Wild Boys of the Road (1933) User Reviews

Youth In The Depression

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 23 March 2009]

The only studio in Hollywood that acknowledged that there was a Depression out there for the most part was Warner Brothers. It was only from this studio that Wild Boys Of The Road could have been made and done as well as it was.

The story and the situation is what puts this film over. There are no stars in Wild Boys Of The Road although some of the players eventually got reputations as competent character actors. The most well known person in this film would have to be Ward Bond playing the part of the train brakeman who sees that one of the Wild Boys is actually a girl and rapes her. Bond in his early days did play thugs like these for the most part.

The generation that proceeded me lived through the Great Depression. My uncles were in their teens at the time this film was made. In fact one of my uncles before he died told me how he left school and went to work on a farm in Brockport owned by the husband of my grandmother's cousin. He considered himself incredibly lucky to even get that kind of work even from family. Both of them could easily have been part of the gang of homeless youth.

The film centers on three of them, Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips, a pair of kids from small town USA in the west somewhere are both up against it. Darro's father is laid off and Phillips's has died, leaving both families right on the poverty line as they would be described today. Darro and Phillips take off for the east and along the way meet up with Dorothy Coonan who is in drag for her own protection, rightly so as she finds out later. The film concerns their adventures on the road, the railroad to be precise as they catch rides aboard freight trains with an eye out for the railroad police.

Curiously enough one Hollywood star was living just this kind of life at this point. Robert Mitchum and his brother John would have been teens at this time and also left home to find any kind of work. His memories, should his widow Dorothy ever divulge them, could make the basis for another Wild Boys Of The Road.

Note in the climax scene in the courtroom where Darro, Coonan, and Phillips are before Judge Robert Barrat who usually was a bad guy in films, but is a sympathetic judge here, the Blue Eagle symbolizing the National Recovery Administration. It was one of the first initiatives of the New Deal and its presence in the film is a symbol of hope for these kids. But later on a more substantial program directly aimed at these youths was passed right around the time Wild Boys Of The Road would have been in theaters.

The Civilian Conservations Corps which took homeless kids off the streets and put them to work beautifying America's National Parks and a lot of other rural area would have been home to Darro, Phillips and the whole rest of the railroad freight hoppers. Back then liberal was not a dirty word and it was all right for government to care about the welfare of its citizens. The CCC was one of the best of the New Deal programs and it lasted all the way until World War II was declared.

And it's to the CCC which provided real salvation for so many youths of the time like Darro, Phillips and the rest that this review is respectfully dedicated to.

Wild Bill's Wild Boys

[ALauff · 8/10 · 10 December 2007]

An invaluable time capsule and an effective tale of kids forced to grow up prematurely, this decidedly austere, Depression-era saga begins with a celebration of youthful adventurism before that innocence is flattened by a hard world. Filmed with the torrid sweep of a Warner Bros. gangster picture, Wild Boys is remarkably unsanitized in its depiction of adolescent suffering, making the perseverance of its characters all the more shattering. Frankie Darro is fantastic throughout and in one scene in particular. I'm thinking of the way he and his father relate after he's just sold his beloved "Leapin' Lena" automobile to a junkyard to help his family pay the bills. Such a sharply written and acted moment, but the grace note happens shortly thereafter when Darro, unable to bear the sight of an empty garage, bars the doors shut: a child who wishes he was too tough to cry in front of others, but too proud to mourn alone. Darro's performance mirrors teenage illusions of invincibility or perhaps a boy who's seen too many movies, emulating Cagney in his scowling resentment of the many corrupt adults he encounters bumming around the country with his quieter buddy, Tommy. The harrowing bulk of the movie revolves around their attempts to stay safe and unseen while hitching trains, and finding shelter, food and work at all stops between. Wellman's enthusiasm behind the camera is evident, often dissolving or cutting in mid-word as if he can hardly wait to show us the next setup. However, he belies a personal feeling for the material in shots that linger, on Darro and Tommy sobbing together, or on Tommy's artificial leg abandoned in the mud of Cleveland. Mostly, though, this is a lightning-paced adventure full of horrific incidents—who can forget a young Ward Bond as a despicable trainman (actually credited as "Red, the Raping Brakeman") who underestimates the young mob?—sketched in with a keen eye for realistically grim settings and broken characters. This is a vital film about the Great Depression's most precious casualties, and therefore, in dire need of rediscovery.

"You're an enemy to society and I've got to take you off the streets!"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 26 March 2009]

Here's just a great example of gritty realism from forbidden Hollywood, set in the pre-Code era when film studios and other media venues pushed the boundaries of acceptable societal norms and good taste. Shock value is provided early if you're an attentive viewer, as in the opening scene when the film's principals drive up to the 'sophomore frolic' in Leapin' Lena. While Tommy Gordon (Edwin Phillips) entertains his date in a fully supine position, his pal Eddie Smith (Frankie Darro) hits the brakes hard and remarks - "Well old gal, settle back on your shaft!" Seems to me that there's a one liner that would never have made it on "I Love Lucy".

