Little Tough Guy

Little Tough Guy

Theatrical Re-Release Poster
Directed by Harold Young
Produced by Ken Goldsmith
Written by Gilson Brown
Brenda Weisberg (story)
Starring Little Tough Guys
Music by Charles Henderson
Cinematography Elwood Bredell
Edited by Philip Cahn
Distributed by Universal Studios
Release dates
  • July 22, 1938
Running time
 86 min
Country United States
Language English

Little Tough Guy is a 1938 Universal Studios film that starred several of the Dead End Kids. Although re-release posters and the DVD release credit them as The Dead End Kids they did not go by that title in the on screen credits. It was in the follow-up films that they began using the team name The Little Tough Guys, and later The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys. This was the first of several films and serials that Universal made using several of the Kids, whom they borrowed from Warner Bros.

Plot

Johnny Boylan's (Billy Halop) father was sentenced to death for a crime that he was never fully proven to have committed. He and his family move to a poorer section of the East Side in New York City. His sister, Kay (Helen Parrish) resorts to dancing in a burlesque theater after she is fired from her job. Her former fiance, Paul Wilson (Robert Wilcox), still cares for her and wants to help her, but she avoids him because of the shame she is feeling.

Johnny tries to enlist his fellow newsboy friends to help prove his father's innocence. They try to convince the judge, but are unsuccessful. In frustration, Johnny tosses a brick through the judge's car window, which begins his life of crime. He enlists his friend Pig (Huntz Hall) to help him rob a drugstore. They are subsequently chased by the police and hide out. However, the cops find them and Pig begs Johnny to surrender. Eventually Pig leaves the store and is shot and killed by the police. Johnny is captured and sent to reform school.

Cast

The Dead End Kids

Additional cast

Home media

The film was released on DVD on July 22, 2003.

References

    External links