This looks like a promotional short for the MGM production of BOY'S TOWN.. Yet the feature was released on September 9, 1938, while this short subject came out ten weeks later on 20 November. What gives?
First off, movies rolled out a lot slower back then. Today a move s released almost simultaneously on many screens, thousands of them r a blockbuster. Back then, fewer than fifty copies were made for release; these would play at theaters like Radio City or Loew's State in Manhattan, then down to neighborhood theaters, and then down a long release trail, which might take four or five years. A copy would wear out. So this short was released very early in the process It was intended to whet the appetites of second-run theaters, the 'nabes'.
Besides, it's a fine little short that allows people to see and hear the real Father Flanagan.