The Bowery Boys, Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

40. Dig That Uranium (1956) – The Boys buy a uranium mine out West, in the land of western pastiches. Uranium-hunting gangsters want the Boys’ uranium mine, but the Boys protect their uranium mine and mine some uranium, only to find that their uranium mine is on an Indian reservation, making the uranium the Indians’, not the Boys’, and surely not mine.

That momentary uranium-based silliness out of the way, I promised tragedy here at the end of The Bowery Boys, and here it comes. For Dig That Uranium was the final happy effort the series produced, and even then it wasn’t all that happy. Problems once again arose over troupe leader Leo Gorcey’s megalomania – problems which had previously seen six actors abandon ship, and a seventh never even get on that ship in the first place. Because Gorcey, 40% owner in the series, was an unquenchable showoff and credit hog, stealing lines, screen time, personality, and anything else he could from his remaining costars David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett. Only Huntz Hall was spared this wrath, because Hall’s freedom was essential for Gorcey’s success.

Well, I don’t know what caused Bennie Bartlett to stick around for as long as he did (or even return after Gil Stratton’s short “Bowery Boy” turn), but by now he’d seen the light: Leo Gorcey is an asshole. So Bartlett left after Dig That Uranium. This left Gorcey stranded on the top of his lonely crown, accompanied only by Hall (the lone costar with no cause to leave) and David (Leo’s loyal brother).

That must be a challenging position for any power-hungry movie star high on the excesses of his own success. It doesn’t take much from there to get Jenga!

Leo’s father (and costar) Bernard Gorcey died in an automobile accident on September 11 (1955).

Bernard was a regular mentor to Gorcey, as was his character Louie on screen. A replacement was needed. In film, the new character of Mrs. Kate Kelly, the Boy’s landlady, did the trick. In real life, Gorcey’s new mentor became booze. Add to that Gorcey trying to micromanage Bartlett’s replacement, Jimmy Murphy, a parking valet with no prior acting experience, and no particular talent to boot. These are not ideal conditions to make a movie under, especially not when that movie is set in Las Vegas.


41. Crashing Las Vegas (1956) – A “Sach’s new power” entry, meaning Sach develops a discreditable new power, and runs afoul of the mob. This time he electrocutes himself and can suddenly predict numbers. So it’s off to Las Vegas, in a plot one of the “Futurama” movies also used.

Angry, drunk, directionless, fatherless and friendless, Gorcey took to Las Vegas like a one-man Rat Pack. He rampaged. He appeared drunk on film, following close in the footsteps of former father figure Bela Lugosi. He destroyed all the props, presumably when Jimmy Murphy had the audacity to utter one of the script lines reserved for Jimmy Murphy. Presumably, Gorcey stole Mike Tyson’s tiger.

In this, his darkest hour, Gorcey went all Napoleon in his little fiefdom called the Bowery Boys franchise. He demanded of Allied Artists an increase on his 40% interest in the movies; he was denied. Gorcey stormed off the studio, broke a few more things, and then vomited somewhere. He retired from acting, with the exception of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with featured exactly every comedian even remotely alive at the time. Gorcey then denied The Beatles the rights to his likeness for the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and died.

Sadly for the series, this was one movie into 1956’s four-movie deal with theaters. Three more entries would have to be made, under penalty of something.

Gorcey-less (well, at least Leo Gorcey-less, for David was still about), The Bowery Boys’ sober producers sought someone to take over for Leo. Former minor “East Side Kid” Stanley Clements took over, in the new role of Stanislaus “Duke” Coveleskie. In all honesty, though, Gorcey’s real replacement was Huntz Hall’s Sach, now basically spearheading the series solo. “Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys,” the marquees read, and that’s how it was seen.


42. Fighting Trouble (1956) – Again the Boys work for a newspaper, and again they get embroiled with gangsters. One senses the sour desperation at hand in these films’ creation, as they were just reusing old notions without creative variation now, hoping to run out the clock.

And for a single picture, someone called Danny Welton replaces Jimmy Murphy.


43. Hot Shots (1956) – But now they’re working for a television station, which is new. What isn’t new is the plot that follows, with them using their newfound position to uncover and defeat a gangster conspiracy. Oh those omnipresent gangster conspiracies!

44. Hold That Hypnotist (1957) – As what might’ve been the team’s final effort ever, they go out on what at least sounds like a relative high note, with a more fantastical story than normal. Sach is hypnotized, and discovers that one of his former lives was an English tax collector in South Carolina who had possession of a map to Captain Blackbeard’s buried pirate treasure. So there’s at least piracy and some spiritualist hoo-hah going on.

Even in this mangled new form, The Bowery Boys somehow proved popular enough for producers to order the final cycle of four films, to fill out the rest of 1957 and part of ’58. Credit must go to the professionalism of Huntz Hall, who did what he could to form a new comedy duo style with Clements.


45. Spook Chasers (1957) – The same ghost comedy as always, the only difference being it is now 10 years out of fashion. Simply refer to Spooks Run Wild, Ghosts on the Loose, Spook Busters, Ghost Chasers, etc., etc., etc.

For no reason, a fifth member is added to the “Bowery Boys,” after I swore to you it would only be four members from now on. Eddie LeRoy, your useless bespectacled character Blinky has made me a liar!

46. Looking for Danger (1957) – Told in flashback, Clements character recounts the good old days when the Bowery Boys fought in World War II, thirteen years ago when they were all the same ages they are now. (Odd that WWII is now an appropriate period setting, considering the actors’ own former East Side Kids films were often WWII propaganda.) The Boys are given a suicide mission, to deliver a message past ze Germans to – a sultan?!


47. Up in Smoke (1957) – In Cheech and Chong’s first feature-length film, the loveable potheads go on the hunt for weed as –

Say what?! You mean this isn’t the 1978 cult comedy Up In Smoke, starring Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin? It’s a forgotten and desultorily tossed-off contract-necessitated effort from the last dying vestiges of The Bowery Boys? Okay then…

Sach sells his soul to the devil to win a horse race. That’s all the info they give, and I don’t even want to try deciphering the implications of that.

48. In the Money (1958) – Sach escorts a poodle to London, and unbeknownst to him the poodle is smuggling diamonds! Then…gangsters.

