The Dryden will screen Wild Boys of the Road (William A. Wellman, U.S. 1933, 68 min., 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.

The carefree fun of high school dances and graffiti-decorated jalopies is short-lived for friends Frankie Darro and Edwin Phillips when the deep despair of the Great Depression sinks in. With jobless parents unable to find employment, the two teens take to the road looking for work to help support their families. What follows is a harrowing early initiation into the adult world of violence, hunger, and even rape. Wellman cast 19-year-old Busby Berkeley dancer Dorothy Coonan as the lead girl of the road (posing as a boy); she hated acting but loved her director and a year later the two were married. Coonan retired from the screen immediately after marrying Wellman (save for one small role in Wellman's 1945 film Story of G.I. Joe—screening Wednesday, June 10) to raise their seven children, and the two remained happily married until his death in 1975.

[source: Dryden website, 2015-May-25]