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Dead End (play)
Dead End is a stage play written by playwright Sidney Kingsley. It premiered on Broadway in October 1935 and ran for two years. It is notable for being the first project to feature the Dead End Kids, who would go on to star, under various names, in 89 films and three serials. These names include Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys. The original play and the 1937 film adaptation were grim dramas set in a poverty-stricken riverside neighborhood in New York City, where the boys (known as the 63rd Street Gang) look on reform school as a learning opportunity. They played similar characters in several films; their later pictures are comedies.
Dead End concerns a group of adolescent children growing up on the streets of New York City during the Great Depression. Bonnie Stephanoff, author of a book on homelessness during the Depression, wrote that it "graphically depicted the lives and longings of a group of boys who swam in a polluted river, cooked food over outdoor fires, smoked cigarettes, gambled, swore, fought, carried weapons and became entangled in [crime] on Manhattan's Lower East Side."
The long opening stage directions for Act One vividly evoke the grim setting, and the action carries on. “A gang of boys are swimming in the sewerage at the foot of the wharf, splashing about and enjoying it immensely. Some of them wear torn bathing trunks, others are nude. Their speech is a rhythmic, shocking jargon that would put a truck-driver to blush.” The boys' horseplay includes tossing feces and offal at each other.
Gimpty is a would-be architect who struggles with unemployment. As his nickname suggests, one leg is deformed, because he suffered from rickets as a child. A gang member in his youth, he managed to turn his life around, finish high school and go on to college. He dreams of rebuilding the neighborhood with clean housing units, but poverty and hardships have forced him to search for work wherever possible. He yearns for Kay, a young woman who lives in the elegant apartment house on the other side of the street. Drina is a working-class girl who has been struggling to keep her younger brother Tommy off the streets ever since their parents died. Meanwhile, local gangster Baby-Face Martin returns to his old neighborhood to visit his mother and to find his old love, Francey. At the end of the play, Martin is dead and Tommy is headed to reform school, his future uncertain.
Variety's review of the film pinpointed some key elements in the play that fell prey to the censors. The girl Gimpty yearns for is being kept in her elegant apartment by a rich man. Martin's former girlfriend, Francey, now a prostitute, is riddled with disease. The play is full of profane language, including ethnic slurs that were common at the time.
Kingsley first conceived the idea of Dead End in 1934, on a walk that took him past the river. On November 10, 1935, The New York Times published a piece headlined “It Often Pays to Take a Walk Along the East River: In Which Mr. Kingsley Reveals a Few of the Events Leading Up to the Writing of Dead End”. It is impossible to excerpt this very revealing and moving article.
The play featured fourteen children who were hired to play various roles, including Gabriel Dell as T.B, Huntz Hall as Dippy, Billy Halop as Tommy, Bobby Jordan as Angel, Bernard Punsly as Milty, with David Gorcey and Leo Gorcey as the Second Avenue Boys. Charlie Duncan, the original actor for Spit, quit the production to take part in another play before Dead End's premiere. Consequently, Duncan was replaced in the role by his understudy Leo, who was originally recruited by his younger brother David to audition for the play. In time, Gorcey would soon become the group's de facto leader and the most recognizable of the young actors, eclipsing the rest of them in popularity.
Dead End premiered on October 2, 1935 at the Belasco Theatre and ran for 687 performances before closing on June 12, 1937. In addition to writing the play, Kingsley was director of the production. The cast included Joseph Downing as Baby Face Martin, Marjorie Main as Mrs. Martin, and Margaret Mullen as Kay.
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Dead End (play)
Dead End is a stage play written by playwright Sidney Kingsley. It premiered on Broadway in October 1935 and ran for two years. It is notable for being the first project to feature the Dead End Kids, who would go on to star, under various names, in 89 films and three serials. These names include Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids and the Bowery Boys. The original play and the 1937 film adaptation were grim dramas set in a poverty-stricken riverside neighborhood in New York City, where the boys (known as the 63rd Street Gang) look on reform school as a learning opportunity. They played similar characters in several films; their later pictures are comedies.
Dead End concerns a group of adolescent children growing up on the streets of New York City during the Great Depression. Bonnie Stephanoff, author of a book on homelessness during the Depression, wrote that it "graphically depicted the lives and longings of a group of boys who swam in a polluted river, cooked food over outdoor fires, smoked cigarettes, gambled, swore, fought, carried weapons and became entangled in [crime] on Manhattan's Lower East Side."
The long opening stage directions for Act One vividly evoke the grim setting, and the action carries on. “A gang of boys are swimming in the sewerage at the foot of the wharf, splashing about and enjoying it immensely. Some of them wear torn bathing trunks, others are nude. Their speech is a rhythmic, shocking jargon that would put a truck-driver to blush.” The boys' horseplay includes tossing feces and offal at each other.
Gimpty is a would-be architect who struggles with unemployment. As his nickname suggests, one leg is deformed, because he suffered from rickets as a child. A gang member in his youth, he managed to turn his life around, finish high school and go on to college. He dreams of rebuilding the neighborhood with clean housing units, but poverty and hardships have forced him to search for work wherever possible. He yearns for Kay, a young woman who lives in the elegant apartment house on the other side of the street. Drina is a working-class girl who has been struggling to keep her younger brother Tommy off the streets ever since their parents died. Meanwhile, local gangster Baby-Face Martin returns to his old neighborhood to visit his mother and to find his old love, Francey. At the end of the play, Martin is dead and Tommy is headed to reform school, his future uncertain.
Variety's review of the film pinpointed some key elements in the play that fell prey to the censors. The girl Gimpty yearns for is being kept in her elegant apartment by a rich man. Martin's former girlfriend, Francey, now a prostitute, is riddled with disease. The play is full of profane language, including ethnic slurs that were common at the time.
Kingsley first conceived the idea of Dead End in 1934, on a walk that took him past the river. On November 10, 1935, The New York Times published a piece headlined “It Often Pays to Take a Walk Along the East River: In Which Mr. Kingsley Reveals a Few of the Events Leading Up to the Writing of Dead End”. It is impossible to excerpt this very revealing and moving article.
The play featured fourteen children who were hired to play various roles, including Gabriel Dell as T.B, Huntz Hall as Dippy, Billy Halop as Tommy, Bobby Jordan as Angel, Bernard Punsly as Milty, with David Gorcey and Leo Gorcey as the Second Avenue Boys. Charlie Duncan, the original actor for Spit, quit the production to take part in another play before Dead End's premiere. Consequently, Duncan was replaced in the role by his understudy Leo, who was originally recruited by his younger brother David to audition for the play. In time, Gorcey would soon become the group's de facto leader and the most recognizable of the young actors, eclipsing the rest of them in popularity.
Dead End premiered on October 2, 1935 at the Belasco Theatre and ran for 687 performances before closing on June 12, 1937. In addition to writing the play, Kingsley was director of the production. The cast included Joseph Downing as Baby Face Martin, Marjorie Main as Mrs. Martin, and Margaret Mullen as Kay.