My assumption with That Gang of Mine was that it was the turn of a new leaf, of individual entries focusing on the lesser members of the “East Side Kids.” At last we’d learn something of Skinny and Peewee, beyond their shared love of standing silently in the background! But I was wrong. This wasn’t a television-esque evolution, but a promotion. No longer is Bobby Jordan’s bland but identifiable everyman Danny the lead. Nope, now it’s Leo Gorcey’s freshly-first-billed mug Muggs.
So it’s a change of focus, not a wholly awful thing considering Muggs is the only “East Side Kid” who still shows any signs of latent criminality, hooliganism, rambunctiousness, shenaniganitry, whatever. Oh sure, the boys all still talk about “woik,” “doit,” the “Eoith,” and “Sesame Street’s” “Boit & Oinie,” but Muggs is the lone lad not to fall victim to a Flanderizing, goody-two-shoesizing neuterization.
And the troupe size seems to have changed – yet again. This is becoming commonplace. There are still 6 ostensible “East Side Kids” in Pride of the Bowery, but at the start there is a mere core group of 4. They are at the Vassey Street Boys Club, a halfway maintenance of continuity, even as the casts rearrange with each entry at franchise convenience – Pride of the Bowery also denies us Dave O’Brien’s Knuckles, though I’m sure he’ll be back.
Muggs’ latest per-entry mania is boxing, and he intends to train in the great outdoors, this being the best place to train before the revolutionary discovery of the stairs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Instead, Danny hoodwinks (or bamboozles) Muggs into accepting FDR’s New Deal, joining the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), thinking it a boxing camp. This attempted “comic misunderstanding” gag shall not survive the whole film – or the first 10 minutes. Under-performing premise, eh? (This CCC thing means the East Side Kids are now at least 18, quite an advanced age for the troupe’s underlying youthful attraction – never mind the two more decades they shall spend pretending as “kids.”)
So the primary four East Side Kids (Muggs, Danny, Peewee, Skinny) ship out to beautify our nation’s natural wilderness areas for future generations, where they encounter a boot camp full of likeminded laborers. Also here, for scant, scant screen time, is the troupe’s token Ernie Morrison, as Scruno. Never mind the CCC never practiced integration. And let us be thankful for Scruno’s limited presence, for he is now back to a Boys of the City-style Sambo obsession with watermelons and carrying luggage for dem white folk.
Here at the Thumb (Up Your) Butte CCC camp, Muggs takes an instant dislike to a non-East Side Kid named Allen (Kenneth Howell). Muggs overall rebels at the concepts of work, honesty, usefulness, all principles he does not stand for. But never mind that, for Captain Jim White (silent-era dreamboat Kenneth Harlan gone to seed) suspects there might be some “good” in Muggs – a typical adult position in an East Side Kids picture, to assure jittery audiences that all is A-OK (and maybe to keep Hays’ forehead veins from bulging).
But hell, it’s not just Muggs who fears Roosevelt-o-nomics. Even Danny, the mastermind who proposed six months of manual labor as a misguided attempt to quell Muggs’ mania, chafes at the bit here in the CCC. He feigns sickness, but the camp doc sees through this charade and rather places Danny on log pile duty. All guffaw at his comeuppance.
As proof of Muggs’ inherent nascent goodness – which they rather overemphasize in these pics – he earns the camp’s respect that afternoon during daily mud-replacement duty. Other workers off in the woods are busy felling a tree – a dead tree – which endlessly fascinates the scant three East Side Kids in attendance. “Timber!” The tree hurtles towards Allen, who surely would die as fast as you can say “plot contrivance,” standing agog as the pine plummets (why does no one in movies turn or run when death nears ?). Only Muggs tackles him out of the way.
Captain White, pleased with Muggs’ latest selflessness, offers him whatever “privilege” he likes.
Because this is a boxing picture, in some roundabout way, Muggs demands a boxing ring be built in the camp’s center, so he can wallop upon Allen in general retaliation at Allen’s existence. (This specified hatred for Allen is rather inexplicable, so let’s chalk it up to Muggs being basically an asshole.)
For whatever dangnable reason, White goes along with this premeditated request for violence, and lo does Allen fisticuff Muggs. The combatants are evenly matched, despite Allen’s inexperience and Muggs’ obsession. The entire camp is compelled to watch, leaving White’s office wide open to pilfering by whom I assume is the 6th “East Side Kid” today: Bobby Stone as Willie, and peeking ahead confirms Stone will become a regular series member when no one else is available. So he steals $100, as meanwhile White calls the fight a draw. And yet Muggs remains inexplicably enraged, as he storms of in anger he wasn’t allowed to mutilate a friend.
