"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.
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.