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.
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.