Angels With Dirty Faces benefits from the Production Code because it forces the gangster film to acknowledge its nihilism.

Rocky Sullivan is riveting. His movements are quick and vital, his speech like machine-gun fire, his demeanor sharp and confident. He is all attitude and style.

It's a fast-paced, gritty melodrama, which, though much copied and even parodied, has never been bettered.

An atonement for & a deconstruction of Cagney's bad boy persona in films like The Public Enemy that made him a star, emulating the essence of the Production Code with more grace & emotional weight than anyone actually involved with the code ever managed.