The Road to Ruin

This is a sound remake by Mrs Wallace Reid (who appears uncredited near the end in her accustomed role seated at a desk wearing a tie and a concerned expression as the voice of caring, socially responsible authority) of an earlier, apparently much racier, silent film she had made also starring Helen Foster. The 1928 version, according to Variety's reviewer 'Chic' "was crude and hotly sexed", but had now been "denatured and with the action greatly restrained...toned down to the point of mildness. The director apparently worked with one eye on the censors and the other on the box office, with astigmatism resulting."

Considering that the film is called 'The Road to Ruin', the film certainly spends an inordinate amount of its running time on the road - devoting an awful lot of footage, for example, to a wild pre-Code party which ends with the participants joining in a type of strip poker before all ending up in a swimming pool - before at long last arriving rather abruptly at its final tragic destination. There's also the little matter of Miss Foster's age. She still brings a sweet innocence to her role, but in the earlier version she was already 21 years old; and was by now 27, yet still playing a schoolgirl.

As is usual in such films, one wonders why the slimeball who plies Ann with booze and drugs and then pressures her into an abortion didn't just pick on a more robust girl with looser morals in the first place - of whom there seems no shortage in the film - rather than corrupting this delicate young flower. Nell O'Day as Ann's worldly blonde schoolfriend Eve Monroe, for example (resembling a prettier version of the young Bette Davis), despite obviously already having been round the block a few times as a 'sex delinquent' comes out of the film relatively unscathed; thus raising the possibility that if Ann had gone to her for advice about birth control the final tragedy might have been averted. (Eve obviously gets her glamorous, worldly-wise blonde good looks from Mommy, by the way, as played by an unbilled Mae Busch).

Although she was past being a teenager when the original silent version of "The Road to Ruin" (1928) was made, beautiful Helen Foster (as Ann Dixon) is still an innocent young thing. After hanging out with bad girl Nell O'Day (as Eve Monroe), Ms. Foster begins to smoke, drink, and have sex - nothing too unusual, when you consider the characters routinely being played by the likes of Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, and Mae West. But, things are worse for Foster; she hasn't an abortionist worth his salt...

Filmmaker Dorothy Davenport, aka the widow of Wallace Reid, might have considered casting the beloved couple's real life son Wally Jr. in the film. It might have been exploitive, but that, obviously, was too late a consideration. Despite the material, Glen Boles (as Tommy), Bobby Quirk (as Ed), and their gals are a swell bunch to follow… before degradation takes its toll.

**** The Road to Ruin (3/21/34) Dorothy Davenport ~ Helen Foster, Glen Boles, Nell O'Day

This is a mid-1930s exploitation movie designed to "warn" good Christian girls and boys about the dangers of drinking, dancing, and premarital sex. For the 1930s these were indeed scandalous topics which today seem mundane. Ann, our central character, is corrupted by her fun-loving friend Eve. Eve introduces Ann to the evils of romance novels, smoking, dancing with boys and sneaking snorts of Daddy's brandy. Ann and Eve progress to dating men who are old enough to be their fathers. Finally the girls are caught at a drunken pool party where they are arrested and taken to the police station. While there, they are examined by a doctor (presumably for STDs) and given small cards identifying them by name as "sex delinquents"! Things go from bad to worse for poor Ann...

Wow a card identifying the girls as "sex delinquents" merely for attending a drunken pool party! Ann in particular wasn't even drunk and was still fully clothed at the party - no matter, the cops bust her too as a sex delinquent. I wish I had a card identifying ME as a "sex delinquent"... what a conversation piece that would be!

... from First Division Pictures, and written, produced and co-directed (with Melville Shyer) by Mrs. Wallace Reid (Dorothy Davenport). High school student Ann (Helen Foster) falls in with a bad crowd that's into drinking, smoking, and dancing poorly. Her new goofball boyfriend Tommy (Glen Boles) likes booze as much as he likes pawing Ann, so she gets bored and starts seeing shady character Ralph (Paul Page), who leads her into even darker depravity, like skinny-dipping in the backyard pool, strip dice games, and more poor dancing. Also featuring Nell O'Day as Ann's best gal pal (they read naughty books together).

Routine fare for this genre, this was a remake of a 1928 silent of the same name. There's a lengthy nightclub scene in the middle of the film featuring 3 bad singing performances (accompanied by the aforementioned bad dancing) that made me wish that this one was silent, too. Of course, the ultimate culprit for Ann's degeneracy is her parents inattention, since they're too busy heading out to the "Cotton Club". This morality lesson/time capsule is good for some unintentional laughs. It rates higher than what I have given it if you judge it on the so bad it is good scale.

The usual definition for this is a film that takes a sensationalistic issue and uses it to gain notoriety and attention, by being scandalous or presenting something not normally seen in conventional films.

This is more a sincere morality tale. The co-director, Dorothy Davenport (credited as Mrs. Wallace Reid) was the widow of an actor who died of drug addiction, and then set out expose the dangers of vice.

That distinction is pretty crucial in understanding why it was made and what its context is.

That said, had this not been made right before the Hays office came in and cracked down, it could not have been made. It covers all sorts of issues that soon after would not have been allowed, irrespective of how much they were condemned.