Popular Culture Review Vol. 13, No. 1, January 2002 | Page 101

Three Reviews by Andre Bazin

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The siege of the gangster’s hide-out and his capture by the police, for example,
often provided the bravura finale of many a lesser film: in Angels with Dirty Faces
(1938; dir. Michael Curtiz), the manhunt even takes place in a skyscraper. In
Scarf ace, everything begins as if an endless struggle with numerous reversals were
going to take place, but the unfolding of the dramatic action almost immediately
crosses over into the character’s psychology, since