It is remarkable that under the umbrella of pre-code film we find movies that span from escapist musicals, comedies and romances, to gritty harsh realism that looks at the darker side of society and human nature. The film Wild Boys of the Road, from 1933, is one of those darker films - which gives us a glimpse into the harsher realities of the Great Depression. I have watched a number of films like this lately thanks to the excellent series of Columbia Pictures restorations from the 1930's being shown through UCLA Film & Television Archive, and it is remarkable how filmmakers really began to work with realism and darker themes before the Motion Picture Production Code (Hays Code) started putting limits on film content in the name of morality and decency. You can see the beginning of attitudes and stylistic elements that would later become staples of film noir style in some of these pre-code films.
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| image taken from imdb.com |
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| image taken from Northwest Chicago Film Society |
I really think this is an excellent film. I will not summarize in too much detail because there are already some great summaries available on other websites; I recommend looking at the summaries on these pages: Self-Styled Siren, Twenty Four Frames, and Wonders in the Dark. Instead I wanted to share some great period details from the film that stuck in my mind.
Just for background, this film is about two high school boys who have to drop out of school to look for work when their fathers loose their jobs because of the Depression, and they find themselves riding the rails with a gang of other displaced young people with nowhere to go. Every place they settle into they are turned out of, and every time they seem to be getting ahead they run into bad luck. Frankie Darro, a child star who got his start in the silent era, plays Eddie, the incredibly likable and charismatic main character who keeps the film from falling too deeply into gloominess and depression with his ability to stay determined and optimistic in the face of adversity, and to put his friends and him family's happiness before his own. At the beginning of the film we see his car, Lena, which seems to be reflective of his spirit and attitude towards life; despite being a rough and falling apart, he makes the most of it, laughs at its shortcomings, and loves it for what it is.
This film is also one of the few where we see women riding the rails, hiding their hair under floppy caps (like the ones Zasu Caps make!), dressed in men's clothing to avoid unwanted attention - which reminds me, of course, of Louise Brooks in Beggars of Life.
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| Beggars of Life, 1928 - Louise Brooks. Image from britishsilents.co.uk |
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| Dorothy Coonan Wellman plays a young displaced girl riding the rails |
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| Rochelle Hudson inside a boxcar, heading to Chicago |
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| A sketch by me of Dorothy Coonan in her hobo getup |
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| Some ladies in pants near the train tracks from a scrapbook in my collection |
Having inherited my father's love of steam trains, I really enjoyed the scenes showing the train as the children traveled across the Midwest. Family legend has is my great grandparents went from Montana to Nebraska this way during the Great Depression, and that a kindly railroad employee, seeing that my great-grandmother was pregnant, let her ride in the caboose (great-grandpa had to stay on top of the train, however). Here are some great screen-captures of the train:
Lastly, the film shows the brutal conflict between police and displaced and homeless people in this era; while we are given a bit of a Hollywood ending when the justice system is merciful with our young heroes, scenes like the one below show how local law enforcement was more concerned with passing the problem along to the next city by chasing them out of town than dealing with the annoyance of having a homeless encampment on their doorstep:
