How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

When sweet Jane Bryan strikes up a friendship with Sheila Bromley, she gets caught up in a whirlwind of trouble. Sheila's a bad girl, and even Jane's overprotective parents, Elisabeth Risdon and Sig Ruman, can't stop her influence over their little girl. Soon, Jane and Sheila get arrested!Girls on Probation reminds me of the really old films of 1930 when Hollywood was just getting the hang of talking pictures. There's nothing original about the story or characters, and the acting is pretty hammy-which you might expect by seeing Ronald Reagan in the opening credits. Yes, he has a beautiful smile, but that doesn't mean he's a good actor. I only rented this movie because it was one of Susan Hayward's early flicks. She's in the movie for the first five minutes, and while it's cute to see her during the years where she was taking elocution lessons, once her scene is done, she's doesn't come back.

Director: WILLIAM C. McGANN. Screenplay: Crane Wilbur. Photography: Arthur L. Todd. Film editor: Frederick Richards. Art director: Hugh Reticker. Costumes designed by Howard Shoup. Music: Howard Jackson. Dialogue director: Harry Seymour. Sound recording: Leslie G. Hewitt. Producer: Bryan Foy.Copyright 3 August 1938 by Warner Brothers Pictures, Inc. A Warner Brothers-First National Picture. New York opening at the Criterion: 19 October 1938. U.S. release: 22 October 1938. 7 reels. 63 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Innocent girl becomes involved in a bank robbery.COMMENT: Early film of Susan Hayward (not her first, however, that was Hollywood Hotel) proves of more than passing interest even to non-Hayward fans. (She has two great scenes, looks terrific, and is her usual fiery, argumentative self). The lead role (despite the billing in the ads for the 1956 re-release) is most skilfully and very sympathetically rendered by Jane Bryan, with an able assist from Sheila Bromley as the no-good Hilda. Ronald Reagan comes over ably enough, though he disappears from the action for long spells and his role is really no more than a support for the Bryan-Bromley plot. Some fine character studies are provided by Rumann (a believable tyrant) and Risdon (her farewell scene at the bus staion is quite touching), Dale and Peterson. McGann has directed with plenty of pace and verve. All told, a fast-movingly suspenseful 63 minutes.

The only significance that Girls On Probation has in cinema history is that it was the first role of significance for Susan Hayward who plays Ronald Reagan's date at a party. Susan was dropped by Warner Brothers after this film and her contract picked up with Paramount who saw what Jack Warner missed. Despite Girls On Probation Hayward went on to a great career.The subject of the film however is Jane Bryan who borrows a dress that friend Sheila Bromley who 'borrowed' it from the dry cleaner she works at. Fine, but at the party that Bryan goes to Hayward spots the dress and identifies it as her's and Bryan is arrested. She tells her story, but no one believes her but Reagan who is taken with Bryan. He's a lawyer and defends her and she's let off with a first offense.Not good enough for her strict father Sig Ruman who throws her out of the house. She moves to another town, but who does she run into but Bromley and gets whisked into a getaway car from a bank robbery driven by Bromley's boyfriend Anthony Averill. They all get arrested and Jane's now in a real jackpot.The girl just can't catch a break until a sympathetic probation officer Dorothy Peterson convinces Judge Henry O'Neill to grant her probation. Back she goes to her home town and takes up with Reagan who is now an Assistant District Attorney.Of course trouble follows and I won't say more because the story gets more clichéd as it goes on. Let's say it all conveniently works out in the end.Two things connected with this film. Jane met and later wed Justin Dart of Rexall Drugs and retired from the screen. When Ronald Reagan started a political career she got her husband behind him and he became part of the unofficial Reagan kitchen cabinet.Also when Susan Hayward was at the height of her career in the mid Fifties, Warner Brothers re-released Girls On Probation to take advantage of that. It was inflicted on the public again after Hayward scored in I'll Cry Tomorrow, an infinitely better film than this. I'm not sure she appreciated Warner Brothers gesture.She survived Girls On Probation and if you see you will too.

Poor Connie Heath (Jane Bryan) can't catch a break. Her father is stern and unforgiving. He doesn't trust her going out or any of her friends. It turns out his mistrust in one friend, Hilda Engstrom, is well founded.Hilda talks Connie into lying to her father and going to a dance he has forbidden. She "loans" Connie a dress she has stolen from the cleaners where they work. Connie gets into trouble but manages to avoid jail time. Her father does boot her out of the house, however.Connie goes to the city and runs into Hilda again. Hilda is sitting in a idling car… outside a bank. Connie decides this is the time to give Hilda a piece of her mind and hops in the car to do so! About this time, Hilda's partner comes running out of the bank, guns blazing. Rather than hopping out of the car, Connie sits there with a puzzled look. She's apparently bewildered by all this. During the high speed police chase Connie gathers her wits and takes the gun. The robbers pull over and the cops find Connie holding the gun.Afraid of her father finding out, Connie decides it's better to go to prison than explain the events. A case worker takes an interest and investigates on her own. She convinces Connie to tell the truth and gets her out on probation.Working for and falling in love with DA Dillon (sounds groovy) Connie thinks her life is back on track. But Hilda returns to try and stir things up again, still talking. Somehow, amid all the nonstop talking of their own, Connie had failed to mention to Dillon that she was fresh out of jail and on probation for the bank robbery.Sound movies had just turned a decade old but the novelty had clearly not worn off. Everything remained dialogue-driven. These people talk and talk… and then talk. No scene is set through visuals, no emotions are described through facial expression. Each and every element is articulated through exposition.The cast is fun and never shuts up. Jane Bryan is cheery despite her character's many setbacks. And she talks about all of it. Sheila Bromley is equally verbose as the diabolical Hilda. Ronald Reagan orates unceasingly as the love interest, Dillon.This type of rapid-fire dialog was a staple of movies during this era and "Girls on Probation" is a jewel of an example. Highly recommended for a look at a typical by-the-numbers production of the 30s.