 Grand National Pictures head Edward L. Alperson (qv) had  previously paid $25,000 for the rights to the perfect  James Cagney (qv) vehicle, "Angels with Dirty Faces", and was  literally begged by staff producer Edward Finney (qv) to film that  property first. Inexplicably, Alperson went ahead with this film, a  pet project of director Victor Schertzinger (qv), which went way  over schedule and budget, and flopped big time. Its failure broke  the fledgling Grand National studio, which despite its profitable  Tex Ritter (qv) series of low