With the series complete, let us add up the specific “story types” found within:
Boxing - 2
Ghosts - 3
Mad scientists – 3
Newsboys – 4
Murder mystery – 4
Armed forces – 4
Sach’s strange powers – 9
Abbott & Costello plagiarism – 48 (at least)

*************************************************************

One could cite the actors’ increasing inability to play adolescents as one reason for the die-off of The Bowery Boys, and with it all the franchises Dead End spawned. If that is the case, just why was 1958 the year that did it, when these guys ceased to be teenagers just one year after their first film, way back in 1937? I mean, Huntz Hall was practically 40 at the end!

Rather, another argument cites television, which had already killed off every other franchise from the ‘40s long ago. This is a reasonable suggestion, as the 1950s were just about the worst decade for film franchises – The reworking of distribution systems, the death of serializing, the need for new, post-TV narrative forms, all this contributed. Really, The Bowery Boys’ doom was sealed the instant Leo Gorcey left. It’s amazing they held off for another two years, especially considering conditions were against the series from the start.

The Bowery Boys resembled television for much of its existence, including one-year “cycles” being ordered much like a season of TV. By TV it lived, by TV it died, by TV was it resurrected. Monogram’s two “troubled ‘youth’” franchises, East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys, found new life on 1970s TV syndication, aimed at children as before. And how ‘bout that legacy? Forty-eight movies is unfathomably massive, totally beyond modern notions (where 8 Harry Potter movies is a lot). Add to that the total 92 movies birthed by a single Broadway play (“Dead End”) back in 1935. And I’ve only seen 23% of those (damn this lack of availability)! Even at that it’s been a slog, for all of us I’m sure. Oh well…it’s done.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)
• Nos. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)

The Bowery Boys, Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

40. Dig That Uranium (1956) – The Boys buy a uranium mine out West, in the land of western pastiches. Uranium-hunting gangsters want the Boys’ uranium mine, but the Boys protect their uranium mine and mine some uranium, only to find that their uranium mine is on an Indian reservation, making the uranium the Indians’, not the Boys’, and surely not mine.

That momentary uranium-based silliness out of the way, I promised tragedy here at the end of The Bowery Boys, and here it comes. For Dig That Uranium was the final happy effort the series produced, and even then it wasn’t all that happy. Problems once again arose over troupe leader Leo Gorcey’s megalomania – problems which had previously seen six actors abandon ship, and a seventh never even get on that ship in the first place. Because Gorcey, 40% owner in the series, was an unquenchable showoff and credit hog, stealing lines, screen time, personality, and anything else he could from his remaining costars David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett. Only Huntz Hall was spared this wrath, because Hall’s freedom was essential for Gorcey’s success.

Well, I don’t know what caused Bennie Bartlett to stick around for as long as he did (or even return after Gil Stratton’s short “Bowery Boy” turn), but by now he’d seen the light: Leo Gorcey is an asshole. So Bartlett left after Dig That Uranium. This left Gorcey stranded on the top of his lonely crown, accompanied only by Hall (the lone costar with no cause to leave) and David (Leo’s loyal brother).

That must be a challenging position for any power-hungry movie star high on the excesses of his own success. It doesn’t take much from there to get Jenga!

Leo’s father (and costar) Bernard Gorcey died in an automobile accident on September 11 (1955).

Bernard was a regular mentor to Gorcey, as was his character Louie on screen. A replacement was needed. In film, the new character of Mrs. Kate Kelly, the Boy’s landlady, did the trick. In real life, Gorcey’s new mentor became booze. Add to that Gorcey trying to micromanage Bartlett’s replacement, Jimmy Murphy, a parking valet with no prior acting experience, and no particular talent to boot. These are not ideal conditions to make a movie under, especially not when that movie is set in Las Vegas.


41. Crashing Las Vegas (1956) – A “Sach’s new power” entry, meaning Sach develops a discreditable new power, and runs afoul of the mob. This time he electrocutes himself and can suddenly predict numbers. So it’s off to Las Vegas, in a plot one of the “Futurama” movies also used.

Angry, drunk, directionless, fatherless and friendless, Gorcey took to Las Vegas like a one-man Rat Pack. He rampaged. He appeared drunk on film, following close in the footsteps of former father figure Bela Lugosi. He destroyed all the props, presumably when Jimmy Murphy had the audacity to utter one of the script lines reserved for Jimmy Murphy. Presumably, Gorcey stole Mike Tyson’s tiger.

In this, his darkest hour, Gorcey went all Napoleon in his little fiefdom called the Bowery Boys franchise. He demanded of Allied Artists an increase on his 40% interest in the movies; he was denied. Gorcey stormed off the studio, broke a few more things, and then vomited somewhere. He retired from acting, with the exception of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, with featured exactly every comedian even remotely alive at the time. Gorcey then denied The Beatles the rights to his likeness for the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and died.

Sadly for the series, this was one movie into 1956’s four-movie deal with theaters. Three more entries would have to be made, under penalty of something.

Gorcey-less (well, at least Leo Gorcey-less, for David was still about), The Bowery Boys’ sober producers sought someone to take over for Leo. Former minor “East Side Kid” Stanley Clements took over, in the new role of Stanislaus “Duke” Coveleskie. In all honesty, though, Gorcey’s real replacement was Huntz Hall’s Sach, now basically spearheading the series solo. “Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys,” the marquees read, and that’s how it was seen.


42. Fighting Trouble (1956) – Again the Boys work for a newspaper, and again they get embroiled with gangsters. One senses the sour desperation at hand in these films’ creation, as they were just reusing old notions without creative variation now, hoping to run out the clock.

And for a single picture, someone called Danny Welton replaces Jimmy Murphy.


43. Hot Shots (1956) – But now they’re working for a television station, which is new. What isn’t new is the plot that follows, with them using their newfound position to uncover and defeat a gangster conspiracy. Oh those omnipresent gangster conspiracies!

44. Hold That Hypnotist (1957) – As what might’ve been the team’s final effort ever, they go out on what at least sounds like a relative high note, with a more fantastical story than normal. Sach is hypnotized, and discovers that one of his former lives was an English tax collector in South Carolina who had possession of a map to Captain Blackbeard’s buried pirate treasure. So there’s at least piracy and some spiritualist hoo-hah going on.