The story itself would provide something of a wake up call to the youth of today who can barely get by on their hundred dollar Nikes and Blackberries. In fact, I found myself wondering if the scenes of dozens of young adults atop cross country trains and staying in 'pipe cities' were somewhat exaggerated for effect, but somehow I don't think so. The film really makes one reflect on how good we actually have it today, even as present day warnings of another Depression begin to grow stronger and more frequent.

The picture's energy comes from Frankie Darro, just sixteen at the time of the picture, and to many observers, a younger version of Jimmy Cagney. What surprised me even more was how much his character's father, portrayed by Grant Mitchell, looked like an older version of Cagney. Then to top it all off, Cagney himself makes a quick on screen appearance in a clip from "Footlight Parade" from the same year, 1933. You can round out the Cagney connection by pointing to director Wellman, whose film masterpiece of the era starred the brilliant actor in 1931's "Public Enemy".

The film might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it does balance hefty doses of grim reality with spirit and humanity. The implied rape scene on the train is dealt with in street justice terms, and you'll remember Tommy's harrowing accident and makeshift operation for a long time after you've seen it. The ending is somewhat abrupt and open ended, the fate of the principals is left pretty much to the best of the viewer's imagination. However unlike many of the youth films of the Thirties, this one isn't played for garish exploitation or mawkish sentimentality. This was real life with real life consequences, and a tough reminder that maybe the good old days really weren't.

Brilliant, heart-wrenching depression gem

[arthursward · 10/10 · 21 January 2003]

Forget the Kleenex, bring the Bounty paper towels to experience William Wellman's depression masterpiece. This huge emotional epiphany packs a wallop.

Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips portray the juvenile leads Eddie and Tommy, with Darro's performance effective and appealing. Their characters indulge in the usual teenage shenanigans until the depression overtakes their parents. As times toughen, and Eddie's father can't find work, Eddie decides to sell his jalopy to help out. This sets up the first of many splendid scenes, as Eddie's tough-guy veneer drops just long enough to share raw emotions with his father (Grant Mitchell). Zero cringe factor here, Wellman excels at emotions between men and it's never maudlin.

Hitting the (rail)road to find work, Eddie and Tommy encounter Sally, an adorable, nose-scrintching Dorothy Coonan dressed as a man. And the three set off across the country, with high ideals and optimism clashing with depression realities. Brutal and raw, this is a journey you, too, must take. A page of America's history told so expertly as to make you laugh and cry simultaneously.

Ms. Coonan (Sally) quit films after "Wild Boys" to marry director "Wild" Bill Wellman, and remain his his wife until his death in 1975. My highest recommendation.

Kids Also Suffer

[dougdoepke · 19 September 2007]

Mention the Great Depression and most folks draw a blank or nod off. After all, who wants to be reminded of soup kitchens, dour old men, and dust bowls. Seventy years later and it's a closed book, forgotten and unlamented. Now and again, however, that dusty book needs re-opening. Because, in spite of the best efforts of the best of us, the past is not alway past. This edgy little Warner Bros. production provides a brief picture of the youth of that day, a harrowing story of survival amidst economic collapse.

The movie wouldn't work so well without the contrast the first half-hour provides. Darro and friends are typical middle-class teens, fun-loving and care-free. It's a world of proms, necking parties, and harmless pranks. Then without warning things change. Why they change is never really explained which is the way it should be. For most kids knew nothing of stock markets and dis-investment. They only knew that suddenly Dad doesn't go to work anymore and mom cries a lot, bills pile up, and no one gets a job, anywhere. Middle-class privilege plunges into no-income poverty, and Darro and his buddy do like millions of others. They hop a freight, hoping the next town, the next state, the next someplace, will give them a chance to make a living. What they get instead are private armies, battalions of cops, and a forest of billy clubs. They're driven on to the next jurisdiction and the next welcoming committee. Nobody wants the footloose unemployed adding to their own local problems. Maybe the attitude's not charitable, but it makes practical sense.

The battles atop freight cars and in hobo jungles are expertly filmed and dynamically staged, a stark panorama of social desperation. These scenes make up the movie's centerpiece. If anything they're mildly presented compared to the actual blood-letting that surrounded the desperate and up-rooted. Union organizing was especially bloody and bitterly fought-- an explosive topic Hollywood has only timidly touched on over the years. Nonetheless, the nail-biting episode on the train track stands-in for at least some of the actual pain and suffering caused by those crisis years.

Darro may be small, but he's energetic, something of a younger Cagney. His determined spirit to keep going no matter what is convincing, and helps drive the others on. I expect it also had that effect on audiences of the day. I like the way director Wellman suggests the kids can set up their own constructive community, if given half-a-chance. Some reviewers complain about the final scene with the understanding judge. Yes, it is pretty contrived, but it wasn't unrealistic given the package of New Deal reforms then in the works. If those measures didn't exactly solve the economic crisis (only WWII did that), they at least offered hope that the problems would no longer be kicked down the road to the next jurisdiction.

Wild Boys may not be the most honest or best movie on those tumultuous years. Still, it does furnish a provocative and entertaining glimpse. In any event, some books should not remain closed. After all, who knows when the unfortunate history of that era may again repeat itself.

This is a REALISTIC FILM!

