Two young Chicago hoodlums, Tom Powers and Matt Doyle, rise up from their poverty-stricken slum life to become petty thieves, bootleggers and cold-blooded killers. But with street notoriety and newfound wealth, the duo feels the heat from the cops and rival gangsters both. Despite his ruthless criminal reputation, Tom tries to remain connected to his family, however, gang warfare and the need for revenge eventually pull him away.
Members of a teenage gang are sent to the State Reformatory, presided over by the callous Thompson. Soon Patsy Gargan, a former gangster appointed Deputy Commissioner, arrives and takes over the administration to run the place on radical principles. Thompson needs a quick way to discredit him.
Mobster "Baby Face" Martin returns home to visit the New York neighborhood where he grew up, dropping in on his mother, who rejects him because of his gangster lifestyle, and his old girlfriend, Francey, now a syphilitic prostitute. Martin also crosses paths with Dave, a childhood friend struggling to make it as an architect, and the Dead End Kids, a gang of young boys roaming the streets of the city's East Side slums.
A new inmate at a juvenile reformatory tries to organize a mass breakout.
A woman is forced to keep her marriage and past indiscretions a secret from those she loves.
Devout but iron-willed Father Flanagan leads a community called Boys Town, a different sort of juvenile detention facility where, instead of being treated as underage criminals, the boys are shepherded into making themselves better people. But hard-nosed petty thief and pool shark Whitey Marsh, the impulsive and violent younger brother of an imprisoned murderer, might be too much for the good father's tough-love system.
Public Defender Gary Franklin, frustrated by being unable to save criminal Dutch Adams from a death sentence by blaming the slums environment as the cause of Dutch's crimes, enlists the aid of Dutch's sister, Marcia Adams, to get the slum dwellers at appeal for public monies to provide recreational places for the slum kids.
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.
Francis Ryan, living high-and-free-wheeling life as the wife of gangster "Smiley" Ryan, spends some time behind bars as a result of her husband's activities, and, when she gets out, realizes she has been a bad example for her kid-sister, Jennie White, and five of her friends. With the aid of her old boyfriend, she manages to divert them from their juvenile-delinquent path leading to disaster for each.
The East Side Kids discover that one of their own, Danny, is torn between staying and school and becoming a boxer, and is getting mixed up with gangsters.
As the elderly man visiting his wife's grave remembers how a renewed faith in Christianity help a shady businessman, a juvenile delinquent a young couple and a shiftless man find the way to righteousness.
A town is shocked when a high school girl commits suicide. A reporter and a cop team up to investigate and find out exactly what is going on among the youth of the town.
One of several WW II-era "juvenile delinquent" dramas, Youth Aflame was filmed two years before its 1945 release, and frankly looks much older. It's the old saw about two sisters, one good, one bad. The nice sister (Kay Morley) tries to steer the nasty one (Joy Reece) towards the straight and narrow path, but it's no use. Only when it's too late does the erring sister learn the horrible price of fast driving, hard drinking and uninhibited sex. And it's ALL HER PARENTS' FAULT!!!! Youth Aflame was reissued in 1959 as Hoodlum Girls, during Hollywood's next J.D.-movie cycle.
Ignored by his alcoholic parents, Jimmy Wilson starts hanging around with some shady characters. After falling in love with a lounge singer, Jimmy tries to impress her by doing jobs for her shady boss. After one of these jobs goes bad, Jimmy ends up on the run. Eventually, he must confront the truth, his past, and his parents. The judge cites parental neglect in the case of a teenager (John Miljan) charged with murder.
Tom and Cora Elliott love their active social life so much that they neglect their daughter Mary and son Les. Fred Mason, Tom's neighbor and the doctor at the defense plant employing Tom, worries about the effect that Tom and Cora's drinking and socializing have on the children....
A female juvenile court judge learns that her own daughter is one of the town delinquents in this minor low-budget potboiler.
At a track near Rome, shoeshine boys are watching horses run. Two of the boys Pasquale, an orphan, and Giuseppe, his younger friend are riding. The pair have been saving to buy a horse of their own to ride...
A crusading editor and his star reporter aid underprivileged youths and crack down on racketeers out to fix basketball.
A lawman tries to find the source of a juvenile delinquent's bad behavior.