Even in this mangled new form, The Bowery Boys somehow proved popular enough for producers to order the final cycle of four films, to fill out the rest of 1957 and part of ’58. Credit must go to the professionalism of Huntz Hall, who did what he could to form a new comedy duo style with Clements.


45. Spook Chasers (1957) – The same ghost comedy as always, the only difference being it is now 10 years out of fashion. Simply refer to Spooks Run Wild, Ghosts on the Loose, Spook Busters, Ghost Chasers, etc., etc., etc.

For no reason, a fifth member is added to the “Bowery Boys,” after I swore to you it would only be four members from now on. Eddie LeRoy, your useless bespectacled character Blinky has made me a liar!

46. Looking for Danger (1957) – Told in flashback, Clements character recounts the good old days when the Bowery Boys fought in World War II, thirteen years ago when they were all the same ages they are now. (Odd that WWII is now an appropriate period setting, considering the actors’ own former East Side Kids films were often WWII propaganda.) The Boys are given a suicide mission, to deliver a message past ze Germans to – a sultan?!


47. Up in Smoke (1957) – In Cheech and Chong’s first feature-length film, the loveable potheads go on the hunt for weed as –

Say what?! You mean this isn’t the 1978 cult comedy Up In Smoke, starring Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin? It’s a forgotten and desultorily tossed-off contract-necessitated effort from the last dying vestiges of The Bowery Boys? Okay then…

Sach sells his soul to the devil to win a horse race. That’s all the info they give, and I don’t even want to try deciphering the implications of that.

48. In the Money (1958) – Sach escorts a poodle to London, and unbeknownst to him the poodle is smuggling diamonds! Then…gangsters.

With the series complete, let us add up the specific “story types” found within:
Boxing - 2
Ghosts - 3
Mad scientists – 3
Newsboys – 4
Murder mystery – 4
Armed forces – 4
Sach’s strange powers – 9
Abbott & Costello plagiarism – 48 (at least)

*************************************************************

One could cite the actors’ increasing inability to play adolescents as one reason for the die-off of The Bowery Boys, and with it all the franchises Dead End spawned. If that is the case, just why was 1958 the year that did it, when these guys ceased to be teenagers just one year after their first film, way back in 1937? I mean, Huntz Hall was practically 40 at the end!

Rather, another argument cites television, which had already killed off every other franchise from the ‘40s long ago. This is a reasonable suggestion, as the 1950s were just about the worst decade for film franchises – The reworking of distribution systems, the death of serializing, the need for new, post-TV narrative forms, all this contributed. Really, The Bowery Boys’ doom was sealed the instant Leo Gorcey left. It’s amazing they held off for another two years, especially considering conditions were against the series from the start.

The Bowery Boys resembled television for much of its existence, including one-year “cycles” being ordered much like a season of TV. By TV it lived, by TV it died, by TV was it resurrected. Monogram’s two “troubled ‘youth’” franchises, East Side Kids and The Bowery Boys, found new life on 1970s TV syndication, aimed at children as before. And how ‘bout that legacy? Forty-eight movies is unfathomably massive, totally beyond modern notions (where 8 Harry Potter movies is a lot). Add to that the total 92 movies birthed by a single Broadway play (“Dead End”) back in 1935. And I’ve only seen 23% of those (damn this lack of availability)! Even at that it’s been a slog, for all of us I’m sure. Oh well…it’s done.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)
• Nos. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)

The Bowery Boys, No. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)

The Allied Artists years: 1953 – 1958

It is already well-established that The Bowery Boys’ entire franchise is built upon burglarizing old Abbott & Costello movies for an undiscerning juvenile audience. Upon officially becoming an Allied Artists product (which is still technically Monogram), The Bowery Boys took up a new director/producer in Edward Bernds, the legendary director of the Three Stooges, long may their memories last. Bringing this comedic expertise to The Bowery Boys, Bernds introduced Leo Gorcey & Co. to a degree of violent slapstick even they had previously been incapable of. Stooge gags were stolen and recycled, but by an entire troupe of “Fake Shemps.”

Oh, and Huntz Hall’s newfound hero in life: Shemp Howard


29. Jalopy (1953) – Okay, when did The Nutty Professor get made? 1996.

Okay, when did the REAL Nutty Professor get made? 1963. Odd, I could’ve sworn Jalopy was ripping it off. I dunno, maybe Jerry Lewis was making a subtle and informed satire of films like this one – satires so deep, only the French could understand them. Or maybe everyone’s insane.

Actually, it seems to be a little more Absent-Minded Professor (which also got a bad late ‘90s remake, in Flubber), meaning…Ah the hell with it! Sach (Huntz Hall) invents a fuel to make Slip’s (Leo Gorcey) jalopy run faster. They win a big race in this manner – driving in reverse. Oh, oh my sides!

30. Loose in London (1953) – Sach keeps on discovering newly-dead long-lost relatives every 4 or so entries. This time it’s a British earl, who’s not quite dead. The Boys visit him in London (I will allow an occasional setting switch for sequel proliferation), where the earl’s remaining family members intend to kill him (the earl), for the inheritance and all. The Bowery Boys defend the earl, until Sach discovers he isn’t a relative after all. So he leaves, and presumably the earl is again left at the whims of his murderous family members. Nice one.


31. Clipped Wings (1953) – Remember Bowery Battalion, Let’s Go Navy!, and Here Come the Marines? Neither do I. Anyway, those were part of a hallowed “burgle Abbott & Costello’s wartime comedies” sub-series the lads were attempting. Clipped Wings is the final entry in that cycle. It concerns the Air Force.

32. Private Eyes (1953) – Oh God, again Sach develops straaaaaange new magical powers as the result of a normal injury. Apparently, a punch to the nose gives one the ability to read minds. Let’s see…in most entries of this sort, Slip puts Sach in the freak show, in order to profit off of his best friend’s newfound deformity. Then mobsters target Sach, and everything resets to normal at the end.

That is not what Slip does here. Instead he and Sach start up a detective agency. Then mobsters target Sach, and everything resets to normal at the end.


33. Paris Playboys (1954) – “Starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys.” Those unnamed “Bowery Boys” (David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett) get a shorter shrift than Marianne and the Professor! Hell, they don’t get any dialogue in Paris Playboys, and appear in one scene. “Go back in your cage, Brother David.”

