AllMovie

The Silk Hat Kid is Lew Ayres, a babyfaced gangland "torpedo." Circumstances force the Kid to hole up in a slum settlement house, where priest William Harrigan puts him to work as a boxing instructor. The Kid begins to reform, and falls in love with tenement girl Mae Clarke. When rival Paul Kelly shows up, the Kid has the urge to kill, but Father Harrigan orders the two men to settle their differences in the ring. The Silk Hat Kid is handicapped by the miscast Lew Ayres, but it serves as an interesting precursor to the Dead End Kids school of filmmaking which became popular towards the end of the '30s.