Boys Town

Boys Town (not to be confused with the Mick Molloy comedy BoyTown) is the inspirational true story of a catholic priest dedicated to social reform aimed at getting delinquient and homeless boys off the street. Spencer Tracy stars as Father Edward Flanagan, a role that woudl earn him a second Best Actor Oscar (making him one of only two people to ever win two of these back to back - the other being Tom Hanks). Boys Town is a genuinely heartwarming slice of classic golden age Hollywood cinema, refreshingly bereft of a romantic subplot due to the main character being a priest, and it hasn't dated all too badly if you can get past the sickeningly cute kid named Pee Wee (Bobs Watson).

Father Flanagan starts out the film as a deathrow priest trying to offer solace and redemption to execution-bound inmates. Flanagan becomes disheartened by the system that leads people to such an ugly fate, and vows to help curb this waste of life by helping disadvantaged kids before they become the defeated men who end up in prison. He realises that it's too late to help most adults, and believes that there are truly "no bad kids" if you can get to them before they become men. He creates Boys Town, a self-sufficient community designed to give boys a sense of worth and teach them honour by using positive reinforcement and helping them apply their skills to a trade. This township grows exponentially, but Flanagan may have bitten off more than he can chew when he agrees to take on a particularly troubled boy named Whitey Marsh (Mickey Rooney).

These days you just couldn't make a film about a priest shacking up with a bunch of orphaned boys. In fact, the Catholic Church has taken such a bashing over the last fifty years (mostly due to their own crimes and mistakes) that it would be hard to present any film priest in such an innocently inspirational light without making it feel like pro-Christianity propaganda. Tracy is sincere, personable and a little naive as Flanagan, fighting his battles (financially, intellectually and physically) through the unstoppable power of patience! Best of all (at least in the film), Flanagan doesn't try to push a Christian agenda - perhaps realising that it doesn't neccessarily fit with the demographics of homeless children.

[On a side note, the film could've done with having some African-American kids in it, or in the background at least... it's all well and good for Boys Town to push an ahead-of-it's-time anti-discrimination message but it doesn't mean much if all onscreen evidence suggests that the open door policy of Boys Town extends to just one Jewish kid with aspirations of being a barber.]

Rooney does his best Cagney impression to play Whitey - a snot-nosed wannabe gangster who idolises his criminal brother. The film really kicks him around (and the audience too) to get it's message through, and the gentle rapport between Rooney and Tracy is a progenitor to films like Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting. The film's gangster subplot might be heavily fictionalised and too good to be true, but it's a Hollywood condensation of the trouble lifestyle that led boys to the real-life Boys Town. It's an idealised version o fthe truth, but it's an admirable truth worth idealising, and Tracy and the gang make you want to believe in it.

DIRECTOR: Norman Taurog
WRITER/SOURCE: Dore Schary, Eleanore Griffin and John Meehan. Based on the true story of Father Edward J. Flanagan.
KEY ACTORS: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Bobs Watson, Edward Norris

RELATED TEXTS:
- Followed by a sequel, Men of Boys Town.
- The Boys Town story was also dramatised by the TV series Hallmark Hall of Fame for an episode called The Vision of Father Flanagan.
- Mickey Rooney would later play Father Flanagan in a 1990s TV movie called Brother Destiny.
- Going My Way and The Bells of St. Marys were other popular films of golden era Hollywood about catholic priests helping the community.
- The teacher-helps-disadvantaged-kids subgenre is a regular staple of Hollywood, especially from the late 1980s onwards. Other prominent examples are Stand and Deliver, The Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds.

AWARDS
Academy Awards - won Best Actor (Tracy) and Best Original Story. Also nominated for Best Film and Best Director.