Sach is mistaken for a French professor. …

How do they come up with this nonsense?! Even the manatees in the tank could do better than this! Arrrrrgggghhhh! [Slams head repeatedly]

Sach impersonates the professor, who is wanted by spies for his secret rocket formula. Then out of left field, Sach invents his own rocket formula out of alka seltzer and –

[Long, awkward silence…]

I don’t know how much more of this I can take…


34. The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954) – Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Okay, these movies aren’t doing me any favors. The premise – premise – of The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters is that the Bowery Boys meet a family that are, in fact, “completely insane.” (May or may not be monsters.) They probably got that way from watching too many Bowery Boys movies. And when insane, all one wants is something out of Sach’s body (don’t look at me). Bear with me while I try to relate the following with a straight face”

A mad scientist wants Sach’s brain for his gorilla.
A different mad scientist wants Sach’s brain for his robot.
Their sister wants to feed Sach to her Sach-eating tree.
A vampire is there too.

I understand Master Minds established this Bowery Boys storyline back in 1949, but this is several magnitudes zanier than something which was pretty danged abstract to begin with. Even the plot descriptions evince a sheer, desperate “wakka wakka wakka” demeanor, which leads me to believe the actual films must be even weirder than Casino Royale (the ’66 version).

35. Jungle Gents (1954) – Abbott & Costello’s Africa Screams is now what they’re ripping off. It is a jungle-set comedy, using old sets from Bomba, the Jungle Boy (damn, that’s a series, I’m gonna have to watch that some day). There is only one fact worth pointing out here…Sach’s strange new power:

He learns how to smell diamonds after taking sinus medication.

…I swear, Sach is a walking Chernobyl!

36. Bowery to Bagdad (1955) – Now it’s Abbott & Costello’s Lost in a Harem, an Arabian comedy. In it, Sach gains mastery over a genie in the lamp, as meanwhile crooked gangsters…

Okay, enough of this! The Abbott & Costello comedies took place in something vaguely resembling the real world. I mean, so did The Three Stooges of all things! Why can’t these?!


37. High Society (1955) – And Abbott & Costello’s In Society. Slobs vs. snobs.

Sach once again is the surprise heir to a massive fortune, of one Terwilliger Debussy Jones. The same plot as Loose in London follows, only without London.

High Society is the only Bowery Boys movie to receive an Academy Award nomination, for “Best Story.” It received this nomination by mistake. The Academy intended it for a different 1956 High Society (a Cole Porter musical). This is hilarious.

38. Spy Chasers (1955) – No readily apparent Abbott & Costello effort is the model this time.

A princess up and arrives at Louie’s Sweet Shop, the Boy’s favorite hangout, because that’s just the sort of thing which is always happening. Actually, she’s here with a purpose, because Louie of all people for some reason is the only one that can help her safeguard a half-coin (?), with the entire future of the Kingdom of Truania hanging in the balance. It turns out that the princess’ family members are trying to kill her for the kingdom inheritance, so…It’s just Loose in London and High Society again, only without Sach as inheritor. This is becoming tiresome.

39. Jail Busters (1955) – So far they’ve busted Spooks and Blues, and now Jail seemingly. What does it mean to “bust” jail? Apparently, it means to go undercover within prison walls to dredge up some sort of unstated inmate scam. It gives me no end of fatigue to report that the entire plotline is just a reworking of the group’s 1950 effort, Triple Trouble. This self-cannibalization is not becoming, it is exceedingly obvious, and it is only acceptable because audiences had no recourse to the series’ backlog. Truly the 1950s were a different time for film franchises.

It is partly in deference to this fatigue that I leave the remaining 9 Bowery Boys movies for next time. I also do this because the series’ end is a story unto itself, a tragic tale of death and downfall – Which is something every franchise needs.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)
• Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

The Bowery Boys, No. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)

The Allied Artists years: 1953 – 1958

It is already well-established that The Bowery Boys’ entire franchise is built upon burglarizing old Abbott & Costello movies for an undiscerning juvenile audience. Upon officially becoming an Allied Artists product (which is still technically Monogram), The Bowery Boys took up a new director/producer in Edward Bernds, the legendary director of the Three Stooges, long may their memories last. Bringing this comedic expertise to The Bowery Boys, Bernds introduced Leo Gorcey & Co. to a degree of violent slapstick even they had previously been incapable of. Stooge gags were stolen and recycled, but by an entire troupe of “Fake Shemps.”

Oh, and Huntz Hall’s newfound hero in life: Shemp Howard


29. Jalopy (1953) – Okay, when did The Nutty Professor get made? 1996.

Okay, when did the REAL Nutty Professor get made? 1963. Odd, I could’ve sworn Jalopy was ripping it off. I dunno, maybe Jerry Lewis was making a subtle and informed satire of films like this one – satires so deep, only the French could understand them. Or maybe everyone’s insane.

Actually, it seems to be a little more Absent-Minded Professor (which also got a bad late ‘90s remake, in Flubber), meaning…Ah the hell with it! Sach (Huntz Hall) invents a fuel to make Slip’s (Leo Gorcey) jalopy run faster. They win a big race in this manner – driving in reverse. Oh, oh my sides!

30. Loose in London (1953) – Sach keeps on discovering newly-dead long-lost relatives every 4 or so entries. This time it’s a British earl, who’s not quite dead. The Boys visit him in London (I will allow an occasional setting switch for sequel proliferation), where the earl’s remaining family members intend to kill him (the earl), for the inheritance and all. The Bowery Boys defend the earl, until Sach discovers he isn’t a relative after all. So he leaves, and presumably the earl is again left at the whims of his murderous family members. Nice one.


31. Clipped Wings (1953) – Remember Bowery Battalion, Let’s Go Navy!, and Here Come the Marines? Neither do I. Anyway, those were part of a hallowed “burgle Abbott & Costello’s wartime comedies” sub-series the lads were attempting. Clipped Wings is the final entry in that cycle. It concerns the Air Force.

32. Private Eyes (1953) – Oh God, again Sach develops straaaaaange new magical powers as the result of a normal injury. Apparently, a punch to the nose gives one the ability to read minds. Let’s see…in most entries of this sort, Slip puts Sach in the freak show, in order to profit off of his best friend’s newfound deformity. Then mobsters target Sach, and everything resets to normal at the end.

That is not what Slip does here. Instead he and Sach start up a detective agency. Then mobsters target Sach, and everything resets to normal at the end.


