Girls on Probation

Just another one of those Warner Bros. B-films from the '30s where, if the truth were told from the beginning, the whole sorry story could have been cleared up without all the melodramatic fuss rendered here by the fast talking and very dated screenplay.

But then we'd have no excuse to see RONALD REAGAN in one of his apprentice roles as an insurance inspector, JANE BRYAN as an "innocent" girl who just happens to get mixed up with bank robbers, and a whole cast of stereotyped actors from the Warner stock company going through the usual paces.

Aside from Reagan and Bryan, SUSAN HAYWARD has a small role as a girl who reports a stolen dress to the authorities and starts the whole story about a girl (Bryan) who's unfortunate enough to be caught up in a chain of circumstances involving friendship with a "bad" girlfriend. Both of them end up serving time for a bank robbery, but it's only a matter of time before even more bad breaks put Bryan into the kind of situations that only Ronald Reagan can rescue her from.

Done in the brisk Warner style with some tough dialog. After the final shootout, the fatally wounded bad girl says, "I'm on my way to see the boss." Although the plot is silly, JANE BRYAN gives a sensitive performance as the unfortunate girl while Reagan has so little to do he might as well have stayed home. Susan Hayward looks pretty but has only a bit part. Bad girl SHEILA BROMLEY is a nasty piece of goods in a very overwritten role as a spiteful young woman who makes life hell for Bryan.

Okay for a vehicle that played the lower half of double bills in 1938.

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.

"Connie Heath" (Jane Bryan) is a nice young woman who works hard and just wants to to be treated fairly. Unfortunatley, she has a very strict father named "Roger Heath" (Sig Ruman) who disapproves of her friend "Hilda Engstrom" (Sheila Bromley) and forbids Connie to have anything to do with her. Now normally Connie would comply with whatever he father decrees however she chooses to disobey just once when Hilda invites her to a party one night and even offers to let her wear one of her dresses for the event. But what Hilda doesn't tell her is that she stole the dress from the tailor shop that she works at. And this is when her troubles begin. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a decent grade-B film which didn't have much action but still managed to keep my attention for the most part. One thing I should also mention is that, even though the movie poster has Susan Hayward plastered on the front of it, she actually only had a relatively minor role (as "Gloria Adams") compared to that of Ronald Reagan (as "Niel Dillon") and the aforementioned Jane Bryan and Sheila Bromley. Be that as it may, while this was a rather short film (about 63 minutes) I suppose it was worth the time spent watching it and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

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.

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.