Blazing Barriers

Blazing Barriers concerns a pair of kids on the lam from an attempted robbery who grab a freight train and get way out in the country. On the road like so many kids in the 30s they happen to come across a camp for Civilian Conservation Corps youth. Frank Coghlan and Edward Arnold, Jr. figure this is a good place to hide out until the heat is off.

And of course they get involved with the CCC both in reclaiming the land and their paramilitary sense of discipline. Watching this film I thought of CCC youth in the 30s and how those who were involved with it transitioned to army life in the 40s.

This programmer for Monogram is a salute to one of the most popular of New Deal programs. We could use it now in fact.

Frank Coghlan Jr. and Edward Arnold Jr. are a couple of budding hoodlums, looking out for the easy breaks. As things work out, they have to blow town and take to the road. Finally, anxious for square meals and a bunk, they join the Civilian Conservation Corps. Easy-going Arnold adjusts pretty quickly, but Coghlan is tougher, until he begins to grow up under the influence of pretty sheriff's daughter Florine McKinney.

The Civilian Conservation Corps was one of the more popular New Deal programs. Roosevelt had done something like it when he was governor of New York State, and the prospect of giving young men work managing the national, state and local government land, three hots and a cot, and $30 a month ($25 of which had to be sent home) kept 300,000 off welfare at a time. It's estimated that by the time it closed down in 1942, over 3,000,000 had worked for it. CCC alumni were well thought of, and those who entered the military got early try-outs for non-com spots.

So this movie, which falls into the standard mode of "bad boys make good" actually has something to say. It's running time is eked out by Irene Franklin and Guy Bates Post as two old vaudevillian who are kind to the boys, and start to kindle their redemption. It's a pleasant and watchable movie.

Likeable former child star Frank Coghlan Jr., makes an unconvincing tough guy in this low budget tale of redemption from Monogram, and he's supported by Eddie Arnold's son, who has none of his father's character. Fairly uneventful stuff until the concluding forest fire.

Nicely crafted programmer. No one expects a Ben Hur from the likes of poverty row Monogram. Nonetheless, this 60-minute production is well-paced, engagingly acted, and shrewdly mounted within limits. In short, results again show the vibrancy of Hollywood's B-movie era.

Younger folks may not know about the CCC, Civilian Conservation Corps. It was one of the 1930's New Deal programs meant to alleviate effects of the Great Depression. The government funded Corps employed jobless young men to tend parts of America's great natural forests. Here, city boy delinquents Coghlan and Arnold join up to escape the law. Coghlan amounts to a tough punk on his way to prison unless he reforms. Arnold is his slow-thinking buddy. The movie's main part dramatizes the changes brought upon the toughie by his experience as a Corps member. Of course, winsome sweetie McKinney also helps, (I really like their first meet-up). Anyway, we get an idea of the Corps' paramilitary structure, which makes sense given tough conditions on the outside.

Watch for Gunsmoke's Doc Adams (Milburn Stone) in a featured part early in his career. Then too, there's a colorful turn from Post as a ham actor, and from whoever the guy is playing the murderous hayseed, a really thankless role. However, I'm still wondering about tough street kids at movie's beginning who stroll the streets in suits and ties, no less. Maybe they're applying to Harvard or Yale. Such costuming seems odd to say the least. I guess the talent show that sort of drops in was meant to show the Corps' lighter side.

Still and all, it's a lively little flick, along with an informative peek into a difficult period gone by.