33. Paris Playboys (1954) – “Starring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys.” Those unnamed “Bowery Boys” (David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett) get a shorter shrift than Marianne and the Professor! Hell, they don’t get any dialogue in Paris Playboys, and appear in one scene. “Go back in your cage, Brother David.”

Sach is mistaken for a French professor. …

How do they come up with this nonsense?! Even the manatees in the tank could do better than this! Arrrrrgggghhhh! [Slams head repeatedly]

Sach impersonates the professor, who is wanted by spies for his secret rocket formula. Then out of left field, Sach invents his own rocket formula out of alka seltzer and –

[Long, awkward silence…]

I don’t know how much more of this I can take…


34. The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954) – Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Okay, these movies aren’t doing me any favors. The premise – premise – of The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters is that the Bowery Boys meet a family that are, in fact, “completely insane.” (May or may not be monsters.) They probably got that way from watching too many Bowery Boys movies. And when insane, all one wants is something out of Sach’s body (don’t look at me). Bear with me while I try to relate the following with a straight face”

A mad scientist wants Sach’s brain for his gorilla.
A different mad scientist wants Sach’s brain for his robot.
Their sister wants to feed Sach to her Sach-eating tree.
A vampire is there too.

I understand Master Minds established this Bowery Boys storyline back in 1949, but this is several magnitudes zanier than something which was pretty danged abstract to begin with. Even the plot descriptions evince a sheer, desperate “wakka wakka wakka” demeanor, which leads me to believe the actual films must be even weirder than Casino Royale (the ’66 version).

35. Jungle Gents (1954) – Abbott & Costello’s Africa Screams is now what they’re ripping off. It is a jungle-set comedy, using old sets from Bomba, the Jungle Boy (damn, that’s a series, I’m gonna have to watch that some day). There is only one fact worth pointing out here…Sach’s strange new power:

He learns how to smell diamonds after taking sinus medication.

…I swear, Sach is a walking Chernobyl!

36. Bowery to Bagdad (1955) – Now it’s Abbott & Costello’s Lost in a Harem, an Arabian comedy. In it, Sach gains mastery over a genie in the lamp, as meanwhile crooked gangsters…

Okay, enough of this! The Abbott & Costello comedies took place in something vaguely resembling the real world. I mean, so did The Three Stooges of all things! Why can’t these?!


37. High Society (1955) – And Abbott & Costello’s In Society. Slobs vs. snobs.

Sach once again is the surprise heir to a massive fortune, of one Terwilliger Debussy Jones. The same plot as Loose in London follows, only without London.

High Society is the only Bowery Boys movie to receive an Academy Award nomination, for “Best Story.” It received this nomination by mistake. The Academy intended it for a different 1956 High Society (a Cole Porter musical). This is hilarious.

38. Spy Chasers (1955) – No readily apparent Abbott & Costello effort is the model this time.

A princess up and arrives at Louie’s Sweet Shop, the Boy’s favorite hangout, because that’s just the sort of thing which is always happening. Actually, she’s here with a purpose, because Louie of all people for some reason is the only one that can help her safeguard a half-coin (?), with the entire future of the Kingdom of Truania hanging in the balance. It turns out that the princess’ family members are trying to kill her for the kingdom inheritance, so…It’s just Loose in London and High Society again, only without Sach as inheritor. This is becoming tiresome.

39. Jail Busters (1955) – So far they’ve busted Spooks and Blues, and now Jail seemingly. What does it mean to “bust” jail? Apparently, it means to go undercover within prison walls to dredge up some sort of unstated inmate scam. It gives me no end of fatigue to report that the entire plotline is just a reworking of the group’s 1950 effort, Triple Trouble. This self-cannibalization is not becoming, it is exceedingly obvious, and it is only acceptable because audiences had no recourse to the series’ backlog. Truly the 1950s were a different time for film franchises.

It is partly in deference to this fatigue that I leave the remaining 9 Bowery Boys movies for next time. I also do this because the series’ end is a story unto itself, a tragic tale of death and downfall – Which is something every franchise needs.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)
• Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

The Bowery Boys, Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)

The 1950s had arrived, and with them an entirely new playing field for cinematic franchises. Basically, there was television now, that cathode ray-tubed goddess, pilfering away the primary style of serialized storytelling that movies had practiced in the ‘40s. What we recognize as television-style franchising arose prior to mainstream TV, and what we call movie-style franchising (greater story continuity, expanding plots) had yet to truly manifest. Of course, today TV is starting to shed that former storytelling format in favor of long-form. Regardless, 1940s film franchises were simply masses of self-contained tales with the same characters.

Television’s impact was most profoundly felt at B-studios like Monogram Pictures, which were filling the niche television later filled. For specifically these reasons, new post-war Monogram producer Walter Mirisch oversaw the creation of Allied Artists, the prestige wing of Monogram’s empire, meant to put out slightly better quality film (“B-plus films”) that would be able to weather the upcoming television holocaust. While Monogram sputtered for the first few years of the ‘50s, it ultimately folded in 1953. Whatever Monogram properties remained took on the Allies Artists name. Among those was The Bowery Boys.

Even before moving under Allied’s wing, The Bowery Boys remained the inexplicable diamond in Monogram’s crown. It held its own theatrically in the world of TV, surviving in the matinees and appealing to children. (This was the foundation Allied needed to eventually finance genuinely high-class efforts like Papillon and Cabaret.)

The Bowery Boys’ habit of mimicking Abbott & Costello is something which surely kept it popular with the young ‘uns. Time and again this series essentially remade specific Abbott & Costello pictures from the previous decades (as I explore more below). Add to that the recycling and stealing of specific gags. What makes this “OK” is the audience. Children of the ‘50s would have no real love of the old Abbott & Costello pictures, which weren’t quite so juvenile anyway. Today’s consideration involves the peak of that Abbott & Costello movement, and the remainder of The Bowery Boys’ output under the official “Monogram” banner.


17. Blonde Dynamite (1950) – First, an actor change. Billy Benedict takes off for a temporary break from Leo Gorcey, leaving open the role of Butch. Bubby Gorman swept in to claim it, seeing as his original dream of playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers had fallen through on account of being a short person.

Louie goes on vacation, leaving Louie’s Sweet Shop in the shenanigan-prone control of the Bowery Boys. They decide to turn it into an escort service – did this mean the same thing in 1950 as it does today?! Then things become complicated.

