NR | 1 h 36 min | Drama, Biopic | 1938
These views sometimes overshadow the heroic and noble early 20th-century origins of orphanages such as Boys Town, Nebraska. Norman Taurog’s biopic about the real-life founder, Right Rev. Monsignor Edward Flanagan, reminds us of the heroism and nobility behind every move to preserve and nurture the goodness of children.
A convicted killer’s death-row confession about his lonely and lost childhood as an orphan stirs Father Flanagan (Spencer Tracy) to action. For years Flanagan has run a shelter for such men. Now he wonders: What chance does church or state have in reforming men if they’re criminals well before they’re teenagers?
So he asks both church and state to give him responsibility for a handful of orphaned slum boys, who’d otherwise end up in dehumanizing reform school or jail, merely for getting into trouble on the streets. Those truants turn out to be more than a handful. But with help from patrons like store-owner Dave Morris (Henry Hull), Flanagan finds a sprawling campus on which to build his school that’s more than a school.
Gangster Joe Marsh (Edward Norris) asks Flanagan to take in his wayward kid brother Whitey (Mickey Rooney). Perhaps Boys Town will reform him? An obvious troublemaker, Whitey, eventually abides by school rules because the boys themselves set (and keep) them. He joins older boys, protective of their pre-teen buddy Pee Wee (Bobs Watson), in whose innocence they see their younger selves, and something of what Flanagan is trying to protect in them.
Flanagan rejects what his board of directors finds rewarding: admitting boys from richer families who’ll pay to have their children “straighten out,” expelling those who don’t have anyone to pay for their care. But vested interests soon close in to shut the school, egged on by John Hargraves (Jonathan Hale); his influential media empire mocks “sentimental rubbish” encapsulated in Flanagan’s slogan: “There’s no such thing as a bad boy.”
The real-life Flanagan believed that no boy starts out being delinquent; given the right guidance and led consistently by personal examples of responsible, caring adults, all boys can turn out to be fine men. He invested his life to that ideal, fighting legal, financial, and bureaucratic hurdles. Taurog’s opening credits text dedicates the movie to Flanagan’s “splendid work for homeless, abandoned boys, regardless of race, creed or color.”
Prayerful Persistence
Flanagan couldn’t have pulled off what he did over so many decades without the faith required of him. Taurog notes that, discreetly showing the prayerful side of his priest. That said, while the film has its heart in the right place, faith is required of its audiences too, to accept some scene transitions, plot twists, and character arcs.The real-life Boys Town A Cappella Choir leads a memorable choral performance. And the unruly Rooney here is an effective dramatic foil to the implacable Tracy, playing off each other in several scenes.
Because he thinks beyond dormitories and dinner tables for his facility, Flanagan gets a lot else built: gardens, gyms, classrooms, a baseball field, and sheds where the boys can learn farming, machining, carpentry, printing. But his early years are a slog. Starved of love in prior homes, parental or adopted, the boys question their worth under his care. If they’re as good as he says they are, why won’t enough people go beyond their comfort zones to help? Some boys grumble but appreciate how Flanagan gives them a chance to break from self-destructive cycles of lawlessness and institutionalization.
Tracy’s Flanagan is a dogged, if benign, hustler, using his understanding of people and his conviction in their innate goodness, to extract the best for his boys: money, furniture, food, clothes. He reminds those hesitant to help, that “every boy“ who becomes a good American citizen is worth $10,000 to the state.” And they know that he isn’t doing what he’s doing merely to get his picture in the Omaha Daily Dispatch.
In fact, following Flanagan’s plea to the hard-nosed media baron, Hargraves agrees to ease off on negative publicity. Then moments later, Hargraves warns that Flanagan’s failure is a matter of “when” not “if.”
Yet, watch Flanagan, convincing a skeptical bishop about his pet project, unfazed and adamant that love, and only love, can bring out the best in people.
