The Road to Ruin

Another of TCM's programming themes was a slightly more esoteric one of movies that had memorable party scenes. One that I hadn't heard of was an exploitation film from the 1930s, The Road to Ruin. Since it sounded interesting, I decided I'd record it, and eventually got around to watching it.

Helen Foster plays Ann Dixon, a "good" girl who lives in what looks like a middle-class area of Southern California and goes to high school where one of the boys, Tommy (Glen Boles) is interested in her. Ann has a friend in the form of Eve, although Ann doesn't want to bring all of her friends home in one go. One night, both of Eve's parents are out, so Eve invites Ann over and Ann's mom says yes because Mom can fend for herself and having the two teens together is better than having one home alone. Eve uses this as an excuse to introduce Ann to mixed drink and bodice-rippers. The horror.

Since this is an exploitation movie, such vices immediately begin to destroy poor Ann's morals. Tommy's got a jalopy, so he, Ann, Eve, and Eve's boyfriend start going off after school to secluded lovers' lane type places where it's intimated that Ann loses her virginity to Tommy although this is oblique since it's still a 1934 film. Less oblique is the way Ann starts spending her evenings, going out with Tommy, Eve, and Eve's boyfriend to roadhouses where they can drink up a storm.

One night Tommy gets drunk enough that he starts foolishly challenging the staff, which is bound to get him in trouble because management doesn't want rowdies here. Another of the patrons sees Ann's discomfiture. That is the much older Ralph (Paul Page), who is experienced enough and rich enough to show Ann a good time and leave her with the impression that she's getting something sophisticated. She's also getting a man who can hold his liquor, I suppose, which also makes him better than dumb Tommy.

Of course, being with an older man spells trouble since we have to have a moral lesson. Ann and Ralph start doing wilder and wilder things, until a party where everyone drinks, plays strip craps, and then goes into the communal swimming pool in just their undies. One of the neighbors calls in the police on a noise complaint, which is how Ann and Eve get taken down to the police station. The matron in charge has each of them given a physical, at which point poor Ann discovers she's gotten pregnant. Ralph doesn't want the baby, and that's going to lead to disaster of a sort you can probably guess.

Looking at the movie 90 years on, The Road to Ruin is surprisingly tame, although I'm guessing this is probably about as far as they could go. Censors in various states required all sorts of edits, and we get the message of how just one drink ruins poor Ann, but really, a movie from today would be much more explicit. The Road to Ruin is a museum piece-type curiosity, but it's not a particularly great movie.