This is director William Wellman's unsparing scenic tour of America in the Great Depression from the children's point of view.
Frankie Darro and his friend Edwin Phillips feel they are a burden on their unemployed parents so they impulsively pack their bindles and take off on a freight train. They meet vagabond Dorothy Coonan and the three rootless young teens become pals.
They travel through the Midwest to Chicago, through Ohio, to New York City. For the most part the residents they meet are hostile, but there are times when these young bums form packs and manage to live together in garbage dumps and storage areas full of large sewer pipes. The cops leap at any excuse to drive them off. They are, when you come right down to it, pretty unsightly -- and socially bankrupt.
There are many hardships and they're depicted rather brutally by Wellman. A young girl is raped by a railroad goon. And one shivers when poor Phillips collapses on a rail, is run over by a train, and has his leg amputated on the spot by a reluctant but ultimately essential doctor.
In New York they build a shack in a garbage dump and make a few pennies pandhandling on the streets. Coonan tap dances to Phillips' mouth harp. But Darro is innocently swept up in an attempted hold up and the three are collared by the police.
The three tough it out before the kindly judge. Naturally they refuse to cooperate with any authority because, after all, the authorities have never exactly cooperated with them. Darro speaks for all of them when he tells his story and defies the judge to send them to a reformatory. The judge, though, has a son their own age and he's not a bad guy. He sees to it that Darro gets the job he wanted as an usher, that Coonan can be sent to a foster home in return for some light housework, and that Phillips will find a job doing a one-legged ballet dance in the circus. I just made that last part up. Actually, the judge does find a suitable place for all of them and pats Darro on the head while making them promise to return to their parents as soon as they've earned enough money. Darro stops sobbing and beams up at the avuncular figure behind the desk. I don't think he says, "Gee, thanks, Judge!," but he might as well have.
This came out in 1933 before the code was imposed on movies. I don't think it could have been made AFTER the code. It's Wellman's most socially conscious movie and his most didactic. Darro's speech before the judge is almost painful in spelling out the things that we, the viewers, already know. It could have come from one of New York's homeless people in an episode of TV's "Law and Order." It's an engrossing film. You're not likely to fall asleep or switch channels.
Frankie Darro and his friend Edwin Phillips feel they are a burden on their unemployed parents so they impulsively pack their bindles and take off on a freight train. They meet vagabond Dorothy Coonan and the three rootless young teens become pals.
They travel through the Midwest to Chicago, through Ohio, to New York City. For the most part the residents they meet are hostile, but there are times when these young bums form packs and manage to live together in garbage dumps and storage areas full of large sewer pipes. The cops leap at any excuse to drive them off. They are, when you come right down to it, pretty unsightly -- and socially bankrupt.
There are many hardships and they're depicted rather brutally by Wellman. A young girl is raped by a railroad goon. And one shivers when poor Phillips collapses on a rail, is run over by a train, and has his leg amputated on the spot by a reluctant but ultimately essential doctor.
In New York they build a shack in a garbage dump and make a few pennies pandhandling on the streets. Coonan tap dances to Phillips' mouth harp. But Darro is innocently swept up in an attempted hold up and the three are collared by the police.
The three tough it out before the kindly judge. Naturally they refuse to cooperate with any authority because, after all, the authorities have never exactly cooperated with them. Darro speaks for all of them when he tells his story and defies the judge to send them to a reformatory. The judge, though, has a son their own age and he's not a bad guy. He sees to it that Darro gets the job he wanted as an usher, that Coonan can be sent to a foster home in return for some light housework, and that Phillips will find a job doing a one-legged ballet dance in the circus. I just made that last part up. Actually, the judge does find a suitable place for all of them and pats Darro on the head while making them promise to return to their parents as soon as they've earned enough money. Darro stops sobbing and beams up at the avuncular figure behind the desk. I don't think he says, "Gee, thanks, Judge!," but he might as well have.
This came out in 1933 before the code was imposed on movies. I don't think it could have been made AFTER the code. It's Wellman's most socially conscious movie and his most didactic. Darro's speech before the judge is almost painful in spelling out the things that we, the viewers, already know. It could have come from one of New York's homeless people in an episode of TV's "Law and Order." It's an engrossing film. You're not likely to fall asleep or switch channels.