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1937 film by William Dieterle From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great O'Malley is a 1937 American crime drama film directed by William Dieterle and starring Pat O'Brien, Sybil Jason, Humphrey Bogart, and Ann Sheridan. The 1925 silent version The Making of O'Malley starred Milton Sills, Dorothy Mackaill and Helen Rowland.
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| The Great O'Malley | |
|---|---|
 Lobby card for the film. | |
| Directed by | William Dieterle |
| Screenplay by | Milton Krims Tom Reed |
| Based on | The Making of O'Malley 1924 story in Redbook by Gerald Beaumont |
| Produced by | Jack L. Warner Hal B. Wallis |
| Starring | Pat O'Brien Sybil Jason Humphrey Bogart |
| Cinematography | Ernest Haller |
| Edited by | Warren Low |
| Music by | Heinz Roemheld |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 71 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
James O'Malley (Pat O'Brien) is an overzealous, unforgiving officer who abides by the letter of the law and hands out citations for petty infractions. He pulls over John Phillips (Humphrey Bogart) for a noisy muffler, delaying him long enough to cause him to be late for arriving at his new job that would help him to take care of his wife (Frieda Inescort) and crippled daughter, Barbara (Sybil Jason). After losing the job for being late, Phillips becomes desperate and attempts to pawn his war medals and a revolver. The store owner does not want to pay him what the items are worth, causing Phillips to become enraged, knocking the clerk down, and taking money from the cash register. This leads to Phillips being arrested and sentenced to prison for robbery. Meanwhile, O'Malley is being ridiculed for being too hard on normal working people and gets demoted by Captain Cromwell (Donald Crisp), being reassigned as a school crossing guard at the same school where Phillips' daughter attends. Barbara and O'Malley strike up a friendship, while he falls in love with her teacher, Judy Nolan (Ann Sheridan), whose disdain softens his disciplinarian attitude. After O'Malley finds out that Barbara is the daughter of the man that he sent to jail, he provides for her and her mother, secretly finding the physician to fix Barbara's crippled leg, working out a payment plan to fund it, and helping to get Phillips paroled. Unaware of O'Malley's help, Phillips, seeking revenge, shoots the officer out of desperation, thinking O'Malley is simply hounding him straight after his parole. O'Malley, further humanized by this experience, decides to exonerate Phillips, claiming that the shooting was accidentally brought on by himself, after tripping down the stairs. O'Malley soon recovers, and is reinstated to his old beat, with the respect of his fellow officers and the loving admiration of Judy.
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