Synopsis
Boys Town (1938) is a classic American drama you can watch online on iFILM. At its heart is Father Edward Flanagan, who built a home in Nebraska for orphaned and troubled boys — a place with no bars, where the kids elect their own mayor and write their own rules.
Flanagan lives by one stubborn idea: there is no such thing as a bad boy, only one nobody gave a chance. That belief meets its hardest test in Whitey Marsh, a cocky pickpocket and pool hustler, the younger brother of a man on death row. The kid talks back, runs off and sneers at every kindness, and the priest's gentle-but-firm method nearly buckles under him. Spencer Tracy and a very young Mickey Rooney lead the cast, with Norman Taurog directing.
Tracy took home the Best Actor Oscar for playing the priest — and, as the story goes, handed the statuette to the real Flanagan. The picture claimed a second Academy Award too, for its original story. Much of the plot is invented, but the man and the place were real. It's old and sentimental, yet honest about its faith in people. Stream Boys Town (1938) online on iFILM.
Starring
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