King of the Newsboys

In 1938, Bernard Vorhaus made King of the Newsboys, a depression tale that is implausible and only moderately entertaining. It does offer interesting opinions of the class divisions in the U.S. at the time.

Lew Ayres stars as Jerry, who is unable to keep a job and has a hair trigger temper. He's in love with Mary (Helen Mack), who lives in the same tenement that he does. His foster mother, Alison Skipworth, is an old Irish scrubwoman.

Mary, yearning to break free of her ghetto, lets herself be squired by a rich man (Victor Varconi). Ayres responds with anger, and tells her that they will get married and things will improve. But then he goes and slugs a cop, but Skipworth pleads with him before the judge, who instead of jailing him gives him a job as a newsboy. Mack leaves him for Varconi.

Ayres, along with his ne'er-do-well buddies, turn out to have a knack for selling. In a very unlikely scene, he barges into the offices of one paper, telling them how to improve their circulation. In just a matter of months he has a thriving business, a penthouse apartment, and a box at the race track.

When he starts publishing his own tout sheet at the track, he treads on Varconi's business, who has his men roughed up. Ayres then starts dating a society girl (Sheila Bromley), who sees him more as a distraction, and is aware that their class differences would never allow for a marriage. Ayres loses everything in pursuing her.

This was a very low-budget B picture--shots of Times Square are rear projected behind the actors, and the direction is crude. Some of the goons that work for Ayres are funny, especially one called Lockjaw, who at one point has to wear a dress. But otherwise this film is not very good, and at only 68 minutes seems to have left out things, though I would not have wanted to watch a longer film.