"A morose investigation of a high school girl's downfall, and is intended, apparently, as a dramatized lecture to the mothers of adolescent girls rather than as a general entertainment... The deficiencies of The Road to Ruin lie not so much in its amateurish composition as in its dull and unnecessary preoccupation with subject-matter which belongs in a sociological case history."
-- The New York Times

"About 1928, Willis Kent made a silent version of this picture following a number of similar productions most of which, like this, were states-righted and toured for showing to men and women in separate audiences. The picture had a vicarious career with plenty of censor trouble. Not always convincing the arbiters that the picture taught a great moral lesson. In the original production the action was crude and hotly sexed. For some reason the same producer has seen fit to spend considerable coin in a talking version of the story, denatured and with the action greatly restrained...The photography is an unusually good job for an independent producer and the sound is equally good. Several songs are introduced in a road house sequence. Technically, except for the development of the story, this is an unusually good indie job from all angles."
-- Variety

"One of those pseudo sensational exposés of flaming youth as it blazed in the beginning of the dollar gin and hip flask era limps on the Cameo screen pretty well ham-strung by the censors...In a word, The Road to Ruin is scarcely art, but there is some suspicion that it is good commercial property for the side streets. The title is self-explanatory, the story being of the thorns that beset the far end of the primrose path, and of the mental, moral and physical hangover attendant upon dalliance with synthetic rum and synthetic romance. The difficulty is that the film is presented in a manner to create more interest in the whoopee than in the morning after."
-- New York American

"Once again the screen takes it upon itself to indicate to young people the dangers that lurk in the path of young girls, and to point out to parents the necessity of telling their growing daughters the facts of life. This time it is an independent production by Willis Kent, with Mrs. Wallace Reid credited with the story and a share in the direction. The film points its moral without any pretense at evasion. There it is, and let that be a lesson, it declares emphatically. What the exhibitor might be able to do with the picture is rather best left to his own judgment. He should know his patronage and their probable reactions to such films as these."
-- Motion Picture Herald

"In The Road to Ruin at the Cameo [Theater], the cinema broods bitterly over the irresponsible younger generation and for good measure takes some well-rounded whacks at their parents whose reticence in matters of sex and love where their offspring is concerned is responsible for many youthful tragedies. In as scathing a treatise upon the pitfalls of youthful indiscretion and lack of parental concern as I have ever seen upon the screen -- I must admit I haven't seen many -- this Road to Ruin parades the young folks in all their folly. I shouldn't be accurate if I told you that the film is any great shakes either as entertainment or as an indictment, since among the many complaints that might be made against it are that it really doesn't teach any lesson, that it is amateurishly acted and directed, that its narrative is loosely strung together and that it is altogether uninteresting."
-- New York World Telegram

"The Cameo [Theater] has a dingy little case history as its current feature. The Road to Ruin is about as unnecessarily sordid a tale as the movies have ever taken the trouble to film. Unrelieved by comedy or any note of sweetness or hope, it relates the downfall of one Ann Dixon, this week's least amiable heroine."
-- New York Herald Tribune

"May well be described as 'strong stuff' for the average amusement seeker. The picture becomes a preachment, before its close, against parents keeping their daughters in ignorance of life and its complications, and to accentuate the point, situations arise which might be better explained by the family physician than by the public screen."
-- John Scott, [unidentified Los Angeles news clipping, 1934]

Compiled by Bret Wood