There are gangsters, crooked gangsters, who wish to tunnel into the nearby bank. To stop them, the Bowery Boys choose to tunnel there first, by the same confused line of logic as in National Treasure. Somehow, the crooked gangsters act quite the fools and instead tunnel into the police station. And the Bowery Boys find uranium under the soda shop – Ooh, topical propaganda, ‘50s style!

18. Lucky Losers (1950) – Slip’s & Sach’s (Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall) boss has committed suicide. What the fucking hell?! It turns out it’s murder, having to do with a secret gambling casino crooked gangsters are running out of the dead man’s night club and – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

19. Triple Trouble (1950) – Confusion, as is its wont, leads to Slip’s & Sach’s wrongful imprisonment. But even when the judge realizes their innocence, the boys opt to remain in prison, in a Departed-esque sting operation to discover the criminal masterminds running a string of petty burglaries from within the prison walls. And they learn the next target – Louie’s Sweet Shop!


20. Blues Busters (1951) – Implausible medical miracles grant Sach a bizarre magical power to accomplish a storyline otherwise outside of the franchise’s grasp. (See also Master Minds.) This time, the removal of Sach’s tonsils (but not sacks – ew!) grant him the ability to sing, ala Michigan J. Frog, and unlike Michigan J. Frog he’s willing to sing in front of other people. The Bowery Boys transform the Sweet Shop into The Bowery Palace, just as Moe’s Bar experiences similar regularized identity crises.

There ends up being a crook. A cabaret owner….Cabarets, escort services? What is going on here?

Considering the 100% power Leo Gorcey wielded over his franchise (given their success, justifiable), it must be his doing. Maybe the guy had just discovered the vice industry, fallen in love, and decided to insert it in his family comedies.

He surely must’ve been quite the tinpot dictator, as Blues Brothers – er, Busters – marks the departure of another cast member: Gabriel Dell. Like Ernie Morrison and Bobby Jordan and (arguably) Billy Benedict before him, Dell was just fed-up with Gorcey. Surprisingly, he evidently still liked Hall, as they immediately formed a nightclub act called “Hall & Dell.” Of course, Hall remained with the film series.


21. Bowery Battalion (1951) – Now, about those Abbott & Costello connections…Abbott & Costello put out four military pictures in their career, one for each branch: Buck Privates, In the Navy, Keep ‘Em Flying, and Buck Privates Come Home. Not about to expend precious creativity when such a notion exists, Leo Gorcey instead copied his heroes, and made four military movies himself – even in the same branch order! This is the Army entry.

…The Bowery Boys join the Army. That is enough to fill out most of a movie on its own, meaning I don’t have to parse out any bizarre plot summaries. And to create a climax, it turns out suddenly that Louie invented a Hydrogen Ray during WWI, why not, and spies want it. They stop the spies.


22. Ghost Chasers (1951) – Ghost entry. But with a twist! Ghost Chasers boasts something most ghost comedies refuse to possess – actual ghosts! While at first it seems the medium the Bowery Boys are pointlessly investigating is a fraud, another “Scooby Doo” scam, a proper ghost soon shows its spectral self. It’s all the same basic nonsense, though – Gotta stop the con artist. Only this time there’s a deceased spirit helping ya out with it!


23. Let’s Go Navy! (1951) – With ghosts in place to disguise the obvious Abbott & Costello pattern, it’s time for the Navy entry. Basically, the Bowery Boys join the Navy with the intent to nab two small-time crooks who are not in the Navy. Makes perfect sense. The whole naval thing passes by on its own, and it’s only post-discharge that the Bowery Boys find their crooks. Making the whole thing rather pointless – which may have been the joke.

24. Crazy Over Horses (1951) – Bennie Bartlett returns as Butch, booting Buddy boastfully back to out of The Bowery Boys. Bartlett shall remain from now on, having attained some sort of Stockholm Syndrome in regards to Gorcey’s ultra-villainy.

Meanwhile, for nothing can Bowery can remain in stasis, Billy Benedict turns Benedict Arnold, as now he opts to abandons Gorcey’s slowly sinking slapstick ship. The cited reason: “constant arguments and disagreements.” Man, this sure sounds like a shitty place to work! Benedict’s replacement, but not until the next film, is Gil Stratton, a subservient and unimportant sod perfect for Gorcey’s own particular brand of bossing-around.

Even then, Stratton was unhappy with this demeaning job, and left after two movies. In the meantime, he’d happily let Gorcey steal his scripted dialogue.

The movie is about the Bowery Boys battling gangsters over a horse, basically remaking East Side Kids films like, oh, That Gang of Mine and Mr. Muggs Rides Again.


25. Hold That Line (1952) – Academics invite the Bowery Boys to college, to prove that education is achievable by anyone if simply given the chance. They are proven false, as the Bowery Boys all turn out to be morons. But Sach has a solution. Guess what it is!

He invents a “vitamin” (that is, “marijuana”) to make himself invincible. Um, you know, some of the logical leaps these films make, they are quite stymieing.

The Bowery Boys become football players, and make it to the championship game with Sach’s invincibility vitamins, because surely there’s no other application for such an invention. Of course, when gangsters learn of an invincible football team that is not the ’85 Bears, their immediate instinct is to bet against this team. And kidnap Sach, to make this a good bet.

Of course Sach escape, but hasn’t any more vitamins for the final play. Instead the Boys win the game using good, old-fashioned cheating, just like the Raiders. Victorious, guess what Sach then does!

He learns how to fly.

I…um…who…what…huh? When did these movies leave Planet Earth, and become a Jerry Lewis movie? Was Leo Gorcey on the “wowie sauce” during the scripting process?


26. Here Come the Marines (1952) – Marines entry.

27. Feudin’ Fools (1952) – The Air Force entry will have to wait until next time – because it’s the Air Force, and who cares? Instead, Gorcey takes a break to rip off a different Abbott & Costello movie, Comin’ Round the Mountain. That movie badmouths the hillbillies, and so does Gorcey’s.

The Boys go to a farm, feud with their rival inbred neighbors. Then bank robbers come along, as generic criminals are liable to appear in any story at a moment’s notice, and all feudin’ ceases.

