The movie clip below is from the 1938 film Angels With Dirty Faces. James Cagney stars as Rocky Sullivan, a hardened criminal who has returned to his old neighbourhood after spending three years in prison for armed robbery. He's there to track down his former accomplice (played by Humphrey Bogart) who owes him $100,000. In this scene, Sullivan makes the acquaintance of the local gang of teenage petty thieves. They admire his hardcore reputation and he decides that this admiration can be harnessed for his own purposes, recruiting the boys for use in his renewed criminal activities. Sullivan's actions put him in direct conflict with his childhood friend Jerry Connolly, now the parish priest. Years before when they were kids, the two were caught in the act of robbing a railway car. The two boys ran; Connolly got away but Sullivan was nabbed by the police and sent to reform school. He went on to a life of crime while Connolly reformed himself and became a priest, determined to save other kids in the neighbourhood from becoming what Rocky is now. Despite their former friendship, he is determined to bring Sullivan down. This is the original movie trailer:
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The following movie clip is from the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World which is adapted from the Jack Aubrey series of novels written by Patrick O'Brian. Set during the Napoleonic Wars, it stars Russell Crowe as Jack Aubrey, Captain of the HMS Surprise and details his attempts to track down and stop the French privateer ship Acheron. The Acheron is wreaking havoc plundering British ships and seems unstoppable, being heavily gunned and possessing a revolutionary reinforced hull which is nearly impervious to cannon fire. It ambushes the Surprise early in the film, causing massive damage to Aubrey's ship from which it barely escapes. Aubrey refuses to abandon the hunt, effecting repairs at sea and then giving pursuit. The French captain is, however, just as clever and experienced as "Lucky Jack" and the chase becomes a game of cat and mouse, the lines between the hunter and the hunted becoming blurred. Master and Commander is not just an excellent action movie, it also is an examination of character, courage, and honour and how these things are tested in times of war. In the scene below, Aubrey and his best friend and confidante, ship's Doctor Stephen Maturin, are in conflict over a punishment ordered by Jack on one of his men who was insubordinate to a superior officer. Maturin objects to the harshness of the sentence- flogging- for a relatively minor offence while Aubrey maintains that there is a need for strict discipline on board a naval vessel, especially in times of war.
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