dougdoepke With a slippery friend like Hilda, a dad like a steaming pot, plus a Cinderella dress that could send her to jail, what's poor sweet Connie to do. Well, we find out over a rather mild 60-minutes. It's a 1930's crime programmer from WB, with the usual WB elements-- a brassy blonde (Hilda), gunplay action, and a righteous hand of the law. Here, however, the sweetness of actress Bryan's Connie overshadows these gritty parts. The likable girl's caught up in a vortex of connivance and plain bad luck, that lands her in jail. At the same time, Connie's radiant close-ups, even at the worst moments, amount to a personal showcase that focuses away from the storyline. Anyway, my favorite part is the women's jail. There's real spark in those scenes, and note how similar the girls look, all slim, young, and attractive, like the result of a casting call.Frankly, the storyline's a big stretch, particularly Hilda and Connie's enduring relationship, and that's despite Hilda's frequent betrayals. In fact, the relationship even overshadows Connie's clichéd romance with amiable attorney Neil (Reagan). (Catch Reagan's 1938 film credits-I'm surprised he ever slept.) All in all, the flick's pretty loosely put together, the elements too wobbly to achieve real impact. Nonetheless, probation comes off looking like a pretty humane idea, which I guess is the movie's main purpose.

kidboots This movie, Susan Hayward's first credited feature, was re-released in 1956, after "I'll Cry Tomorrow", and not only billed her name above the title but in misleading advertising depicted her as a gun moll - "Nice Kid Today - Jail Bird Tomorrow"!!! It must have really thrilled Miss Hayward, I don't think!! As it was, reviewers of the day didn't even notice her. The real bad girl, Hilda, was played by Sheila Bromley, who until the year before had been Sheila Mannors, unfortunately the new name didn't give her career a boost and she remained in obscurity. The star was Jane Bryan, a discovery of Bette Davis, who proved she had a real future in films, until she decided to retire in 1939 for marriage.The title "Girls on Probation" sounds up to the minute, plucked from today's headlines etc but it wasn't, just another innocent girl who gets into a heap of trouble. Connie (Jane Bryan) borrows a dress from "friend" Hilda, not realising that she has "borrowed" it from the dry cleaning shop where they both work. At a party, the real owner of the dress, socialite, Gloria (Susan Hayward) recognises her dress and reports it to the dry cleaners the next day. As luck would have it, the dress (who may be the real star of the movie) has been torn and to cut a long story short, Connie, who is completely in the dark about her friend's activities, eventually has to leave town to make a fresh start.One day Connie sees Hilda sitting in a car and decides to have it out with her, but Hilda, along with her ne'er do well boyfriend, Tony, are in the middle of a bank robbery and Connie, who is bundled into the car, is caught up in the crime. When the law catches up with her, rather than tell her real name and have her parents (her father (Sig Rumann) is a bully) learn of her shame, she keeps silent and is eventually put on probation while Hilda goes to prison. Connie goes back home and eventually gets a job with Neil Dillon (Ronald Reagan) the assistant district attorney, who has never stopped believing in her. Hilda now reappears and threatens Connie with exposure but Connie, determined now to be law abiding, informs the police and the movie ends in an exciting gun battle between the police and Tony, who has escaped from prison. Hilda is hit in the crossfire but manages to have a complete change of personality on the way to the hospital as she wishes Connie and Neill all the best.Even further down the cast list than Susan, was Peggy Shannon, "the girl with the heart shaped face", once an exquisitely beautiful actress who was now almost unemployable due to chronic alcoholism. She played Ruth, who seemed to be head girl in the prison where Connie and Hilda were sent.Recommended.

Neil Doyle 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.

boblipton Warner's Brothers B unit goes for a straight exploitation plot, but manages to stay within the Production Code nonetheless, resulting in a movie that is neither amusingly salacious nor particularly well made -- a look at the plot outline offered by the Internet Movie Database will give you a rough idea of how silly and coincidence-actuated it is.Ronald Reagan seems to have been temporarily typecast as an insurance man at this time. Here he is a lawyer for an insurance company. Sig Rumann appears with black hair, ordering his daughter into the cold night, Sheila Bromley spontaneously develops a nasal tone and the habit of talking out of the side of her mouth and Jane Bryan, in the lead role, tries to present an air of bewildered innocence without once stammering or hesitating.Most of the other actors don't seem to put that much effort into this tripe. Don't you either.