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SCREENING

They Made Me a Criminal

Saturday, Jun 4, 2022 at 5:00 pm

Location: Bartos Screening Room

Dir. Busby Berkeley. 1939, 92 mins. Archival 35mm. With John Garfield, Claude Rains, Ann Sheridan, Gloria Dickson, Ward Bond, and the Dead End Kids. A remake of Archie Mayo’s 1933 pre-Code The Life of Jimmy Dolan, this Warner Bros. crime film features Garfield, in his first top billed role, as a New York boxer who goes on the lam to rural Arizona after being wrongly accused of murder. There he hides out on a work farm with a young woman (Dickson) overseeing the reformation of a rowdy group of juvenile cases (the Dead End Kids fresh off Angels with Dirty Faces). The unlikely pair of Wong Howe and Berkeley manage the kaleidoscopic blend of genre elements with aplomb, as proto-noir shades into depression-era social picture, before blossoming into bucolic romantic comedy.

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.