[whpratt1 · 10/10 · 17 October 2004]

This is truly a very great Classic Film about how living conditions were for the very young and old. It clearly shows how the Depression Years effected everyone in America and were very bad times for people of all races. Mothers and Fathers were unable to support their families and children had to go on their own, or run away and find some sort of child labor. Frankie Darro,"Saratoga",'37 and Dorothy Coonan Wellman,(Sally). gave great performances eating sandwiches on a flatbed railroad car and headed to Chicago. Sally had an aunt who lived in Chicago and when she arrived, she was greeted with a huge cake to share with her friends. However, her aunt seemed very successful and greeted her with open arms, but her apartment was soon raided, as she was a HOOKER! This is a sad film, but tells the truth about the growing pains in America!

Not bad at all

[edgein15 · 7/10 · 17 February 2000]

This movie is very atypical of the good-kids-pushed-to-the-brink drama. This film is packed with energy and is a joy to behold. However, the only aspect that doesn't ring true is the WIZARD OF OZ ending wherein everyone gets what they need. Warner Bros. heavies have never been so snuggly. I highly doubt this is how it was in the height of the Great Depression, which is strange for a movie that depicts such realism (and desperation) of the time.

Brother, can you spare a nickel?

[imogensara_smith · 9/10 · 12 January 2008]

A few years ago the New Yorker magazine, in a breathtaking lapse of taste, published a fashion spread inspired by the iconic photographs of Dust Bowl migrants. Much as I deplored the sleek models in $400 distressed cardigans pretending to thumb rides along a dusty highway, the project tapped into a phenomenon I am hopelessly susceptible to myself: the mystique of the Great Depression. I'm attracted to the cultural products of the time: music, movies, fashion, architecture (why did the world have such thrilling elegance in a time of so much suffering?) But I'm also drawn to the zeitgeist: a profound disillusionment, ranging from wry to bitter, which stands out sharply from America's traditional optimism and innocence.

Please forgive this personal digression, but I think it is relevant to my appreciation of WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD, one of the most vivid—and least glamorous—depictions of the Depression I've ever seen. It's easy to romanticize freight-hopping, but this film, while thoroughly enjoyable, conveys just how awful homeless wandering was. At the same time, it helps explain the dignity that elevates those photographs of the Depression's victims—so foreign to our own graceless era. The key to every character's response to hardship is stoicism: a desire, above all, not to be a burden on others.

The film opens at a high-school dance, where the girls wear evening gowns, the kids dance to the Shadow Waltz (Warner Bros. never lost a chance to cannibalize its own products), and there are some pre-Code jokes about hanky-panky in the backs of cars. But signs of the Depression already creep in: one boy doesn't have 75 cents for admission, and when the main characters come out, they find someone has stolen the gasoline from their car, so they blithely siphon some from a handy convertible. They are Eddie (Frankie Darro, the junior Jimmy Cagney), a pugnacious but tender-hearted boy, and his best friend, the more retiring, sleepy-eyed Tommy (Edwin Phillips.) Tommy's fatherless family is already on the skids, and Eddie promises to help out, until he learns his own father has been laid off, and they too are soon on the verge of being evicted. Eddie bravely sells his beloved jalopy, then decides he and Tommy should seek their own fortune, leaving two fewer mouths to feed.

Step one, of course, is to hop a passing freight. They meet a girl their own age, Sally (adorable, freckle-faced Dorothy Coonan), a tough cookie traveling alone dressed as a boy. They are soon part of a community, with hundreds of bums crowding onto the trains and trying to evade the railroad cops who wait in every freight yard. Realizing they have the cops outnumbered, they decide to put up a fight, pelting the police with eggs and fruit. When they find out that a brakeman (Ward Bond) has raped another of the girls traveling in boys' clothes, they mete out vigilante justice. It's easy to imagine audiences cheering at these assaults on law and order. In a later, even more shocking scene, the cops come to clear out a shanty-town where the young vagrants have been living; again they fight back, but the cops turn fire hoses on them. Things get even bleaker when Tommy is run over by a train and loses his leg. Edwin Phillips is poignant without mawkishness as he tries to shrug off his loss, as he broods over being a drag on his friends, and as—in the film's last scene—he miserably watches Eddie turn handsprings down the street. Frankie Darro does his usual Cagney impersonation (in a hilarious touch, when he runs into a movie theater a Cagney film is playing) but shows real talent and presence. Sadly, none of the three young leads went on to prominent careers. Dorothy Coonan (a spiffy tap dancer too) took the role of Mrs. William Wellman.

The story is packed with incident and sprinkled with comic relief, some from Sterling Holloway, but it's not really a story as much as a portrait of a time, a people, a predicament. It's amazing and yet completely credible how quickly two middle-class boys turn into ragged panhandlers (they don't even ask for dimes, just nickels), one a cripple, one stooping occasionally to petty theft. The hobo community is painted warmly, maybe sentimentally, as loyal, diverse and supportive (blacks and girls are treated as equals). But no one is having any fun; they're not wild, just bone-weary. Eddie, Tommy and Sally wind up in New York, living in a garbage dump; here their fates take a turn for the worse and then an improbable turn for the better. The kindly judge who lectures them on how things are going to be better now, they are going to get a fresh chance, as the camera pans up to the NRA ("We Do Our Part") poster over his head, will likely prompt eye-rolling today. But the audience probably cheered for this too: think how badly they wanted to hear it. The last-minute idealism fails to dull the force of the movie, which approaches the biting austerity of Woody Guthrie anthems like "Hard Traveling" and "I Ain't Got No Home in this World Anymore."

