User reviews

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

During the "Great Depression", energetic Midwestern teenager Frankie Darro (as Edward "Eddie" Smith) helps his high school buddy Edwin Philips (as Tommy Gordon) sneak into their "Sophomore Frolic" dance by dressing him up as a girl. Admission for girls is free, but boys must pay 75 cents. Later, we learn Mr. Philips didn't have the money because his widowed mother can't find work. To help his best friend, Mr. Darro asks his father to find Philips a job. Then, Darro's dad reveals he's just been laid off. Darro sells his jalopy to help struggling parents Grant Mitchell and Claire McDowell (as Mr. and Mrs. James Smith) make ends meet...

Two months later, both boys' families can't afford groceries and Darro's parents are threatened with eviction. Darro and Philips decide to quit school and leave town by jumping a freight train. Believing they are just "another mouth to feed," the boys hope to send money home, after finding work in Chicago. They learn things are hard all over and wind up traveling with a group of jobless, homeless youth. Darro and Philips are joined by distinctly smiling Dorothy Coonan (as Sally), who is disguised as a boy. Begging, panhandling and job-hunting, they eventually end up living in a New York garbage dump...

Then, an apparent lucky break may derail the trio...

Based on a story called "Desperate Youth" (which would have been a good title, too) by Danny Ahearn, "Wild Boys of the Road" is one of the best films of its genre. The most obvious reason is that it has an excellent director in William A. Wellman. This may also be Darro's best starring role; while not his best acting performance, it's very representative. Watch for him to jump into a trash can and show off his ability to do back-flips. Also endearing are Philips and Ms. Coonan, both of whom have regrettably few film credits. The three have great screen chemistry. Philips should have had more screen work. Coonan became the final wife of Mr. Wellman, and kept busy having children...

There is a lot going on in this film. Mostly, it's a socially conscious portrait of the USA, before Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" changed the country's direction. While realistic, the story unfolds in "comic book" fashion. Cakes are huge and the good kids don't drink or smoke. Cross-dressing is rampant and Philips considers kissing his girlfriend a chore. There are Black extras among the kids and they aren't portrayed as subservient to the White boys. Left unexplained is why Sterling Holloway only soaks one foot in milk. A couple of shocking, for 1933, events occur; one is a rape and the other is best left to your viewing experience. The "stick-up" is dumb, but the end impresses.

******** Wild Boys of the Road (9/22/33) William A. Wellman ~ Frankie Darro, Edwin Philips, Dorothy Coonan, Sterling Holloway