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.
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.