Hit the Road (1941)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Joe May

Writers:

Robert Lee Johnson (story)
Robert Lee Johnson (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

27 June 1941 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Crime

Tagline:

ADOPTED...BY A DAME! The gang meets a new boss...and she's truthful, tender...and tough!

Plot:

Kids look to get revenge when their fathers are all killed in a mob war.

Plot Keywords:

Gang | Stranger | School | Revenge | Custody

Cast

Gladys George	...	Molly Ryan
Barton MacLane	...	James J. Ryan
Billy Halop	...	Tom
Huntz Hall	...	Pig
Gabriel Dell	...	String
Bernard Punsly	...	Ape
Bobs Watson	...	Pesky
Evelyn Ankers	...	Patience Ryan
Charles Lang	...	Paul Revere Smith
Shemp Howard	...	Dingbat
Walter Kingsford	...	Colonel Smith
Eily Malyon	...	Cathy Crookshank
Edward Pawley	...	Spike, the butcher
John Harmon	...	Creeper
Hal E. Chester	...	Trusty (as Hally Chester)

Runtime:

61 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Universal Pictures

Quotes:

[To Tom, the leader of the Little Tough Guys]
Molly Ryan: You've got a swell chance to steer your mob right. Don't muff it!

Movie Connections:

Follows You're Not So Tough (1940)

The Dead End Kids Universal serials were better than the Universal features...they didn't preach.

Here, they (Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell and Bernard Punsley) are all inmates of a reform school, along with little "Pesky" (Bobs Watson), who was there to be cute and cry a lot, and dang if they all aren't orphan sons of deceased members of the Valentine Gang which was wiped out by Spike the Butcher (Edward Pawley) and his gang a few years earlier. The only survivor of the Valentine gang was Valentine and he was sent to prison.

Later the boys are paroled to the custody of a man using the name of James J. Ryan (Barton MacLane), but Ryan is really Valentine, who has served his sentence, and is living quietly on a stock ranch with his wife Mary Ryan (Gladys George), former gang moll.

Ryan (now reformed) is trying to raise $50,000 to build a trade school to help unfortunate boys. But Tom (Billy Halop)isn't all reformed yet and meets up with a stranger who enlists him in a conspiracy to steal the money. The stranger turns out to be none other than Spike the Butcher, the man responsible for killing Tom's and the other four boy's fathers.

Tom raises a stink when he learns who Spike the Butcher really is, but Spike locks Tom and the others in a basement and goes off to kill Valentine/Ryan and steal the trade-school money.

Sorry, but we can't tell the two or three souls who haven't seen this film and can't figure out what happens next just what does happen next, although the remaining vast majority who haven't seen this film could still write the finish.