A land without hope

[1930s_Time_Machine · 7/10 · 23 March 2024]

I'd stupidly avoided this film for years - why would I want to watch a film without stars, with just a bunch of scruffy teenagers? The answer I now know was: because it's made by William Wellman.

For young people like those in this picture, it really must have felt like this was it. They never knew anything different. Life's never going to get better, this was the new normal. This really gets across the sense of sheer hopelessness and utter desperation. If you're looking for a 'time machine' film that doesn't just give you a taste of the era but immerses you totally like you've been dropped into quicksand, look no further.

I've never really liked Frankie Darro, he never came across as being that genuine and this film didn't change my opinion. He's not a very good actor and neither are his colleagues in this but somehow that slightly amateurish style makes this seem more authentic - it's like we're not watching actors, we're watching real kids trying to tell us about themselves. This approach along with Wellman's professional and dynamic style makes this utterly compelling. And it was of course based on reality: in 1933, a quarter of a million teenagers were roaming America searching for food, for shelter, for a future.

It's almost impossible to imagine that such a situation existed in a developed country not too long ago but this film makes it so real. But don't think that this is just a cold documentary - it's an exceptionally engaging drama.

Neither is it all doom and gloom. Being made by Warner Brothers you know it's going to be gritty and realistic but there's also their obligatory message of hope at the end delivered by an FDR 'avatar.' Even that tacked on ending works brilliantly. FDR had just been elected and virtually the whole country was excited about what he was going to do to fix the country so that message is as much an immersive trip back to 1933 as is the despair you experience earlier.

Riveting Depression-era social drama

[sdave7596 · 9/10 · 28 June 2009]

"Wild Boys of the Road" released by First National/Warner Brothers Pictures in 1933, is a harrowing story of a group of teens who hit the road in Depression-ridden America. It is 1933, and the whole country is mired in poverty, with millions losing their jobs. There was no social safety net just yet -- no unemployment insurance, no food stamps, etc. When you lost your job, you had nothing. Actors Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips shine in this story of two teens who are forced to hit the road when both their families lose their jobs. They feel with one less mouth to feed, their families will be better off. Both of them hop the railroad cars, seemingly to nowhere, and soon are joined by many others doing the same thing. There is a charming girl (Dorothy Coonan) disguising herself as a boy. She is tough because she has to be to survive. Soon they are joined by hundreds of others. They live in squalid camps, fight the police, and scrounge daily just to feed themselves. All of the actors are good ones, and the living conditions are not prettied up. This is where Warner Brothers as a studio showed realism where other studios felt most Americans just wanted glamor to escape their troubles. The ending of the film is a bit unrealistic, as a sympathetic judge decides not to incarcerate the teens after they ran from the police and racked up charges (not likely!). But, this is still a gem of a film, and it never really seemed to get the recognition it deserved. William A. Wellman, the master director, gave us this and many other wonderful films.

Good solid depression era melodrama

[funkyfry · 7/10 · 19 September 2013]

This is an interesting picture from the early 1930s by William Wellman, known already at that time for pictures centering around male companionship under pressure. This one takes Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips, then adds pert Dorothy Coonan to the mix, on a road adventure that fitfully represents the dark side of the teenage hobo life, and then crashes to an unconvincing closing.

The film takes enough time to show us that Darro and Phillips were "ordinary kids" (albeit Darro has a bit of a fixation on Jimmy Cagney) of small town America, throw into a life on the road through no fault of their own. It's wonderful the way that all 3 of the principals are constantly trying to act tougher than the quiet moments of the film reveal them to be in their true selves. The film shows how police and railroad officials persecute the traveling kids, including a really excellent set piece scene where cops break up a hobo camp with high powered water hoses.

Wellman keeps things moving at the exact right pace, the whole thing feels just real enough to be convincing, but not excruciatingly "realist." It only lets us down at the ending, a conclusion so ill-fitted to its picture that it's quite easy to believe this ending was forced on Wellman by WB executives more concerned with glamorizing FDR's NRA than with depicting true misery in America. With a more convincing ending, this could have been a total classic for all times.

Three for the road

[dbdumonteil · 10/10 · 14 July 2008]

Among Wellman's strong production of the thirties ,"Wild boys of the road" and "heroes for sale" are the stand outs.Released in the short space of one year (with three other movies ,including the excellent " Lilly Turner" ) ,it was ,along Frank Borzage's and Mervyn Le Roy's works,the best American cinema of the era.

The first pictures reveal nothing of the harshness which will follow.It's a graduation ball ,but boys have to pay 75 cents to enter. Those are the depression years and the price to pay is very high. Eddie and Tommy have got to leave their families because their parents cannot feed them anymore.So they hit the road and they meet Sally.Their friendship keeps them together ,and with the other kids they meet along the way ,they all stand together when the men in black want to drive them away from the freight trains,or from their shanty town ,or when one of those hateful adults rape one of them.

