Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

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.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

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.

edwagreen While Spencer Tracy won the coveted best actor Oscar here, the real acting kudos should have easily gone to Mickey Rooney, as the product of a bad environment, a potential gangster-to-be who has a heart.The picture shows the effects of the poor downtrodden youth with nothing to live for as they descend into a life of crime.Flanagan tried to put an end to this never ending misery by creating a haven for such abandoned, troubled boys.There is plenty of action, near-tragedy and redemption. This was a superior film in every respect.Rooney was never better. His defiance,and yet final redemption were both masterfully done.

Neil Doyle SPENCER TRACY underplays the role of Father Flanagan who was the man behind the creation of BOYS TOWN and yet Hollywood thought his performance deserved an Oscar in 1938. The film looks very dated now and the sentiment is laid on a bit thick. The delinquent boys seem more like stereotyped cardboard characters dreamed up by the scriptwriter with only occasional glimmers of truth in the acting.Best among the supporting cast are GENE REYNOLDS (always a fine child actor who later turned his talents to directing) and little BOBS WATSON, who does a remarkably convincing job of playing the little boy who worships "Whitey," played by MICKEY ROONEY. Rooney's performance is a bit too blustery but there are moments when his acting nails the truth.Still, it's hard to know how much "truth" there is in the story told here, since so much of the script seems to depend on contrivances that make one suspect it's a purely fictionalized account of the actual story behind the development of Flanagan's Boys Town. Anyone with a fondness for Tracy and Rooney will find it easy enough to sit through, but I don't think it's the finest work of either star.

JoeytheBrit Spencer Tracy won the Academy Award for Most Sincere Priest of 1938 for this one. He drifts through a range of emotions here from pious sincerity to pious righteousness to pious tolerance via pious determination and resourcefulness – all of it smothered in a sickly dose of pious non-sexual love for his ever growing brood of ankle-biters. In real life Tracy is one of the cussing-est, hard-drinking womanisers in Hollywood and it must have amused him no end to have received an Oscar for his portrayal of the saintly Father Flanagan.The film takes a left turn halfway through, as if it has grown tired of watching the rather dull father, to concentrate on the problems endured by Whitey Marsh, played by an 18-year-old Mickey Rooney. Rooney clearly thinks he's in a comedy. Just look at the way he struts around as the mayor of Boys Town shows him around the town; he lifts each leg as if he has glue on the soles of his shoes and twitches his head this way and that like a particularly alert sparrow. Later, when things go particularly bad for his character, Rooney overacts outrageously, determined to tug at the heartstrings of all those mothers who had made him one of America's favourite teens.Of course, this being a Hollywood product of the thirties, everything works out OK in the end. Father Flanagan saves the boys' home from closure, Whitey becomes accepted and liked by his peers, all of whom are wonderfully likable young tykes ('there's no such thing as a bad boy,' Tracy repeatedly intones), and little Pee Wee, inspired by Tracy, goes on to become a real-life Methodist minister.This one's so sugary you're going to want to brush your teeth after watching it.