By Feudin’ Fools, Gorcey didn’t even try replacing his latest deserter. Seeing as there was really no reason for a full 5 “Bowery Boys,” instead he simply cemented the cast at four. The series would remain at four from now on. Those currently in place (Leo and David Gorcey, Hall, Bartlett) thus began the most consistent period of Bowery Boys production, with a full thirteen entries to come without a single switch up. That, plus the recent transfer from Monogram to Allied Artists (though it’s really the same company), makes this as good a point as any to pause…

















After one more entry!

28. No Holds Barred (1952) – Sach develops Homer Simpson Syndrome, meaning he is impervious enough to become a professional fighter. A wrestler, specifically. Then the weird happens – it’s one of those entries. Sach’s “power” keeps on switching body parts for each wrestling match, from head to finger, elbow, toes. (Thankfully it avoids his schvanshtucker altogether.) But it does end up in his ass for the climactic match. Oh, but then it occupies Sach’s penis anyway, and I can’t believe the shit I am typing, but at least the movie explains this in a subtle way, and can you imagine having the power to kill a person with your dick?!

Okay, sorry, I’m quitting right now.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)
• Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

The Bowery Boys, Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)

The 1950s had arrived, and with them an entirely new playing field for cinematic franchises. Basically, there was television now, that cathode ray-tubed goddess, pilfering away the primary style of serialized storytelling that movies had practiced in the ‘40s. What we recognize as television-style franchising arose prior to mainstream TV, and what we call movie-style franchising (greater story continuity, expanding plots) had yet to truly manifest. Of course, today TV is starting to shed that former storytelling format in favor of long-form. Regardless, 1940s film franchises were simply masses of self-contained tales with the same characters.

Television’s impact was most profoundly felt at B-studios like Monogram Pictures, which were filling the niche television later filled. For specifically these reasons, new post-war Monogram producer Walter Mirisch oversaw the creation of Allied Artists, the prestige wing of Monogram’s empire, meant to put out slightly better quality film (“B-plus films”) that would be able to weather the upcoming television holocaust. While Monogram sputtered for the first few years of the ‘50s, it ultimately folded in 1953. Whatever Monogram properties remained took on the Allies Artists name. Among those was The Bowery Boys.

Even before moving under Allied’s wing, The Bowery Boys remained the inexplicable diamond in Monogram’s crown. It held its own theatrically in the world of TV, surviving in the matinees and appealing to children. (This was the foundation Allied needed to eventually finance genuinely high-class efforts like Papillon and Cabaret.)

The Bowery Boys’ habit of mimicking Abbott & Costello is something which surely kept it popular with the young ‘uns. Time and again this series essentially remade specific Abbott & Costello pictures from the previous decades (as I explore more below). Add to that the recycling and stealing of specific gags. What makes this “OK” is the audience. Children of the ‘50s would have no real love of the old Abbott & Costello pictures, which weren’t quite so juvenile anyway. Today’s consideration involves the peak of that Abbott & Costello movement, and the remainder of The Bowery Boys’ output under the official “Monogram” banner.


17. Blonde Dynamite (1950) – First, an actor change. Billy Benedict takes off for a temporary break from Leo Gorcey, leaving open the role of Butch. Bubby Gorman swept in to claim it, seeing as his original dream of playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers had fallen through on account of being a short person.

Louie goes on vacation, leaving Louie’s Sweet Shop in the shenanigan-prone control of the Bowery Boys. They decide to turn it into an escort service – did this mean the same thing in 1950 as it does today?! Then things become complicated.

There are gangsters, crooked gangsters, who wish to tunnel into the nearby bank. To stop them, the Bowery Boys choose to tunnel there first, by the same confused line of logic as in National Treasure. Somehow, the crooked gangsters act quite the fools and instead tunnel into the police station. And the Bowery Boys find uranium under the soda shop – Ooh, topical propaganda, ‘50s style!

18. Lucky Losers (1950) – Slip’s & Sach’s (Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall) boss has committed suicide. What the fucking hell?! It turns out it’s murder, having to do with a secret gambling casino crooked gangsters are running out of the dead man’s night club and – zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

19. Triple Trouble (1950) – Confusion, as is its wont, leads to Slip’s & Sach’s wrongful imprisonment. But even when the judge realizes their innocence, the boys opt to remain in prison, in a Departed-esque sting operation to discover the criminal masterminds running a string of petty burglaries from within the prison walls. And they learn the next target – Louie’s Sweet Shop!


20. Blues Busters (1951) – Implausible medical miracles grant Sach a bizarre magical power to accomplish a storyline otherwise outside of the franchise’s grasp. (See also Master Minds.) This time, the removal of Sach’s tonsils (but not sacks – ew!) grant him the ability to sing, ala Michigan J. Frog, and unlike Michigan J. Frog he’s willing to sing in front of other people. The Bowery Boys transform the Sweet Shop into The Bowery Palace, just as Moe’s Bar experiences similar regularized identity crises.

There ends up being a crook. A cabaret owner….Cabarets, escort services? What is going on here?

Considering the 100% power Leo Gorcey wielded over his franchise (given their success, justifiable), it must be his doing. Maybe the guy had just discovered the vice industry, fallen in love, and decided to insert it in his family comedies.

He surely must’ve been quite the tinpot dictator, as Blues Brothers – er, Busters – marks the departure of another cast member: Gabriel Dell. Like Ernie Morrison and Bobby Jordan and (arguably) Billy Benedict before him, Dell was just fed-up with Gorcey. Surprisingly, he evidently still liked Hall, as they immediately formed a nightclub act called “Hall & Dell.” Of course, Hall remained with the film series.


21. Bowery Battalion (1951) – Now, about those Abbott & Costello connections…Abbott & Costello put out four military pictures in their career, one for each branch: Buck Privates, In the Navy, Keep ‘Em Flying, and Buck Privates Come Home. Not about to expend precious creativity when such a notion exists, Leo Gorcey instead copied his heroes, and made four military movies himself – even in the same branch order! This is the Army entry.

…The Bowery Boys join the Army. That is enough to fill out most of a movie on its own, meaning I don’t have to parse out any bizarre plot summaries. And to create a climax, it turns out suddenly that Louie invented a Hydrogen Ray during WWI, why not, and spies want it. They stop the spies.


