Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

kidboots Just through being her usual feisty self and trying to fight for better pay and parts Ann Dvorak found she wasn't at the top for very long. But with her luminous, compelling talent she made sure whatever the movie (even the most unentertaining Perry Mason) - she was going to make her role stand out. "Girls of the Road" was her last American movie for a while - she went to Britain with her husband Leslie Fenton, enrolled in the Woman's Land Army and drove an ambulance during the war.Beautiful Kay Warren (Dvorak), the Governor's daughter decides to go undercover to try to help and expose what is a huge, topical problem - runaway girls, who become road hobos and face rape and worse through life on the road. She almost ends up as a statistic on her first ride with an over fresh salesman and eventually teams up with Mickey (Helen Mack) a tough veteran of the roads (but of course with a heart of gold)!!! Kay finds life grim on the road, constantly being forced to move on, being incarcerated where they have the indignity of being hosed, then ridden out of town on a rail. With women hungry hobos leering out of the freight cars, it is fraught with danger and Mickey, who may have had an unpleasant experience is fearful, and determined not to ride. Every girl has a story - Irene is hitching across country to marry her fiancée, she opted to buy a wedding dress rather than pay for a train ticket, another wants to be a beautician. There's always a head girl - in this case it's Ellie (Lola Lane sure looks and acts tough!!!). She runs the makeshift camp where they all end up and although she doesn't exactly say "I'm the boss of this jungle - and I'll smack any dame starting trouble" (like it says on the poster) you could imagine her saying it.The film reaches a climax with the death of one of the girls. Kay manages to alert her father with the help of a kindly lorry driver. I don't know about the comparisons with "Wild Boys of the Road" - that was a very confronting, early Warners "social problem" movie. You just know, in this movie that nothing too awful is going to happen to these girls - it might muss their hair or smudge their lipstick. In one scene involving a caring policeman (Bruce Bennett in a small part) Kay looks stunning in a turban and smart matching outfit, she wouldn't have looked out of place at the Ritz - considering the scene before had them jumping from a moving train.Helen Mack had had a productive career during the 30s, most of her movies carried a big emotional crying scene but "Girls of the Road" saw her almost at the end of her career. Lola Lane started out in early movie musicals ("Let's Go Places", "Good News") then become one of the Lane Sisters (she wasn't really) for the "Four Daughters" series. This movie may have given Ann Doran one of the few parts she could really do something with. She is so recognizable but was rarely a featured player. In this film she plays the girl who steals the wedding dress.Recommended.

bkoganbing Girls Of The Road finds Ann Dvorak as the daughter of the governor of some unnamed state going on the road incognito to get a look at conditions for women who are homeless. Dvorak takes an interest in her father's work and Governor Howard Hickman has just received a confidential investigative report about conditions for women in that situation. What Dvorak does, almost on impulse, is to hit the road herself and see first hand.She falls in with Helen Mack and in turn with others, in the end in a sort of makeshift camp that's run by tough girl Lola Lane. Dvorak sees the problems the women have, the varied situations they come from that have led them to this vagabond existence.Not the least of the problem is that the male of species is looked upon as a predator in many situations shown here. The unspoken lesbianism of the women is also quite clear, especially in Lola Lane's character.There is one death among the women in the film and I won't say which of the characters dies, but the scene is quite moving. I think if you see the film you'll be able to pick out which character it is.The obvious comparisons to make with this is with Warner Brothers Wild Boys Of The Road made seven years earlier. This one doesn't quite have the productions values that the Warner Brothers product did. This was strictly a product of Columbia's B picture unit and this kind of socially significant film had been passé for some time in Hollywood.Still Girls Of The Road does have its merits and is a most curious product of the times.

marcslope You have the tough-talking dames, the innocent-victim girl, the crusading do-gooder, all on the Depression road, but indulging in personality dynamics much like those in "Caged." Columbia pretends that this is social commentary a la "Wild Boys of the Road," but it's untethered melodrama, wildly improbable and directed without distinction. Especially unconvincing is the framing device, where a governor's daughter (Ann Dvorak, always good, but playing such a virtuous character here that she has a hard time making her interesting) decides to impersonate a poor homeless girl, then at the end it turns out the state had the money to help these girls all the time, but the governor needed to be convinced that they really needed help. Still, it's nice pictorially, and Helen Mack, as Dvorak's sidekick (she was also terrific that year in "His Girl Friday"), is a great sarcastic broad.

xerses13 ...the major studio you work for does not want you anymore. Just like today back in the 'Golden Age of Hollywood' the shelf life of female Stars was noticeably shorter then their male counterparts. Three (3) of the Stars of GIRLS OF THE ROAD (1940) are more noted for their roles at their home studios. ANN DVORAK and LOLA LANE at Warner Brothers (WB) and HELEN MACK, RKO. When a studio was done with you it was fade away or find work somewhere else. That somewhere this time was at COLUMBIA.GIRLS OF THE ROAD is a social commentary picture typical of the time and usually done most successfully at the WB. This effort from COLUMBIA though dated is still entertaining portraying the plight of vagrant women. A Governors Daughter played by DVORAK wishes first hand to find out how to solve the plight of these girls. The bulk of her odyssey is a learning experience and building a friendship with MACK. Concluding with the moral redemption of all including tough girl LANE.There were five (5) major studios. M.G.M., PARAMOUNT, RKO, 20TH CENTURY FOX and WARNER BROTHERS. Plus some heavy-weight independents like GOLDWYN or SELZNICK. Now you could move horizontally between these studios and still be on top. The next level would be COLUMBIA, HAL ROACH, REPUBLIC, UNIVERSAL and UNITED ARTISTS. This was still respectable the only problem with working at COLUMBIA was putting up with HARRY COHN who fancied himself Don Juan. It could get worse though you might end up at MONOGRAM, PRC or any of the dozens of poverty row studios that came and went. Some not even lasting a year, fading away just like some their careers.