BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 7 September 1938 by Loew's Inc. Presented by Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer. Dedicated to Father Edward J. Flanagan. New York opening at the Capitol, 8 September 1938. U.S. release: 9 September 1938. Australian release: 22 December 1938. 9 reels. 96 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Father Edward J. Flanagan founds a home for abandoned boys on a large tract of rural land near Omaha, Nebraska.NOTES: Nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture (won by You Can't Take It With You), Best Actor, Spencer Tracy (won!), Best Director (won by Frank Capra for You Can't Take It With You), Best Original Story (won!), Best Screenplay (won by George Bernard Shaw for Pygmalion). Mickey Rooney received a Special Award for his "significant contribution in bringing to the screen the spirit and personification of youth" and as a juvenile player "setting a high standard of ability and achievement"."Boys Town" rated 4th on The Film Daily annual poll of film critics. Tracy was also cited for Best Acting (along with twenty-one other players) by the National Board of Review.Donald "Red" Barry was originally cast as Joe Marsh. His scenes were re-shot with Edward Norris.A sequel, "Men of Boys Town" was released in 1941.Boys Town was originally released in sepia. A print screened on TV recently is an odd combination. The first half of the film is in black-and-white, switching to sepia right in the middle of an office scene between Tracy and Rooney.COMMENT: Did Tracy deserve his Academy Award — his second, having won the previous year for Captains Courageous — for his performance in Boys Town? He was certainly up against some formidable competition: Charles Boyer (Algiers), James Cagney (Angels With Dirty Faces), Robert Donat (The Citadel), and Leslie Howard (Pygmalion).Did Griffin and Schary deserve their Academy Award for Best Original Screen Story? They were up against Irving Berlin for Alexander's Ragtime Band, Rowland Brown's Angels With Dirty Faces (strikingly similar in many aspects of its story), Frank Wead's Test Pilot, John Howard Lawson's Blockade and Marcella Burke and Frederick Kohner's Mad About Music.I would have thought Angels with Dirty Faces a clear winner. Boys Town is as corny as a barrel of mush, as gooey as a load of molasses. It smothers the viewer in a contrived bathos and melodrama. Admittedly, Tracy plays with admirable restraint, but Rooney's embarrassingly hammy torrents of tears emphasize every maudlin cliché of an ineptly artificial script. Although the film benefits from location filming in Boys Town itself and has the further advantage of Sidney Wagner's atmospheric photography, it is something of a chore for a current audience to sit through. Aside from the impossible script and the lack of interesting players or performances (apart from Tracy's), it is further burdened by Taurog's deadly dull, heavily elephantine direction. (Originally, J. Walter Ruben was set to direct but was hospitalized with a heart attack.)I could say a lot about the morality of interpolating a real-life story with fictional hogwash. I could also comment on the way the priest is portrayed as a Hollywood humanitarian instead of as a keen adherent of Catholicism. But rather than prolong this debate, I will merely observe that despite a few genuinely moving moments, taking it all in all, "Boys Town" does not impress. It is neither honestly factual nor believably entertaining.

edwagreen While Spencer Tracy won the coveted best actor Oscar here, the real acting kudos should have easily gone to Mickey Rooney, as the product of a bad environment, a potential gangster-to-be who has a heart.The picture shows the effects of the poor downtrodden youth with nothing to live for as they descend into a life of crime.Flanagan tried to put an end to this never ending misery by creating a haven for such abandoned, troubled boys.There is plenty of action, near-tragedy and redemption. This was a superior film in every respect.Rooney was never better. His defiance,and yet final redemption were both masterfully done.

JoeytheBrit Spencer Tracy won the Academy Award for Most Sincere Priest of 1938 for this one. He drifts through a range of emotions here from pious sincerity to pious righteousness to pious tolerance via pious determination and resourcefulness – all of it smothered in a sickly dose of pious non-sexual love for his ever growing brood of ankle-biters. In real life Tracy is one of the cussing-est, hard-drinking womanisers in Hollywood and it must have amused him no end to have received an Oscar for his portrayal of the saintly Father Flanagan.The film takes a left turn halfway through, as if it has grown tired of watching the rather dull father, to concentrate on the problems endured by Whitey Marsh, played by an 18-year-old Mickey Rooney. Rooney clearly thinks he's in a comedy. Just look at the way he struts around as the mayor of Boys Town shows him around the town; he lifts each leg as if he has glue on the soles of his shoes and twitches his head this way and that like a particularly alert sparrow. Later, when things go particularly bad for his character, Rooney overacts outrageously, determined to tug at the heartstrings of all those mothers who had made him one of America's favourite teens.Of course, this being a Hollywood product of the thirties, everything works out OK in the end. Father Flanagan saves the boys' home from closure, Whitey becomes accepted and liked by his peers, all of whom are wonderfully likable young tykes ('there's no such thing as a bad boy,' Tracy repeatedly intones), and little Pee Wee, inspired by Tracy, goes on to become a real-life Methodist minister.This one's so sugary you're going to want to brush your teeth after watching it.

cordaro9418 Spencer Tracy won his second consecutive Academy Award for this turn as Father Flanaghan, the architect and operator of Boys Town.Following up 'Captains Courageous', Tracy cemented himself as an actor's actor.Surrounded by an outstanding supporting cast, and pitching a great script, this film definitely makes the 'Best' list and with little question.Well paced and with excellent delivery, 'Boys Town' is definitely one to watch if you really consider yourself a film buff.Bring popcorn.