An excellently acted social drama about a kid who makes a pathetic effort to escapethe drudgery of his home and work-weary parents and winds up a hunted criminal.Frankie steals a harmonica, is sent to reform school, grows up to be WallaceFord, steals automobiles, becomes involved in a murder-and escapes prison inorder to return to the small town where it all started. "An ironic roadmovie that demonstrates how social inequality leads to crime and exposes the myththat universal education creates equality of opportunity-an independentproduction by a major director of the Christian left, William K. Howard."(TA, NB) Co-scenarist John Bright helped define the thirties gangster film withThe Public Enemy and a string of other titles; a life-long radical, active in theestablishment of the Writers Guild and Hollywood's Communist party, he emigratedto Mexico where he wrote under a pseudonym.