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.
Wellman always has a feeling for outcasts and vagrants, most noticeably in his silent film Beggars of Life, as well as in Heroes for Sale and Wild Boys, but also in his portrayals of characters who travel with down-at-heel circuses or go off to join the Foreign Legion. Of course, Warner’s musicals often addressed the Depression realities too – as borne out in this film by the ironic use of tunes from the studio’s Busby Berkeley hits, in particular We’re In the Money from Gold Diggers of 1933, released earlier the same year.
Although the crowd scenes are this film’s greatest strength, it does centre on the lives of a few individuals within that crowd. Frankie Darro, who was only 15 and if anything looks even younger, stars as Eddie, a boy from a middle-class background who leaves home and goes “on the bum” after his dad loses his job. I think Darro might sometimes tend to be underrated because he didn’t become an adult star – but here he has a lot of nervous energy and works well with the other kids, most of whom were played by older teenagers and young adults.
Dorothy Coonan (who married Wellman) is especially good as Sally, who goes on the run disguised as a boy, with her long plaits wound round her head and hidden under a cap. Edwin Phillips is also convincing as Eddie’s best friend Tommy, a character who starts as a joker but soon finds life taking away any reason to laugh.
The film is only 68 minutes long overall, and has to pack a lot into that running time. But its first 15 minutes or so come before the boys go on the road, while they are still living at home in an unnamed small town. This section is weaker than the rest of the film, with some slightly cheesy dialogue at times, but it does set up a reality to be remembered later. It also shows why the boys, and girls, go “wild” in the first place – because their homes and families have already been destroyed by poverty. Some incidents in those early scenes also provide increasingly ironic contrasts or foreshadowings as the film goes on, which you notice more on subsequent watchings.
For instance, at the start of the film, Eddie has his own rather ramshackle car, which he and Tommy use to go to a school dance. After his father loses his job, Eddie sells his car, presents his dad with the pitiful 22-dollar sale price, and bravely says it is just as well, since his mother was always worried he’d have an accident in it anyway. (After seeing the way he drives, I can see her point.)
But the risk of accidents is far greater once their own cars are swapped for the freight trains – and jumping on a train bears no relation to the ease with which characters tend to do this in many Westerns. There’s a horrifying scene where Tommy loses his leg after falling on to the track, which is the culmination of the danger posed by the trains. At the school dance in those early scenes, Tommy is not keen to dance with his girlfriend, Harriet (Shirley Dunstead), and tries to persuade others to dance with her instead. Later, as he lies by the roadside with Eddie holding his hand after the amputation, a heartbroken Tommy suddenly remembers Harriet, long left behind, and how he will never have to dance with her now.
The portrayal of sex also turns darker during the film. There are some lighthearted scenes at the start with the two boys kissing and cuddling their girlfriends, Harriet and Grace (Rochelle Hudson) in the car. (These scenes feature heavily in the movie’s trailer, probably because they look like more fun than the film as a whole, and also perhaps because Hudson was a known name – she gets much higher billing than her small part deserves.)
But soon the girls are in the past and don’t even get a mention. Instead, sex becomes a commodity, as Sally’s kindly aunt, a prostitute, is arrested by the police soon after the children arrive at her premises. Then, in one of the film’s most violent sequences, again centred on the trains, one of the destitute girls, Lola (Ann Hovey) is raped by a railway brakeman (Ward Bond). The mob of youngsters turns on him to deal out an instant punishment, and, when the train door falls open, he plunges to his death on the tracks.
When I previously wrote a separate piece about this film at my blog, Movie Classics, I noticed that there is a theme of rubbish and waste running right through it, suggesting how society has thrown the children away. This starts with the car parts at the junkyard in an early scene, and is carried through as the boys swap a camp at a sewage works for another at a municipal dump. Eddie also hides in a rubbish bin when running from police. One scene ends with a lingering shot of a stolen and abandoned artificial leg – representing the real limb of Tommy’s which was dumped along the way – lying on the muddy ground.
There are also many moments to do with food and clothing running through the film, dramatising the endless struggle to survive. Early on, Eddie opens the family’s large fridge each time he visits the kitchen to help himself to food – though he is soon switching his large slice of pie for a smaller one when he hears about his dad’s lost job. He takes a glass of milk with the pie, but the next time we see any milk, one of the boys (Sterling Holloway, who provides a lot of the film’s comic relief) is soaking his feet in a bucket of “cow juice” after too much walking.
Hunger soon drives the children to fight over sandwiches in one of the train scenes. Later, they are helped to large slices of cake when they arrive at Sally’s aunt’s home – remembering to carry the half-eaten remains with them when they have to flee the police. Moments like these put across the message of their constant hunger.
Clothing first plays a role when Tommy borrows some of Harriet’s clothes to disguise himself as a girl in order to get into the school dance free. (Admission is free for girls, with a charge for boys.) This is played for laughs, but Tommy later confesses to Eddie that his single mother hasn’t worked for months, so going into drag was his only way to get into the hall. This scenario is reversed when Sally disguises herself as a boy for self-protection while riding the trains.
In another early scene, Eddie saves money by cancelling the new suit his mother has just ordered him. He tells her he won’t need it and he’s only too right, since rags are more suited to his future way of life. In the silent crowd shots at the transit camps, some of the kids are seen running laundries for pin money, and proudly showing the torn, ragged clothes and sheets they have just washed.
