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Dead End (1937)

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Synopsis

The depressing life of those who live in squalor and crime on the waterfront on New York's East Side. Criminal Baby Face Martin returns to the district where he grew up to find his mother and old girlfriend Francey. However, his mother spurns him and he discovers that Francey is now a prostitute. Aspiring architect Dave Connell is torn between two women, Kay, who is the kept woman of a wealthy man, and Drina, respectable and struggling to keep her younger brother Tommy out of trouble. Tommy belongs to a gang of streetwise boys and gets into trouble when they beat up the son of a wealthy man from nearby luxury apartments and thieve a watch. Tommy returns the watch but the man insists on pressing charges and is wounded by a knife when Tommy escapes. Connell kills Martin when the latter attempts to kidnap the rich boy, and with the reward money he receives he helps Drina and Tommy by persuading the latter to give himself up and getting a good lawyer for him.

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