The following day, Muggs finds he has become a pariah – bad sportsmanship will do that do a person. In this context, Muggs is kept back in camp (with Danny at the wood pile), so White can continue his attempted reformation. A part of White’s latest effort is the arrival of his wife, Elaine (Mary Ainslee, known for her “Three Stooges” films!). Muggs is instantly smitten with her, horniness rendering him idiotic enough not to put 2 and 2 together as to why a woman is here in this strictly no-women social project. But at White’s insistence, Elaine proceeds to romance Muggs down by the lake, in the vaguest possible terms (or “toims”).
One result of this “courting” is that Elaine arranges a “date” with Muggs that Saturday. Normally that’d be out of the question (leave and all); of course White is perfectly happy to grant Muggs his leave, and still Muggs suspects nothing. Then, after a brief and disgusting stopover to depict Scruno now as a flower vendor for no reason, Muggs heads to the Whites’ house. Here, I cannot even guess as to White’s reasoning. Muggs sees him and Elaine leave the house together, not to return, even though all knew of this planned “date.” This is where the movie completely drops any pretext that Elaine’s presence was for any reason beyond getting a female up on screen. She remains in the background on occasion, but her utility is wholly at an end.
Instead, Muggs saunters on over to the Norton Fight Arena, to box instead. This has entirely to do with Muggs’ emotions, and I don’t even wanna consider probing that bottomless dungeon. Rather, a reason to fight I do understand soon arises, as Muggs runs into Willie (the burglar) outside of the arena. Muggs learns of Willie’s kleptomania, and caves to Willie’s pleas that he help him – for Willie needs another $100 to replace what he stole. Well, Muggs is fighting anyway, so it’s an easy enough thing to convince Old Man Norton to grant him $100 for 6 rounds. And even though Muggs does not “go the distance,” he gets that $100 anyway, because the plot demands it.
For reasons having to do with Willie’s general uselessness, it is up to Muggs to sneak this new $100 into White’s office upon return to camp. So of course Muggs is caught. And with a formal hearing coming up for Muggs’ presumed crime, he resolves to hit the road and become a Schwartzwelderian hobo/boxer.
Suspicions are starting to fall upon Willie too, the little wiener, as he says a lot of stupid and artless things about Muggs which prove he is the actual culprit. Danny is the one to overhear this, not an adult, and so Danny chases Willie (this being the 3rd or so time someone has chased Willie in this thing). They battle in the lake like common kaiju, and Danny gets the upper hand – of course.
Willie confesses to White at last, and all resolve to go rescue Muggs before boxing damages his brain (more so, I mean). One admirable thing about these East Side Kids films is how efficient they are with their plots (with the exception of the less successful original East Side Kids). And here, with under 4 minutes left in the film, is all the time needed to establish another boxing match, show that boxing match, have Muggs’ pals enter, and have everything resolved. You could learn a lesson from this, Peter Jackson.
Right, so now it seems Leo Gorcey is the undisputed star of the show – at least until the next entry comes along and proves otherwise. But even with these little changes, the East Side Kids films maintain a fantastic consistency of quality (if not subject matter). The actors, all mostly the same, have a natural screen presence, and have curtailed some of the more irritating tics still boasted by the Little Tough Guys films. Really, they are quite good at what they do, even if their schtick has been softened up with time and repetition. And as a Monogram production, Pride of the Bowery boasts a production value (and mere comprehensibility) far out of proportion with what I am used to from this studio. It could be the East Side Kids were just that popular, that Monogram had to put their best foot forward with their films (not like the pathetic efforts of the Range Busters).
If only there was something more to comment upon…
Related posts:
• No. 1 East Side Kids (1940)
• No. 2 Boys of the City (1940)
• No. 3 That Gang of Mine (1940)
• No. 5 Flying Wild (1941)
• No. 6 Bowery Blitzkrieg (1941)
• No. 7 Spooks Run Wild (1941)
• No. 8 Mr. Wise Guy (1942)
• No. 9 Let's Get Tough! (1942)
• No. 10 Smart Alecks (1942)
• No. 11 'Neath Brooklyn Bridge (1942)
• No. 12 Kid Dynamite (1942)
• No. 13 Clancy Street Boys (1943)
• No. 14 Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
• No. 16 Million Dollar Kid (1944)
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