The lines always ring true and many scenes are admirable:

Eddie's last hours in his dear home: "I did not like that costume mom!" and the nod to the mother;the old car sold to a junk man ;the empty garage.

Tommy trying to crawl out of the railroad track;his operation;all the things he "won't have to do now" .

Sally's aunt's apartment:there's a similar scene in Borzage's "Little man what now?" when the lovers come to a relative 's place in Berlin .

Eddie telling the judge about his plight ;the young actor is so convincing that he will drive you to tears.

My favorite scene: Eddie doing a cartwheel across the sidewalk and suddenly realizing his pal cannot do that anymore ;he goes to him and takes him in his arms.

Follow Eddie,Tommy and Sally on their rocky road:you will never forget them.

Children of the Depression

[atlasmb · 7/10 · 4 December 2019]

A depression era story about two young men who strike out on their own in order to not be a burden on their families, "Wild Boys" is a harrowing tale of survival on the road. The acting is fairly good for its time, but the story---though somewhat realistic---is overly dramatized in spots. The ending, with its almost-predictable "I represent every man" courtroom speech, is extremely heavy handed.

Still, the film provides a glimpse into the 1930s lifestyle and serves as a counterbalance to the escapist films that Hollywood marketed to the masses, despite its ending.

The main characters are engaging and easy to watch, including Dorothy Coonan, who would marry director William Wellman soon after. Eddie Smith (Frankie Darro) is a chipper optimist throughout the film, making him the hero of the story. As such, he never really makes a complete character transformation throughout the story's arc. But Darro plays Eddie with so much energy and conviction that the viewer invests in his struggle. This is not Andy Hardy negotiating dating life or dealing with adolescence; the stakes are much higher and they are not sugar-coated.

The roughest toughest and the best.

[ptb-8 · 13 September 2011]

This astonishing William Wellman film from mid 1933 is simply a masterpiece of neo realist cinema. Histroy raves about THE BICYCLE THIEVES and THE GRAPES OF WRATH but in 1933 years before those excellent struggle films of social decay and recovery came this absolutely riveting mini epic of hobo teens on freight trains battling every social and climate element to survive. the pristine DVD available now will truly amaze you. Crystal clear camera imagery akin to the magnificent black and white books from Ansell Adams, but as a 1933 film. Along with I WAS A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG made a year or so earlier, you could not find a more heart-wrenching and emotionally stirring depiction of the brutal reality and its effect on the human spirit imaginable. These early 30s WB Vitaphone talkies should be hallowed as genuine social pop art of their time and rightly recognized as an irreplaceable depiction of an era and a humanity for film students and anyone studying the 20th century. The scenes aboard the roofs of the freight trains, the magnificent clear sharp black and white photography and the sheer bravery of the production let alone the lives depicted makes WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD one of the most rewarding films of any genre you could imagine discovering. And Frankie Darro! What a magnetic teen star he was.... All thru the 30s and 40s in films like BOY SLAVES and BOWERY BOY films and even ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES the ideas here were recycled and exploited... but the absolute pinnacle of the genre is this 1933 film WILD BOYS OF THE ROAD.

Social relevance

[lreynaert · 10/10 · 13 May 2014]

William Wellman's movie gives a formidable impression of the human dramas provoked by the economic depression in the 1930s. Fathers lose their job. Families cannot feed their children anymore: 'our folks are poor. They can't get jobs and there is not enough to eat.' Children leave the family house for 'the road' (freight trains) looking for a glimmer of hope: a job. They survive through panhandling and petty theft. They are continuously harassed by the police for they are considered as 'enemies of society' by those who have money or who still have a job. One of the main characters of the movie translates the grim mentality against the outcasts perfectly: 'You send us to jail, because you don't want to see us.' Of course, to create a happy end, ONE of the millions on welfare or 'on the road' finds a job. But, can he find the money to by the uniform he needs? So, no happy end?

William H. Wellman shot one of the best US movies ever made (The Ox-Bow Incident). His themes are a far cry from the 'star' and other 'wars' of today with their apologies of pure violence for the sole purpose of domination. His movies excel through their realism, their 'human' psychology and, like here, through their social relevance (the naked struggle for survival of the have-nots in a world dominated by the haves). A must see.

Dark but uplifting

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 17 December 2019]

"I knew all that stuff about you helping us was baloney. I'll tell you why we can't go home - because our folks are poor. They can't get jobs and there isn't enough to eat. What good will it do to send us home to starve? You say you've got to send us to jail to keep us off the streets. Well, that's a lie! You're sending us to jail because you don't want to see us. You want to forget us. But you can't do it because I'm not the only one. There's thousands just like me - and there's more hitting the road every day."

This film is William A. Wellman's message of empathy with those impoverished by the Depression, especially children, and in that big blue eagle of the NRA we see on the wall (National Recovery Administration, not the gun folks), a promise that better times were coming. Hang in there and hang together, he says, you'll get a leg up, and if you follow through and do your part, things will get better.

For being 'wild boys,' the two main characters and their compatriots sure are decent, and maybe almost too decent. To be clear, there is darkness in the film - a rape on the train, mob violence leading to a death, and a horrifying amputation to go along with the homelessness and threat of starving. Because the main characters are such upright kids though, and because they meet at least a few empathetic adults along the way, some of the edge to the film seems eroded, when maybe a little more would have amplified the message. To film audiences in 1933 who were about four years in to the Depression, I don't think more was necessary though, and maybe that's why studio boss Jack Warner had Wellman change the ending (something I usually dislike, and was only lukewarm about here).

Frankie Darro and Dorothy Coonan are both charismatic leads, and in addition to all the earnest talk under the desperate conditions they find themselves in, get a chance to show off their tumbling/dancing skills. Darro was just 16 and in the mold of James Cagney (and starred with him that year in 'The Mayor of Hell'). Coonan was 20, had danced in small parts in films like 'Gold Diggers of 1933,' and would wed Wellman after working on this film and remain his wife for 41 years, until his death. They're both buoyant and charming to watch, which goes along with the uplifting message.

Gee, Thanks, Judge!

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 8 May 2011]

This is director William Wellman's unsparing scenic tour of America in the Great Depression from the children's point of view.

Frankie Darro and his friend Edwin Phillips feel they are a burden on their unemployed parents so they impulsively pack their bindles and take off on a freight train. They meet vagabond Dorothy Coonan and the three rootless young teens become pals.

They travel through the Midwest to Chicago, through Ohio, to New York City. For the most part the residents they meet are hostile, but there are times when these young bums form packs and manage to live together in garbage dumps and storage areas full of large sewer pipes. The cops leap at any excuse to drive them off. They are, when you come right down to it, pretty unsightly -- and socially bankrupt.

There are many hardships and they're depicted rather brutally by Wellman. A young girl is raped by a railroad goon. And one shivers when poor Phillips collapses on a rail, is run over by a train, and has his leg amputated on the spot by a reluctant but ultimately essential doctor.

In New York they build a shack in a garbage dump and make a few pennies pandhandling on the streets. Coonan tap dances to Phillips' mouth harp. But Darro is innocently swept up in an attempted hold up and the three are collared by the police.

The three tough it out before the kindly judge. Naturally they refuse to cooperate with any authority because, after all, the authorities have never exactly cooperated with them. Darro speaks for all of them when he tells his story and defies the judge to send them to a reformatory. The judge, though, has a son their own age and he's not a bad guy. He sees to it that Darro gets the job he wanted as an usher, that Coonan can be sent to a foster home in return for some light housework, and that Phillips will find a job doing a one-legged ballet dance in the circus. I just made that last part up. Actually, the judge does find a suitable place for all of them and pats Darro on the head while making them promise to return to their parents as soon as they've earned enough money. Darro stops sobbing and beams up at the avuncular figure behind the desk. I don't think he says, "Gee, thanks, Judge!," but he might as well have.

This came out in 1933 before the code was imposed on movies. I don't think it could have been made AFTER the code. It's Wellman's most socially conscious movie and his most didactic. Darro's speech before the judge is almost painful in spelling out the things that we, the viewers, already know. It could have come from one of New York's homeless people in an episode of TV's "Law and Order." It's an engrossing film. You're not likely to fall asleep or switch channels.

What stands out is the grinding poverty contrasted with camaraderie

[jmtpubs · 8/10 · 16 December 2013]

I watched Wild Boys of the Road expecting to see something hokey - instead, I saw a heart-wrenching depiction of the poverty and homelessness that was common during the Great Depression.

Realistic in its portrayal of life for transients seeking better lives, Wild Boys follows a gang of teens who take to riding freight cars when their parents are plunged into economic turmoil. Continually battling railroad police, smarmy characters eager to take advantage of the desperate, hunger and the elements, protagonists Eddie and Tommy ride the rails, being rousted from towns by local law enforcement at every stop. They form a bond with a third rider, Grace, who initially intends to stay with an aunt in Chicago but continues to travel with the boys when the aunt turns out to be a madame and her "house" is raided by the vice squad. The rape of one of the girl riders and subsequent street- corner justice administered by the boys and the scene in which Tommy's leg is severed by a passing train are powerful.

There actually is a happy ending to this movie, and the speech Eddie gives to the judge once he, Tommy and Grace are arrested is both notable and relevant today. Roosevelt's New Deal stimulus spending had just begun, and Eddie asks the judge, "..the government gives help to the breweries, it gives help to the farmers, it gives help to the bankers....when will anyone help us?" I've heard the same question asked in 2008.

