The "Dead End" Kids On Dress Parade/Hell's Kitchen

This Warner Brothers Archive Collection offering provides a double feature of two of the last three films in the "Dead End" kids movie series, both coming out in 1939, bracketing "The Angels Wash Their Faces"."Hell's Kitchen" has the Dead End Kids (Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, and Bernard Punsley) being sent off to a reform school run by an odious, embezzling superintendent, Krispian (Grant Mitchell). A paroled criminal, Buck Caesar (Stanley Fields), starts making contributions to the school, intending to do good. While this works out briefly, Krispian frets about interference and about audits, leading him to want Buck Caesar out of the way, by arranging a likely parole violation. Meanwhile, the Dead End kids' antics to not ingratiate themselves with Krispian. Using a cold meat locker as a punishment leads to a tragedy for Bobby Jordan's character. There is a conflict over a pet dog too. At the resulting funeral, Krispian tries to blame all problems on the misbehavior of the reform school inmates. After a rebellion, the inmates try and condemn Krispian. Order and justice are restored when Ronald Reagan, playing Buck Caesar's lawyer and boyfriend of Krispian's concerned secretary (Margaret Lindsay), intervenes. Good issues are raised about the justice system."The `Dead End' Kids `On Dress Parade'" [also known as "Dead End Kids at Military School"] shows Leo Gorcey playing Slip Duncan, a fatherless street kid facing the choice of reform school if he doesn't go immediately to military school. Although Slip prefers reform school, he is tricked into choosing the military school by some folks who know a secret about Slip's ancestry. Slip starts out as disrespectful and uncooperative. After lots of experiences with the other cadets, including the other `Dead End' kids and Frankie Thomas as a cadet lieutenant, Slip turns around and become a model cadet, leading his class in many areas.Both pictures have reasonably good black & white pictures, with a steady stream of minor artifacts flowing through. Sound quality is good. The length of each picture on the DVD matches the time listings on Internet Movie Data Base. The only extra is a trailer to "The `Dead End' Kids `On Dress Parade'". Despite the usual `Dead End' kid antics and overplaying, the rest is 1939-level wholesomeness. There aren't even any shirtless scenes.All of the `Dead End Kids' movies are out on reasonably good DVDs, although my shelf has these titles from MGM, Warner Brothers, and Alpha Video. I'm not sure what it would take to get a unified set, all really cleaned up, with commentary and extras.After `Dress Parade', `The Dead End Kids' transitioned into `The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys' and into `East Side Kids'. These later films are not as nicely available as the two films on this Warner Brothers DVD.

My dad grew up watching Dead End Kids, then he had me grow up with the Dead end Kids. If I ever have kids I will do the same. The Dead End Kids are for making generations and generations of memories. The stories teach us lessons even today. I loved these movies.

Love these movies. Glad there finally on dvd

The purchase of this DVD through Amazon completes my collection of Dead End Kids movie features. It was purchased for the purpose of completism. The movies themselves, whilst entertaining, were standard DEK fayre and the outcomes very predictable. The whole DEK movie output appears to be a "one trick pony", but as nostalgic material they fill the bill.

Last of the Dead End Kids at Warner Brothers. Waited a long time (years) to see On Dress Parade. Very enjoyable!

2 real good movies on one disc!

This adds to my Dead End Kids collection. Good product.

loved it

These final films in the Dead End Kids series are rather different from each other. Hell's Kitchen, a remake of The Mayor of Hell, is by far the superior film here. While it suffers from comparison to the earlier film (Ronald Reagan is no James Cagney!) it is still a worthwhile entry in the series that, by this point, was trying its best to place the Kids in varying scenarios. On Dress Parade goes one step further, not only removing the natural home of the boys but giving them completely new characters too for the most part. Gone are the streetwise boys and, in place of them, we get a mostly well-behaved, rather respectful bunch, with the exception of Leo Gorcey. Gorcey is front and central here, playing a wisecracking, unlikeable character whose arc is just totally unbelievable - and sadly Gorcey would remain in that kind of annoying central role in the cheaper series of films that followed. The other actors are wasted here. Frankie Thomas, who shined throughout the Nancy Drew series of films, has really got little to do and seems ill-at-ease, despite being reunited with one of his co-stars from the Drew series and the director of them. Billy Halop might have star billing as the end credits role, but he's barely on screen at all for much of the film, sadly, and Bobby Jordan isn't around much either. Sadly, On Dress Parade is, by and large, disappointing. It lacks humour and originality and, in reflection, is just too "clean" to work effectively.

I Enjoy'ed the films very much