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Girls on Probation (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Extremely silly but highly entertaining crime picture from Warner is "B" movie from start to finish. A good girl (Jane Bryan) gets arrested after her bad girl friend (Sheila Bromley) steals a dress and blames her. The girl gets off due to a insurance inspector (Ronald Reagan) but a little while later is arrested for conspiracy to commit robbery with the same bad girl and her now boyfriend. Once again, innocent but in the wrong place, the girl gets put on probation but soon her past catches up with her as she's now about to marry Reagan's character and is afraid of what he'll think about having a girl on probation. It's amazing how much "story" gets packed into this 65-minute movie but there's quite a bit and it never slows down. I must admit that the movie kept me entertained from start to finish but the biggest reason as to why I can't give this a higher rating is because Bryan's character has got to be the dumbest in screen history. This is coming from someone who watches over a thousand movies a year but this is without question the dumbest character I've seen in any movie. Bryan's character gets herself into so much trouble and it's all because of her doing dumb things and of course all of this blame goes to screenwriter Crane Wilbur who also directed many shorts for Warner. With that said, the performances are all pretty good with Bryan turning in fine work but the picture certainly belongs to Bromley who is perfect as the bad girl. Reagan is fine in his supporting role and early on it's Susan Hayward playing his girlfriend. The ending is downright stupid and brought me to laughs but that's just part of the entertainment to this thing. Fans of "B" movies will certainly want to check it out. Others beware.

Connie Heath is a good girl. Her friend Hilda Engstrom is a bad girl and a bad influence. Hilda gets Connie arrested for a stolen dress and spreads the rumor of her shame. Neil Dillon (Ronald Reagan) is a lawyer from the insurance company. He believes Connie's story and gets her off from the charge. Connie leaves home away from her father to get a job in the big city. She's eager to repay Neil but she is caught in another one of Hilda's problems. Hilda is robbing a bank with her boyfriend and Connie is arrested with the pair.

I have no problem with the acting. Even Reagan is perfectly fine. He is a stiff self-assured boy scout and that's his character. I do have an issue with the blocking of the bank robbery getaway scene. The probation officer is too nice. The roles are too simple and the situations are too convenient. It makes for a simple melodrama and a fine crime drama. It's a basic afterschool special warning against the influence of the bad girl friend. It's an old fashion Lifetime movie.

Excellent film dealing with who you meet up. Jane Bryan innocently meets up with her friend, played in fine fashion, by Sheila Bromley. Bromley leads Bryan into 2 horrible escapades leading to jail for both these characters. Bromley, terrific here, is hard-boiled, vicious and will do anything to please her lover.

After her first run in with the law, when she is cost wearing a dress that Bromley stole, Bryan meets up with future D.A. Ronald Reagan, whose young girlfriend turns out to be a very young SUSAN HAYWARD.

Sig Ruman, as Bryan's father, sheds his comic image here in a totally believable performance as a stern father who will not believe his daughter is not up to no good.

This is an exciting film with a great Hollywood ending.

An interesting example of the fast-paced low-budget melodramas the Warner Bros. "B" picture unit run by producer Bryan Foy churned out by the dozens back in the thirties, this film features the pre-presidential Ronny Reagan as a do-good handsome DA who falls for and protects the very likable Jane Bryan. (In later years Bryan's millionaire husband was to become one of the future president's kitchen cabinet.) Reagan played many dreamboat roles like this one in his Warner Bros. contract days and rarely got a chance to show that he possessed real dramatic talent. At the beginning of the film, the 21 one year old Susan Hayward, at the start of her long career, has a small but very noticeable role. Not only was she remarkably beautiful but she could act! Fans of the great German comic actor, Sig Rumann, ("To Be or Not to Be") will enjoy his transformation from Jane's stern Teutonic father to the proud future father-in-law of Reagan.

Despite the title, like something for National Enquirer Studios, "Girls on Probation" is quite good.

Being from Warner Brothers, naturally the cast is first rate. As was so common, there were great actors such as John Hamilton in small uncredited roles.

Jane Bryan, as Connie Heath, is the star, and what a lovely young woman she is here. And what a shame she retired from motion picture making so early. She died almost two months before this writing, 8 April 2009, and as actress and as human being and as American citizen her death is a great loss.

Sheila Bromley plays the ... uh, "friend" who gets Connie into trouble, not on purpose but just by being irresponsible.

She is perhaps familiar to Western fans as Sheila Mannors, the last name being spelled at least three different ways.

She got the last line here in a moving scene.

Reagan's character was one of his most sympathetic and likable, probably much like him in real life, according to friends.

It's easy enough to be cynical about Warner "B" movies, but for those of us who understand the context, and those of us who can see the sense of life, this is a good movie.