Wild Boys of the Road

Los Angeles: First National Pictures, 1933. Vintage reference photograph from the 1933 pre-Code film.

Shown is Ann Hovey as she is attacked after stowing away on a train by Ward Bond, playing against type as a villainous railroad worker. The rape is not only attempted but takes place, a radical element even in a pre-Code film.

A film that has held up well, in that it breaks the stereotype of hobos as nothing more than restless drifters and delves into what fueled the movement during the Great Depression. Many teenagers, male and female, were forced to leave their homes and ride the rails because their families were unable to provide support.

8 x 10 inches. About Near Fine, with some penciled annotations on the verso regarding another actress in the film, Dorothy Coonan, who would go on to marry the film's director, William A. Wellman.

National Film Registry.

[Book #136691]