A youth-driven depression gem by William Wellman. All you needed in the Depression Era was hope and a film like this

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 7/10 · 18 June 2023]

Wild Boys Of The Road (1933) : Brief Review -

A youth-driven depression gem by William Wellman. All you needed in the Depression Era was hope and a film like this. William Wellman had an Oscar-winning classic in his pocket before moving to the talkie era, and whatever sound pictures he made, this one should top the list only after "The Ox Bow Incident" (1943). What a powerful film for its time and what a vivid presentation of society's issues! Unemployment has been a major issue for any country in this world, and even a giant like America couldn't protect itself from getting hit by it. Hollywood has made so many good films during the depression era, but Wild Boys Of The Road has to have a special place in the list of depression flicks. It makes the topic even more sensitive and meaningful by taking us through the lens of youth. The teenage boys, who should have been in school getting themselves busy with the books and flirting with girls, were thrown on the road and rails. How difficult it must have been for the boys then. From hiding from raildicks to begging on a road just to get a decent job and a home-imagine, the youth had to go through it, not adults. The same thing I saw in John Ford's classic "The Grapes Of Wrath," but there they were all adults, and here, every single one of the main characters was a teenager. After all, we all know there is a light after a dark phase, and it's by default. All you need in such times is hope, patience, unity, and courage to stand against all odds, and sooner or later, you are going to have your happiness back. Wild Boys Of The Road is about that horrible time youth had to face; it's about fighting society for your existence and then goodwill taking over an evil in you. William Wellman, you beauty! More than anything else, the timing of this film matters the most. You just had to feel what all middle-class families felt during the recession period, and this film will stay in your memory forever.

RATING - 7.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Incredible characters triumph over realism in achingly modern film

[LuvSopr · 10/10 · 26 March 2012]

This is truly one of the best movies I have ever seen.

I can't help wondering how successful this movie would be today, if anyone dared to make it. Can't you see the fierce debates over "Team Eddie" or "Team Tommy"? The debate over the treatment of Sally? The oceans of slash fic for Tommy/Eddie? You truly CARE about Tommy, Eddie, and Sally. Unlike Wellman's other 1933 parable, Heroes for Sale, these are not simply symbols of America's decline or revival. They seem like people you want to know, people you feel like you do know.

From the very start of the movie, character work carries the day, as we slowly watch Eddie and his family sink further into poverty. This is a very refreshing type of casting, as Frankie Darro, who seems more like a Dead End Kid, is the product of the average family, with a happy life, while Edwin Philips as Tommy, who is a much more traditional young leading man (he looks startlingly like Ryan Phillipe at times), is from an unseen home, struggling with poverty from the start, struggling with being an outsider.

Eddie gets the bulk of the character work in this movie, to the point that it's astonishing just how much you also grow to care about Tommy and Sally. Things happen TO them, but this could easily reduce characters to just being plot points. That doesn't happen here. There is something so real about the way Tommy, Sally, and Eddie interact (even the way Tommy and Sally vent about Eddie when he's absent). The way they look at each other, talk to each other, interact.

Sally is probably the most one-dimensional character of the three. However, the sweetness and toughness of Sally stays with you, as do her natural relationships with Eddie and Tommy. She and Tommy both live through Eddie, which means they are somewhat wary of each other, only bonding over his foibles. She and Eddie have an immediate bond, but fortunately, the movie veers away from any romance between them.

The emotional core of the movie is the bond between Eddie and Tommy. It's a cliché to bemoan today's fear of affection and closeness between men, but this movie drives that point home. If Wild Boys of the Road were made today, Eddie and Tommy would fight over Sally. Eddie and Tommy would only be allowed a few fleeting moments of close friendship if it was followed up by "I'm not a (insert slur)", ha ha ha. I hope people will look at this movie, really look at it, and see the poignancy you can mine from a close friendship like Eddie and Tommy. The scene where Eddie consoles Tommy as Tommy's leg is amputated is harrowing, but the moment which will stay with me for a long, long time is when Eddie does a flip, and, seeing the sorrow on Tommy's face, runs up to him, trying to comfort him, ending in one last final glimpse of their friendship. Superb. One of the best scenes ever in film.

The true triumph of the movie is that it moves past the realm of a message picture. William Wellman was unhappy that his downbeat ending was changed, but unlike the odd, self-referential last scene of Heroes for Sale, the changes just add to the power of Wild Boys of the Road. You grow to love these characters as you see them go through hell. You don't need to see them consigned to the darkness to get the point of the film. The film has made you feel so close to them that you want them to be happy, so much so that you can even handwave the dated "happy" fates of Tommy and Sally, and just focus on that wonderful, moving, melancholy final scene.

"Jail can't be any worse than the street. So give it to me!"

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 18 November 2014]

Engrossing Pre-Code drama from William Wellman about two teenage boys (Frankie Darro, Edwin Phillips) who leave home to try and find work so they won't be a burden to their unemployed parents. They hop a freight train where they meet a runaway girl (Dorothy Coonan). The trio stick together as they travel and find out how dangerous life on the road can be.

Darro, Phillips, and Coonan are terrific. Coonan actually married the director William Wellman after this film. They were married forty-one years and had seven kids. The rest of the cast features some fine character actors like Robert Barrat, Sterling Holloway, and Grant Mitchell. Ward Bond plays a rapist railroad brakeman. Wellman's direction is superb, which I'm sure will surprise no one. Great look at Depression-era America. Gritty, tough, and packed full of social commentary like only Warner Bros. could do in the '30s. Also, being a bit of a train nut, I loved all the train scenes. Cop-out ending is a drawback but not enough to ruin the film for me.

