by Judy Geater
The long shots panning over crowds of nameless children are the most haunting thing about Wild Boys of the Road. ‘600,000 Children’ proclaims the original trailer in huge letters – but, from reading about the Depression era, it seems as if the real numbers of kids taking the road were even higher than that.
Seeing the weary lines of men moved on from town to town is grim enough in Heroes for Sale, another film made by director William A Wellman for Warner in the same year. But the world of Wild Boys is if anything even bleaker, because this time it’s penniless kids (girls as well as boys, despite the film’s title) who are being driven from one place to another. They risk injury and even death as they leap aboard moving freight trains, and have to beg for food before sleeping rough in shanty towns beside rubbish dumps.
If this is a “coming of age” film, it’s a cruel version. Growing up has to happen all too fast, as the teenagers are forced to realise they can’t rely on anyone or anything for support. Sometimes portrayals of hoboes suggest there is something romantic about a life on the move – but there is no romance in the struggle faced by the kids in this film. There are some lighthearted moments, but the prevailing mood is one of bleakness. Especially shocking are the scenes which show adults turning against the children and trying to drive them out, as in one sequence where the firefighters turn hoses on them.
It’s often claimed that most Hollywood films in the early 1930s served up escapism. But, although the glossier musicals and comedies may be remembered better now, there were many gritty dramas which did address the realities of the day. Especially from Warner, and especially from Wellman. His astonishing run of powerful dramas in the pre-Code period didn’t pull many punches, except in the jarringly upbeat endings which were sometimes forced on him by the studio, as in this picture. (more…)
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