Boy Slaves

This 1939 RKO flick's not as well produced nor structured as Warner's 1933 Wild Boys Of The Road, but does manage moments of genuine grit, plus a few surprises. Like its better known predecessor, it deals with the effect of the Depression era on a generation of rootless boys. All in all, the 70-minutes is a real "find" for old movie fans

Jesse's a rather sensitive lad who leaves his destitute home to seek a fortune "by working hard". Instead he falls in with a tough gang of runaway boys who live a roving hand-to-mouth existence. What direction Jesse's youthful idealism will take now becomes a key question. The gang's leader, Tim, is a natural leader but has become mean and thoroughly alienated from what has for him been an uncaring society. Soon the gang is sentenced to a work camp that operates on debt peonage. There the boys exist under prison-like conditions without hope of paying off their individual debts to the camp.

There's a strong Depression era subtext underlying the various tribulations. In that regard, the movie retains historical interest, despite Bowery Boys overtones. I really like the way Jesse is too scared by the nighttime forest to deliver the crucial help-note. That's a surprisingly realistic turn. Notice too that the boys have addressed the note to "Mrs. President", that is, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklyn's wife, well known for her empathy for the downtrodden (a sign of the times).

There are a number of positive points. Clearly the boys were not chosen for their Hollywood looks, thereby lending an unusual movie appearance. Then too, the addition of a Black lad (Paul White) as just one of the guys seems a bold move. I guess my only misgiving is adding Anne Shirley to the work camp without explanation. She's just sort of "dropped in" about midway through. It's as though the producers suddenly discovered they needed a commercial name on the marquee amongst all the no-names. At least, she's a break from all the ugly guys.

Anyway, despite the hokey title, the movie's a worthy reflection of its era, and deserves better circulation than what it's gotten.

The lurid title is tabloid drama but the film is a surprisingly effective drama of teen hobos rounded up and shunted into working like prisoners on a rural turpentine farm by unscrupulous racketeers. Probably made as RKOs answer to The East Side Kids or The Little Tough Guys or (pre) Bowery Boys, this even has lookalikes to Huntz hall and Frankie Darro. The lead juvenile Roger Daniel is excellent and research reveals he almost immediately went straight into obscurity (maybe the War intervened as he was 15 in 1940) and only turned up in several Monogram teen/rural pix and later their JOE PALOOKA films of the mid 40s in a bit part. Pity, as he is a good young actor. The older teen Tim played by James Mc Callion is exactly like Frankie Darro but plays his part a lot like a young Cagney. Far more successful as an actor and can be seen briefly in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. He had a long film and TV career right up until 1990. One of the kids, Walter Tetley ended up being the voice of Sherman in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons in the 60s. BOY SLAVES is a good small RKO drama worth catching. There is a very clever scene early in the film by a swamp with interesting model work using a model of a freight train 'in the distance'.

"Boy Slaves" is the first movie by James Mc Callion, the tough kid who plays the lead of the young hobos : he plays and looks perfectly like James Cagney in every scene, and some are quite tough like during their final escape. But there are too many scenes in the "East Side Kids" or "Bowery Boys" lousy comic style. I'll have to check his characters in classics like "Vera Cruz", "The Big Combo", "Kiss me deadly". And there's the lovely Anne Shirley, only girl in the gang, before her ultimate character in "Murder, my sweet".

It's also the only movie directed by PJ Wolfson who will be after a screenwriter and producer (the very good "Saïgon" with Ladd-Lake).

The cinematography is by J. Roy Hunt who lightened a few noirs like "Crossfire" and "The devil rides a thumb". In "Boy slaves", he did a fine work with travellings and light effects in the last trial scene.

It's a somewhat Horatio Algerian tale of some wild boy runaways who end up indentured servants in a rural turpentine mill. It's a great study of how the peonage system was being used in America at the time, letting people get goods and food on credit at inflated prices and then making them work it off forever.

It was just an unexpected fine piece of filmmaking given the exploitative title, and in the very end it kind of turns into White Heat as enacted by Mrs. Cagney's 8th Grade Class, And you know what? I liked it.

Highly recommended and quite well shot, with very fluid camera movement and great use of light especially in the final court room scene where natural sunlight seems to be streaming through the windows.

Anne Shirley doesn't show up till the final act, but when she does she's incredible in an absolutely sensational performance. Have you ever seen a performance by an actress in a 1930 or 40 something film where she was actually properly styled and they didn't have her hair set and glamorously made up because she was in the part of someone poor or a child? There were parts of watching her final moments in the film that seemed like it was a present day actress merely filmed in black-and-white. Just riveting. The only way this film could be better would be if Eleanor Roosevelt showed up in a tank with the National Guard at the end.

Despite the Depression, the vast majority of movies coming from Hollywood during the 1930s showed little evidence of widespread poverty and unemployment. Even fewer talked about the plight of kids during this era...a time when untold thousands of kids ran away from home to look for work because their families couldn't afford to feed them. One of the few movies to talk about this was "Wild Boys of the Road" as well as this picture, "Boy Slaves". It's a shame, as the exploitation and mistreatment of kids was rather widespread.

When the film begins, a family is in trouble when the oldest son, still a mere boy, loses his job. His younger brother doesn't want to be a burden to his poor family, so he runs away to seek his fortune. Being only about 12, it's not surprising his prospects are bleak. When he meets up with a gang of tough kids (sort of like RKO's answer to the East Side Kids), things seem to be improving. However, when they are rounded up by the local authorities things become a whole lot worse. A seemingly kind man offers to give the boys jobs...but they are essentially sent to a forced labor camp...complete with barbed wire fences and guards with guns! Soon, they learn that EVERYTHING the company 'gave' them has been charged to their accounts...at ridiculously high rates so that they are now essentially slaves. Then the beatings, rancid food and other forms of mistreatment evident but there appears to be no escape!

I was surprised by this film. Despite being a tad melodramatic and one or two of the kids overacting, the film is a very strong and convincing exposé. It's well made and worth seeing...and a great example of a film with a low budget and mostly no-name cast that STILL is very, very good.

By the way, like the East Side Kids, Dead End Kids and the like, this group of kids acted pretty similar. They also had a black kid (pretty progressive for the era) and dopey kid (like Huntz Hall). The only difference is this group looked a bit younger.