Wild Boys Of The Road (1933)

At the height of the Great Depression, two teens (Frankie Darro, Edwin Phillips) leave home to avoid being a burden to their impoverished parents. They become train hopping hobos and later form a trio with a young girl (Dorothy Coonan, who would later marry the film's director, William A. Wellman) disguised as a boy. This is a wonderful, poignant look at the hardships in the depression era and its victims struggling to survive while society views them as vagrants and turns away. I wish the film's last 4 minutes or so weren't so obviously a deus ex machina in the form of a fairy godmother judge who makes everything well. What it needed was a hard hitting last moments like I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG. But those eye rolling last minutes can be readily forgiven because of what preceded. The acting is generally good from the pinch faced Darro, the likable Coonan and the exceedingly appealing Phillips who surprisingly made only one other film. Wellman's direction is tight and economical, clocking in at barely over an hour. With Rochelle Hudson, Ward Bond, Sterling Holloway and Minna Gombell.