Wild emotions on the run

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 20 March 2020]

The title of the film sounded interesting, and luckily it is not a misleading one as 'Wild Boys of the Road' is exactly what one expects from a title like that. The bringing a lump to the throat subject matter, always a selling point for me when it comes to watching a film, and positive reviews further made me want to see it. As well as having liked what has been said of William A. Wellman's work. Of the cast, the most familiar names to me are Grant Mitchell and Sterling Holloway (the latter through his Disney voice work).

Found 'Wild Boys of the Road' to be an excellent film and one of Wellman's best. Very emotional and it hits hard. It has a serious subject amongst a very difficult period and handles it in a uncompromisingly realistic yet sensitive fashion, that mostly apart from one part has honesty and realism. 'Wild Boys of the Road' is very well made, wonderfully acted (a couple of actors also being against type) and beautifully written, with very little being jarring.

As others have said, 'Wild Boys of the Road' only falters at the end, which is the film's only real drawback. Its over idealism just doesn't ring true, with it not being realistic in comparison to what goes on in the story and what it was like in that period.

Other than that, 'Wild Boys of the Road' is excellent. Mitchell is affecting in his role, Robert Barrat gives one of his more sympathetic performances and effective in that regard (different from roles he usually took on) and Holloway doesn't overplay. All the acting is on point, but it's the three young leads that make the biggest impression. While Dorothy Coonan and Edwin Phillips are note perfect, Phillips having some truly powerful moments (especially with his leg, that wrenched my gut as did the whole intensity-filled sequence that caused it), the film acting-wise belongs to an outstanding Frankie Darro in one of his best and bravest performances. A performance painful in its realism and both charming and poignant.

He and Phillips have great chemistry together, one with tremendous energy, charisma and charm. None of which gets lost. Wellman directs adeptly, he always knew how to get the best out of his actors in an understanding way and how to explore difficult subjects and settings with tact and not in a way that rings false. The pace never loses its fast energy, and despite the film being short it doesn't feel rushed. The story is always compelling and told honestly and in a way that is vivid, one really getting an understanding of what it was like living in the period, and pulls no punches. Not since my viewing of 'The Train' starring Burt Lancaster has there been as far as my recent film viewings go a more tense or hard-hitting railroad sequence. Only at the end does the truthfulness falter, though Darro's speech is admittedly heartfelt.

Can't fault the production values, beautiful and evocative use of locations enhanced by photography that is beautifully striking on the eyes and atmospheric. The characters are so easy to root for despite their faults and have a likeability without being trivialised.

In summary, excellent and another film that is criminally underseen. 9/10

Great Depression on film

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 6 March 2022]

It's the Great Depression. Tommy Gordon (Edwin Phillips) and Eddie Smith (Frankie Darro) are best friends who leave school to find work with their families struggling. They are forced to ride the rails and live the tough roads. On the freight train to Chicago, they meet Sally (Dorothy Coonan) among the unwashed multitudes.

It's a Depression era film about living in the Depression era. It ends with a hopeful ending and an almost magical ending. While I don't think that it fits, it's reasonable to give this tale of woe a happy ending especially for its audience. There is a semi-realistic treatment of the Great Depression. It could have gone harder but it's impressive that this studio goes there as far as it does.

Vivid social drama from Warner Bros...fine performances...

[Doylenf · 17 October 2004]

FRANKIE DARRO and EDWIN PHILLIPS play depression-era buddies with great chemistry and natural vigor and charm. They are the key ingredients in keeping the story firmly in the realm of believability throughout. An intriguing slice of life for depression weary audiences--one has to wonder what the initial effect was upon release in 1933.

Whatever, it all plays out extremely well except for what appears to be a tacked on ending that gives a positive spin to the tale.

Grant Mitchell does fine work as Darro's depressed out-of-work father who shows his love and respect for his son when Darro sells his jalopy (for a mere $22!!) to help out the family. Interesting to note Ward Bond in an unsavory role as a railroad official who is brutally punished after taking advantage of a stowaway girl.

All of the vivid railroad scenes have been expertly photographed and the incident involving the unfortunate Phillips and his leg accident is powerfully depicted. William Wellman's direction keeps things moving swiftly and satisfactorily for a tense and gripping little social drama told in little more than an hour.

Highly recommended, especially because it's a product of its time and reveals all of the societal ills rampant in the early '30s.

Realistic, Great William Wellman Classic

[tr-83495 · 10/10 · 25 June 2019]

Marvelous William Wellman treatment of the depression and its effects on a young segment of society. Actors Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips work together with a chemistry that is palpable. While the film is dramatic, it is no more dramatic than actual events themselves -- millions of young men did leave home searching for employment and many millions more lost everything they had because unemployment led to default on their homes or inability to pay their rent. President Hoover had just ordered the National Guard to shoot at and kill the unemployed soldiers from world war I that had camped across from the White House and wouldn't go home without their pay or a job. The times were drastic and life-threatening. This movie fits right in, although the ending is too optimistic if looked as occurring in a single moment. The new President, Roosevelt, put these boys and young men to work again, working at needed public works projects, but his programs would have been too late for the boys in this film. This is an altogether film great.