History Trivia / AngelsWithDirtyFaces

* FatalMethodActing: Averted. While filming Rocky's shootout with the police, one scene called for Creator/JamesCagney to be right at the opening as machine-gun bullets took out the windows above his head. At this point in his career, Cagney had experience with the unpredictability of using live gunfire; he later recalled that "common sense or a hunch" made him wary about the upcoming scene, and he finally decided to tell Creator/MichaelCurtiz to shoot the scene in process. As Cagney walked away, the professional machine-gunner--a man named Burke--fired the shots. One of the bullets ricocheted, hitting the steel edge of the window and going right through the wall where Cagney's head had been. This experience convinced Cagney that "flirting this way with real bullets was ridiculous".

* ActorInspiredElement: Creator/JamesCagney drew on his memories of growing up in New York's Yorkville, a tough ethnic neighborhood on the upper east side, just south of Spanish Harlem.. His main inspiration was a drug-addicted pimp who stood on a street corner all day hitching his trousers, twitching his neck, and repeating, "Whadda ya hear! Whadda ya say!" Those mannerisms came back to haunt Cagney. He later wrote in his autobiography, "I did those gestures maybe six times in the picture. That was over thirty years ago - and the impressionists have been doing me doing him ever since."

* FatalMethodActing: Averted. While filming Rocky's shootout with the police, one scene called for Creator/JamesCagney to be right at the opening as machine-gun bullets took out the windows above his head. At this point in his career Cagney had experience with the unpredictability of using live gunfire and he later recalled that "common sense or a hunch" made him wary about the upcoming scene, and he finally decided to tell Creator/MichaelCurtiz to shoot the scene in process. As Cagney walked away, the professional machine-gunner--a man named Burke--fired the shots. One of the bullets ricocheted, hitting the steel edge of the window and going right through the wall where Cagney's head had been. This experience convinced Cagney that "flirting this way with real bullets was ridiculous".

* HostilityOnTheSet: Creator/JamesCagney's opening scene with The Dead End Kids took place in the basement of a deserted building. By this time they had been throwing their weight around quite a bit with other directors and actors on the lot. As the scene was being shot, Leo Gorcey jokingly ad-libbed He's psychic!", throwing the rhythm of the scene right out the window. In the next take, just before he said "Come here, suckers", Cagney stiff-armed Gorcey right above the nose. His head went back and hit the kid behind him, stunning them both momentarily. Huntz Hall saw Gorcey being hit, and later recalled in 1978: "Leo hated [Cagney] for the rest of his life" after the incident.
* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: The Dead End Kids terrorized the set during shooting. They threw other actors off with their ad-libbing, and once cornered Creator/HumphreyBogart and stole his trousers. They didn't figure on Creator/JamesCagney's street-bred toughness, however. The first time Leo Gorcey pulled an ad-lib on Cagney, the star stiff-armed the young actor right above the nose. From then on the gang behaved.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: In part due to the MisterSandmanSequence.

* FatalMethodActing: Averted. In those days, real bullets were used, as the use of squibs hadn't been perfected yet. While filming the shoot-out in the warehouse, Creator/JamesCagney, wary from a previous experience on ''Film/ThePublicEnemy'', refused to stand in front of a window as ordered and let a machine-gun expert fire away at him. During a take, a hail of live bullets blew through the window pane where Cagney was supposed to put his head.
* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: The Dead End Kids were an example of the former, throwing off other actors with their ad-libbing and even terrorizing Humphrey Bogart on the set. It took James Cagney, who grew up on the streets of Yorkville, to set them straight.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: In part due to the MisterSandmanSequence.

* StockFootage: A montage features a shot of gangsters bombing a storefront. This shot is actually an alternate angle of the bombing of a store in ''Film/ThePublicEnemy''.

* ThoseTwoActors: This was one of many films that Creator/JamesCagney made with Pat O'Brien and the first of three he made with Creator/HumphreyBogart.