Then it’s the need for clothing which leads to the final plot twist, as Eddie is offered a job – but only if he can turn up in an Alpaca coat. His friends try to help him raise the three dollars he needs, with Sally tap-dancing to Tommy’s harmonica, playing a tune from 42nd Street, in one of the film’s most touching scenes. But not enough money is put in the hat – and, when Eddie is offered five dollars for an easy errand, he accepts, only to find himself implicated in a robbery.
Pursued by police, he runs through a cinema showing Footlight Parade, which was a forthcoming attraction at the time of release. This means the film has now referred to all three of the great Berkeley musicals from that year. As Eddie is chased through the theatre, James Cagney’s fast-talking voice can be heard in the background negotiating over money. The words “18 dollars” crop up a lot, representing a sum far beyond anything poor Eddie could earn in a week.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from a tagged-on ending, imposed by the studio. The children are hauled up before a judge and Eddie delivers a powerful speech where he points out how they are being driven to crime and also in effect breaks the fourth wall to talk about how many children in reality face the same situation shown in the film. “There’s thousands just like me, and there’s more hitting the road every day.” The judge, played by Warner regular Robert Barrat, seems to be about to send them off to juvenile prisons – but suddenly changes his mind and becomes a deus ex machina, promising them all instant jobs and happiness. As Eddie’s just said, he doesn’t want to see them.
It’s no surprise to learn that this bit was added in against Wellman’s wishes, as it doesn’t even make sense. One minute the judge doesn’t know where the kids come from, the next he can reveal that Eddie’s dad is about to get a job offer. This cheesy ending was criticised in reviews at the time and since, but Eddie’s words and the way he refers to the reality outside the film do at least manage to undercut the supposedly happy ever after ending. Whatever the smug judge says, nobody watching can believe that Eddie and the others will all go home again (if their homes even exist any more) and meekly return to school. And Tommy’s life can’t be returned to what it was, any more than the pieces of that scrapped car can be put back together.
This film is one of those included in the Forbidden Hollywood Collection volume three DVD box set, which contains six Wellman pre-Codes, all well worth watching.
This is a film I’ve long wanted to see, and this well-written review increases my desire to see it. I’ve not seen many Wellmans, but I’ve loved each one I’ve seen. Track of the Cat is amazing.
Many thanks for the kind comment and I hope you get a chance to see it soon. Wellman is one of my favourite directors and I’ve seen a lot of his films but still need to catch up with more. I agree that ‘Track of the Cat’ is amazing – one of the greatest of his later films.
Outstanding review of one of the most socially conscious American films of the 30’s. I do agree that the ending is a bit compromised.
Thanks, Frank, very kind of you. If only we still had the original ending…
Great writeup — many thanks.
Thanks, John, I appreciate it.
When I previously wrote a separate piece about this film at my blog, Movie Classics, I noticed that there is a theme of rubbish and waste running right through it, suggesting how society has thrown the children away. This starts with the car parts at the junkyard in an early scene, and is carried through as the boys swap a camp at a sewage works for another at a municipal dump. Eddie also hides in a rubbish bin when running from police. One scene ends with a lingering shot of a stolen and abandoned artificial leg – representing the real limb of Tommy’s which was dumped along the way – lying on the muddy ground.
Just brilliantly posed here Judy. You do a spectacular job in your encore review of this masterpiece from the pre-code era, though you are truly incomparable when it comes to assessing and drawing the parallels for Hollywood films made in the 1930’s. And of course Wellman is a particular specialty for you. I love the energetic application of how food and clothing play an integral part of this Depression era work, one that brings to mind the period’s soup kitchens and social rations. I do concur the first fifteen or so minutes of this concisely crafted film are a bit weaker than the rest, though of course they do set up the mise en scene and present these unforgettable characters. Frankie Darro is indeed authentic, as is the disguished Dorothy Coonan and others, and as you astutely observe the tragic aspects are so deeply felt. There is grittiness and an uncompromising (the ending aside) nature to a film that defines a time and place, as well as how the crash was the great equalizer on the class ladder. And yes, novel how Eddies runs through that cinema that is showing FOOTLIGHT PARADE, and how the scene with money further embellishes the film’s central theme. WILD BOYS is absolutely one of my favorite films of the pre-code era and by William Wellman.
Judy, this is truly definitive! Beautiful entry point too by the way.
Sam, thanks so much for the detailed comment and all the encouragement – I know your praise is over the top, but it’s really nice of you. You make a great point about how the food and clothing bring soup kitchens to mind, and also about the crash being the ‘great equalizer’.
Just after posting this, I heard that there is a Wellman blogathon coming up, so I’ve signed up to take part in it and am looking forward to it! The site organising it, Now Voyaging, has had the honour of a comment from Wellman Jr.
Great review,Judy. For me, this is one of the great films of the Depression era. It’s powerful right up until the cop-out of an ending.
Thanks, John. Totally agree on the ending.
Wow Judy I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this one. Another opportunity presented by this countdown! I will need to check this one out very soon, as it appears that this is a gem that I have missed along the way. Thanks!
Hope you get a chance to see it soon, Jon, it really is a gem.Thank you.
Judy, excellent summation of a powerful film. I agree that the ending is a little ridiculous, but till that point Wellman pulls few punches. I believe that cute girl who the judge gives a job to in the final scene went on to marry Wellman.
Pat, you’re right, Dorothy Coonan did indeed marry Wellman. I really like her in this – from the imdb, it looks as if this was her only credited role, although she did dance in both Gold Diggers of 1933 and 42nd Street. Many thanks!