They Made Me a Criminal is one of the seminal boxing films of the 1930s and one of the last great social-issue films of the Depression. It was an atypical assignment for director Busby Berkeley, who was eager to make a dramatic work and adapted the complex choreography of his spectacular musicals for the film's rhythmically vigorous boxing sequences. The low-key lighting of influential cinematographer James Wong Howe anticipates the flourishing of film noir in the 1940s and lends heightened gravitas to the persona-defining performance of John Garfield.