Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney star in Boys Town (1938). Directed by Norman Taurog, this is the highly fictionalized story of the legendary Father Edward J. Flanagan and how he started a place for troubled, misunderstood youths. Tracy fits the part so well he won the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Fr. Flanagan. Boys Town was popular enough at the box office to spawn a sequel, Men of Boys Town, a few years later in 1941 with Tracy and Rooney reprising their roles.
Buy Boys Town from Movie ZyngCatholic Priest Father Edward Flanagan (Tracy) is summoned for the last confession of a man on death row whom the priest knew “back when” in his youth. It’s from that exchange that Fr. Flanagan gets the idea to start up a place, a home, for lost boys who have limited resources and few good role models. Fr. Flanagan’s vision is of a place where these lads can be safe, be fed by their own work, learn a trade, practice sports, and express their aggression in the boxing ring when needed. After finding a reluctant backer in local businessman Dave Morris (Henry Hull), Fr. Flanagan gets the ball rolling and his little idea turns into the reality of Boys Town.
Years pass and Fr. Flanagan is again summoned to visit a condemned man but this time it’s different. This convict, a Boys Town alum, doesn’t want a confession only to ask the good Padre to take his kid brother, Whitey (Rooney), off the streets and set him straight. It takes a little work but Fr. Flanagan eventually gets Whitey to Boys Town where he reluctantly learns the lay of the land. Whitey will take his knocks along the way, literally in the boxing ring and politically when he makes a sham run to be elected Mayor of Boys Town. After a tragic accident involving a beloved member of the boys sanctuary, Whitey flees in frustration only to get mixed up in a bank robbery led by his older brother, now escaped from custody. The sensational search for Whitey causes a stir so large it could spell the end of Boys Town. Now, Fr. Flanangan and the lads must unite in a fight not only to save Whitey but the very place that has saved so many other lives.
Highly fictionalized for dramatic effect but nonetheless inspiring and effective, Boys Town remains a good movie with a solid message. It’s funny, dramatic, and Tracy’s chemistry with the entire cast, which includes Sidney Miller, Bobs Watson, Gene Reynolds, and Frankie Thomas, is outstanding. Tracy and Rooney work well together and it’s easy to see why Tracy got the Best Actor for his portrayal of the priest with a big heart who’s not afraid to knock a few heads when needed. Rooney does well as the faux tough guy who learns to be a good person and a real role model to his peers under the tutelage of Fr Flanagan.
Special features on the Warner Archive Blu-ray release are a vintage MGM promotional short, City of Little Men (11 min), where Fr. Edawrd J. Flanagan himself extols some of the highlights of his life’s work. There’s an excerpt from MGM Good News radio program featuring another intro by Fr. Flanagan and where Tracey and Rooney performed scenes from the movie for the radio audience. The featurette Girls and Boys Town, is a vintage two-minute plug that highlights an older Rooney visiting some of the kids that the program is still helping. Together, these extras give a bit of a better idea of the real Boys Town, as it was then and how it is in more recent times. What this edition is lacking is an audio commentary that could have dove into the real life of Fr. Flanagan as well as those of Tracy and Rooney, not to mention how director Taurog went from Oscar-worthy films to Teen Idol fluff in his later years.
Buy Boys Town from AmazonBoys Town, though a heavily fictionalized version of how a priest was able to start and maintain a Depression-era boys home, holds up well. Its message is still clear, that good deeds done with heartfelt good intentions can have a greater reach and impact than one can ever really know. Boys Town is well worth the watch, even for those of us who think a young Mickey Rooney is mildly annoying in the majority of his other film roles.
