The original play and the 1937 film adaptation were grim dramas set in a poverty-stricken riverside neighborhood in New York City, where the boys (known as the 63rd Street Gang) look on reform school as a learning opportunity.
[1] Bonnie Stephanoff, author of a book on homelessness during the Depression, wrote that it "graphically depicted the lives and longings of a group of boys who swam in a polluted river, cooked food over outdoor fires, smoked cigarettes, gambled, swore, fought, carried weapons and became entangled in [crime] on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
On November 10, 1935, The New York Times published a piece headlined “It Often Pays to Take a Walk Along the East River: In Which Mr. Kingsley Reveals a Few of the Events Leading Up to the Writing of Dead End”.
Charlie Duncan, the original actor for Spit, quit the production to take part in another play before Dead End's premiere.
The New York Times' Peter Flint recalled in Kingley's obituary: “To bring authenticity and immediacy to the Broadway production of "Dead End," Mr. Kingsley used the orchestra pit of the Belasco Theater as the East River.
"[6] When the text of the play was published in 1937, Lewis Nichols gave it rave review in The New York Times, observing “Random House has turned out a good tough truthful show that could fit as well under Literature—Social as under Literature—Drama.” [7] The New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson: “ By adding a little thought and art to considerable accurate observation.
As drama it is vivid and bold.” [8] While Dead End attracted many positive notices, not all reviews were favorable: The Washington Post called the play "a thinnish plea for slums reform".
[10] In her essay, “Realism, Censorship and the Social Promise of Dead End,”[11] published in 2013, Amanda Ann Klein[12] writes at length about the dramatic effects of both the play and the film at the time when they appeared.
Reviewing it for The New York Times, in May 1978, Mel Gussow observed: “In its day, Dead End may have had a certain viability as a social document, but decades of subsequent plays, novels and movies have made it look less like a pioneer than like an artifact.” He added “The Quaigh is a tiny theater and it is rather overwhelmed by the production.”[14] In 1997, director Nicholas Martin staged a full-scale production at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Set designer James Noone introduced the concept of a large water tank placed downstage, thus giving the impression of a wharf on the East Side.
Reviewing the production for CurtainUp.com, Elyse Sommer wrote: “If directors were given report cards, Nicholas Martin (along with the WTF producer Michael Ritchie) would surely rate an A+ for recognizing this long dormant drama's relevancy and enduring power to cut through the period piece surface and reach to that core within the audience where emotion takes over; and also for having the courage to do it... Kingsley's sixty-year-old street-of-no-returns saga still works as entertaining, well-paced and emotionally engaging theater.” thanks to the contributions made by “Martin’s collaborators, the actors and designers.” [10] In 2005, Dead End was revived at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.
Producer Samuel Goldwyn and director William Wyler saw the Broadway play 1936 during its original run and decided to adapt it into a motion picture.
Eventually, Goldwyn and Wyler recruited six of the original Kids (Halop, Jordan, Hall, Punsly, Dell, and Leo Gorcey) and signed them to two-year contracts with United Artists.
While it closely adheres to the play, the film changes the character of Gimpty to David, a healthy all-American heroic type who challenges Baby Face.