Road to Ruin (Blu-ray)

One of the most popular films of the exploitation cinema was Willis Kent’s The Road to Ruin, about a group of wholesome high schoolers whose flirtations with vice launch them down a slippery moral slope to death and degradation. Unlike the genre’s more campy and hysterical scare films, such as Reefer Madness, The Road to Ruin is a finely crafted melodrama that is deceptively effective, building to an unexpectedly devastating climax. Filmed first as a silent in 1928 and then remade as a talkie in 1934 (both of which are featured in this edition), The Road to Ruin owes much of its success to actress Helen Foster, who stars in both versions as the love-hungry teen whose need for acceptance leads her to Jazz Age perdition. Newly restored from archival 35mm elements, The Road to Ruin is presented in cooperation with Something Weird, the Sonney Amusement Enterprises Film Collection, and the UCLA Film & Television Archive.