented by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer. Dedicated to Father Edward J. Flanagan. New York opening at the Capitol, 8 September 1938. U.S. release: 9 September 1938. Australian release: 22 December 1938. 9 reels. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Father Edward J. Flanagan founds a home for abandoned boys on a large tract of rural land near Omaha, Nebraska.NOTES: Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture (won by You Can't Take It With You), Best Actor, Spencer Tracy (won!), Best Director (won by Frank Capra for You Can't Take It With You), Best Original Story (won!), Best Screenplay (won by George Bernard Shaw for Pygmalion). Mickey Rooney received a Special Award for his "significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth" and as a juvenile player "setting a high standard of ability and achievement"."Boys Town" rated 4th on The Film Daily annual poll of film critics. Tracy was also cited for Best Acting (along with twenty-one other players) by the National Board of Review.Donald "Red" Barry was originally cast as Joe Marsh. His scenes were re-shot with Edward Norris.A sequel, "Men of Boys Town" was released in 1941.Boys Town was originally released in sepia. A print screened on TV recently is an odd combination. The first half of the film is in black-and-white, switching to sepia right in the middle of an office scene between Tracy and Rooney.COMMENT: Did Tracy deserve his Academy Award — his second, having won the previous year for Captains Courageous — for his performance in Boys Town? He was certainly up against some formidable competition: Charles Boyer (Algiers), James Cagney (Angels With Dirty Faces), Robert Donat (The Citadel), and Leslie Howard (Pygmalion).Did Griffin and Schary deserve their Academy Award for Best Original Screen Story? They were up against Irving Berlin for Alexander's Ragtime Band, Rowland Brown's Angels With Dirty Faces (strikingly similar in many aspects of its story), Frank Wead's Test Pilot, John Howard Lawson's Blockade and Marcella Burke and Frederick Kohner's Mad About Music.I would have thought Angels with Dirty Faces a clear winner. Boys Town is as corny as a barrel of mush, as gooey as a load of molasses. It smothers the viewer in a contrived bathos and melodrama. Admittedly, Tracy plays with admirable restraint, but Rooney's embarrassingly hammy torrents of tears emphasize every maudlin cliché of an ineptly artificial script. Although the film benefits from location filming in Boys Town itself and has the further advantage of Sidney Wagner's atmospheric photography, it is something of a chore for a current audience to sit through. Aside from the impossible script and the lack of interesting players or performances (apart from Tracy's), it is further burdened by Taurog's deadly dull, heavily elephantine direction. (Originally, J. Walter Ruben was set to direct but was hospitalized with a heart attack.)I could say a lot about the morality of interpolating a real-life story with fictional hogwash. I could also comment on the way the priest is portrayed as a Hollywood humanitarian instead of as a keen adherent of Catholicism. But rather than prolong this debate, I will merely observe that despite a few genuinely moving moments, taking it all in all, "Boys Town" does not impress. It is neither honestly factual nor believably entertaining.

Hitchcoc I always get caught up in this film. I've probably seen it fifteen times and it still gets me. It has two of my favorite people: Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Of course, Tracy would fit on many people's top ten actors list. Rooney was more of a comic actor, but very good at what he did. He and Judy Garland teamed up for those Andy Hardy movies when he was a child actor, and then he had numerous other roles that pushed him farther. In this he plays a punk who arrives at Boys Town, near Omaha, Nebraska. The priest who runs the place, Father Flanagan, became inspired by a death-row inmate who told him what it was like to grow up friendless. So Flanagan created Boys Town and took those that society rejected and provided love and care for them. It was often at great risk because they were always under close observation from an unconvinced population. This is really a story about Flanagan's relationship with Whitey Marsh (Rooney) who tests his patience to the limit. Flanagan knows that if he fails with this boy, it could all go down. The other boys resent Whitey because they have their own government and are experience worth for the first time in their lives. Tracy won the Oscar for this performance.

hannahma57 One point for Spencer Tracy doing what he can with a bum script. But Mickey Rooney's toweringly awful ham performance sinks the movie. Even in the thirties people must have been exchanging uncomfortable glances or staring up at the ceiling during Rooney's multiple scenes of yelling, outrageously bogus sobbing, defiant bullying and generally chewing the rug. Bar none, the worst acting ever to hit the screen.It would be nice to have a real movie about Boys Town with some other adults besides Flanagan in it, some details about the misery of street kids in those days, and perhaps a word or two about the total lack of any Girls Town back in the day, though the fate of female street kids has always been grim.

cordaro9418 Spencer Tracy won his second consecutive Academy Award for this turn as Father Flanaghan, the architect and operator of Boys Town.Following up 'Captains Courageous', Tracy cemented himself as an actor's actor.Surrounded by an outstanding supporting cast, and pitching a great script, this film definitely makes the 'Best' list and with little question.Well paced and with excellent delivery, 'Boys Town' is definitely one to watch if you really consider yourself a film buff.Bring popcorn.