User reviews

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 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.

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.

To go out partying, sweet Jane Bryan (as Connie Heath) borrows an evening dress from sassy Sheila Bromley (as Hilda Engstrom). The dress turns out to be stolen (from smartly attired Susan Hayward, in an early appearance). Thus, innocent Ms. Bryan is guilty by association with Ms. Bromley, a "wench" who answers job priority queries with, "Boys are my work."

Soon, Bryan becomes one of many "Girls on Probation". Consequently, she loses her job, and sees her "criminal past" jeopardizing her romance with Ronald Reagan (as Neil Dillon). Veterans Elisabeth Risdon & Sig Ruman (as Roger and Kate Heath) and handsome Anthony Averill (as Tony Rand) help make this cheap tale of degradation fun to watch. Bromley is an irresistibly trashy "bad girl".

**** Girls on Probation (1938) William McGann ~ Jane Bryan, Ronald Reagan, Sheila Bromley

"Girls on Probation" is a B-movie whose biggest claim to fame are a couple very early performances by supporting actors Ronald Reagan and Susan Hayward. Otherwise, it's full of plot holes and often irritating to watch....especially as the film progresses.

Connie (Jane Bryan) is a working lady who doesn't know that she's got a friend who is a bad egg. Hilda is very larcenous...and ends up getting Connie into trouble twice. First, when they go out dancing, Hilda lends Connie a dress...a dress that turns out to be stolen. Naturally, Hilda lies about it and Connie is left holding the bag. Second, Connie moves to another town following this and, surprise, suprise, she finds Hilda in her car....and demands Hilda tell the truth. But Hilda is in the middle of a robbery...and she's waiting in the getaway car....and soon Connie is forced at gunpoint to get in the getaway car! Soon they are chased by cops and Hilda begins shooting at them. Connie strips the gun away from her and forces the accomplice to pull over and the police arrest them.

The cops believe Connie was part of the robbery and Hilda insists she was as well...though WHY and why Connie is so vicious makes little sense. And, it makes no sense that the women are tried TOGETHER (which is odd since Connie is testifying against Hilda) and they are locked up in jail together!

Can the probation department straighten all this out and get to the truth of the matter? Or, is Connie destined to be her girl-toy in the big house?

The plot to this film strains credibility well past the breaking point. So often, Connie behaves stupidly and Hilda's strange actions just don't make much sense either. It's especially confusing and stupid when Hilda re-appears much later...trying to blackmail Connie! So, despite being made by Warner Brothers, it's a B-movie with a script with more holes than a pound of Swiss cheese!! Watchable but pretty dumb.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

The only significance that Girls On Probation has in cinema history is that it was the first role of significance for Susan Hayward who plays Ronald Reagan's date at a party. Susan was dropped by Warner Brothers after this film and her contract picked up with Paramount who saw what Jack Warner missed. Despite Girls On Probation Hayward went on to a great career.

The subject of the film however is Jane Bryan who borrows a dress that friend Sheila Bromley who 'borrowed' it from the dry cleaner she works at. Fine, but at the party that Bryan goes to Hayward spots the dress and identifies it as her's and Bryan is arrested. She tells her story, but no one believes her but Reagan who is taken with Bryan. He's a lawyer and defends her and she's let off with a first offense.

Not good enough for her strict father Sig Ruman who throws her out of the house. She moves to another town, but who does she run into but Bromley and gets whisked into a getaway car from a bank robbery driven by Bromley's boyfriend Anthony Averill. They all get arrested and Jane's now in a real jackpot.

The girl just can't catch a break until a sympathetic probation officer Dorothy Peterson convinces Judge Henry O'Neill to grant her probation. Back she goes to her home town and takes up with Reagan who is now an Assistant District Attorney.

Of course trouble follows and I won't say more because the story gets more clichéd as it goes on. Let's say it all conveniently works out in the end.

Two things connected with this film. Jane met and later wed Justin Dart of Rexall Drugs and retired from the screen. When Ronald Reagan started a political career she got her husband behind him and he became part of the unofficial Reagan kitchen cabinet.

Also when Susan Hayward was at the height of her career in the mid Fifties, Warner Brothers re-released Girls On Probation to take advantage of that. It was inflicted on the public again after Hayward scored in I'll Cry Tomorrow, an infinitely better film than this. I'm not sure she appreciated Warner Brothers gesture.

She survived Girls On Probation and if you see you will too.

When sweet Jane Bryan strikes up a friendship with Sheila Bromley, she gets caught up in a whirlwind of trouble. Sheila's a bad girl, and even Jane's overprotective parents, Elisabeth Risdon and Sig Ruman, can't stop her influence over their little girl. Soon, Jane and Sheila get arrested!

Girls on Probation reminds me of the really old films of 1930 when Hollywood was just getting the hang of talking pictures. There's nothing original about the story or characters, and the acting is pretty hammy-which you might expect by seeing Ronald Reagan in the opening credits. Yes, he has a beautiful smile, but that doesn't mean he's a good actor. I only rented this movie because it was one of Susan Hayward's early flicks. She's in the movie for the first five minutes, and while it's cute to see her during the years where she was taking elocution lessons, once her scene is done, she's doesn't come back.

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.