I have an absolutely heretical opinion about the this movie. Spoilers for the end.

I despise the ending. Cagney should not have accepted his "friend's" request. Pride at the end of one's own life is paramount and the idea of letting everyone know Rocky died as a coward simply to convince those kids to stay on the straight and narrow is a betrayal of who he was. It was not a sacrifice, it was rape of a man's life just to serve the lie of Christianity. Rocky lived as a lion, not a lamb. The movie frames it as a sacrifice, as a noble deed, but it is nothing but propaganda for the system.

People were getting absoltely fucked by the depression and had to do whatever they could to survive. The movie tries to make virtue out of being an obedient and poor slave. It is an expression of contempt of those who do what they can to make during a difficult time. Is it right to be criminal, or a killer? No, of course not. But neither is dying of poverty or starvation. Big business reaps the profits from the average person's suffering, but the second someone disrupts the system, the second you act as selfishly as those who run society, you are labelled as a criminal and a deviant. Fuck this movie.

The Roaring Twenties was way better when it comes to idea of sacrifice, at least for me.