22. Ghost Chasers (1951) – Ghost entry. But with a twist! Ghost Chasers boasts something most ghost comedies refuse to possess – actual ghosts! While at first it seems the medium the Bowery Boys are pointlessly investigating is a fraud, another “Scooby Doo” scam, a proper ghost soon shows its spectral self. It’s all the same basic nonsense, though – Gotta stop the con artist. Only this time there’s a deceased spirit helping ya out with it!


23. Let’s Go Navy! (1951) – With ghosts in place to disguise the obvious Abbott & Costello pattern, it’s time for the Navy entry. Basically, the Bowery Boys join the Navy with the intent to nab two small-time crooks who are not in the Navy. Makes perfect sense. The whole naval thing passes by on its own, and it’s only post-discharge that the Bowery Boys find their crooks. Making the whole thing rather pointless – which may have been the joke.

24. Crazy Over Horses (1951) – Bennie Bartlett returns as Butch, booting Buddy boastfully back to out of The Bowery Boys. Bartlett shall remain from now on, having attained some sort of Stockholm Syndrome in regards to Gorcey’s ultra-villainy.

Meanwhile, for nothing can Bowery can remain in stasis, Billy Benedict turns Benedict Arnold, as now he opts to abandons Gorcey’s slowly sinking slapstick ship. The cited reason: “constant arguments and disagreements.” Man, this sure sounds like a shitty place to work! Benedict’s replacement, but not until the next film, is Gil Stratton, a subservient and unimportant sod perfect for Gorcey’s own particular brand of bossing-around.

Even then, Stratton was unhappy with this demeaning job, and left after two movies. In the meantime, he’d happily let Gorcey steal his scripted dialogue.

The movie is about the Bowery Boys battling gangsters over a horse, basically remaking East Side Kids films like, oh, That Gang of Mine and Mr. Muggs Rides Again.


25. Hold That Line (1952) – Academics invite the Bowery Boys to college, to prove that education is achievable by anyone if simply given the chance. They are proven false, as the Bowery Boys all turn out to be morons. But Sach has a solution. Guess what it is!

He invents a “vitamin” (that is, “marijuana”) to make himself invincible. Um, you know, some of the logical leaps these films make, they are quite stymieing.

The Bowery Boys become football players, and make it to the championship game with Sach’s invincibility vitamins, because surely there’s no other application for such an invention. Of course, when gangsters learn of an invincible football team that is not the ’85 Bears, their immediate instinct is to bet against this team. And kidnap Sach, to make this a good bet.

Of course Sach escape, but hasn’t any more vitamins for the final play. Instead the Boys win the game using good, old-fashioned cheating, just like the Raiders. Victorious, guess what Sach then does!

He learns how to fly.

I…um…who…what…huh? When did these movies leave Planet Earth, and become a Jerry Lewis movie? Was Leo Gorcey on the “wowie sauce” during the scripting process?


26. Here Come the Marines (1952) – Marines entry.

27. Feudin’ Fools (1952) – The Air Force entry will have to wait until next time – because it’s the Air Force, and who cares? Instead, Gorcey takes a break to rip off a different Abbott & Costello movie, Comin’ Round the Mountain. That movie badmouths the hillbillies, and so does Gorcey’s.

The Boys go to a farm, feud with their rival inbred neighbors. Then bank robbers come along, as generic criminals are liable to appear in any story at a moment’s notice, and all feudin’ ceases.

By Feudin’ Fools, Gorcey didn’t even try replacing his latest deserter. Seeing as there was really no reason for a full 5 “Bowery Boys,” instead he simply cemented the cast at four. The series would remain at four from now on. Those currently in place (Leo and David Gorcey, Hall, Bartlett) thus began the most consistent period of Bowery Boys production, with a full thirteen entries to come without a single switch up. That, plus the recent transfer from Monogram to Allied Artists (though it’s really the same company), makes this as good a point as any to pause…

















After one more entry!

28. No Holds Barred (1952) – Sach develops Homer Simpson Syndrome, meaning he is impervious enough to become a professional fighter. A wrestler, specifically. Then the weird happens – it’s one of those entries. Sach’s “power” keeps on switching body parts for each wrestling match, from head to finger, elbow, toes. (Thankfully it avoids his schvanshtucker altogether.) But it does end up in his ass for the climactic match. Oh, but then it occupies Sach’s penis anyway, and I can’t believe the shit I am typing, but at least the movie explains this in a subtle way, and can you imagine having the power to kill a person with your dick?!

Okay, sorry, I’m quitting right now.


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)
• Nos. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)
• Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)

The Bowery Boys, Nos. 4 - 16 (1946 - 1949)

With little in the way of preamble (see yesterday), let us simply dive in with the continued exploits of The Bowery Boys…

4. Spook Busters (1946) – Holy schnikeys, this movie’s working title was Ghost Busters!

Four films in, it’s the “haunted house” entry – I gotta start taking note of the standard plot types. The boys have just learned extermination…ghost extermination! Without further justification, because to hell with that, they go to a haunted house. From there on out, we can guess the drill – spinning bookcases, trick paintings, disappearing organs (like me in cold water). No points for guessing this apparent “haunting” is really a “Scooby Doo” cover-up by a gang of, yes, “nefarious gangsters.”

But there’s more! Sach becomes the favored object of what must surely be the worst mad scientist of the 1940s – and that’s saying something! For what does this ducky doc demand? To switch Sach’s brain with a gorilla’s, for no discernable reason, and extra credit goes to randomly working a gorilla into this mess, because nothing says “the 1940s” quite like an unusual America-wide fixation with that particular jungle beast.

With Ghost – excuse me, Spook Busters, a new regular joins the series. Gabriel Dell, the pariah of East Side Kids, becomes the pariah of The Bowery Boys – That is, he takes on a new role in each entry, but is never allowed association with the titular troupe itself. I sure as hell don’t know what everyone had against him. Maybe it was his new enslaved French war bride, of all things, Dell’s big souvenir upon return from WWII. (This detail enters into his Spook Busters role too.)

5. Mr. Hex (1946) – Again the Boys are raising money, but now for a singer instead of Louie, for the “variation.” It’s the scheme Slip slates which takes the cake…

Using a hypnotist, Slip (Leo Gorcey) shall trick Sach (Huntz Hall) to believe he is a champion boxer. Then they’ll win the big boxing match, simple as that! Complications arise when gangsters (yes, nefarious) hire their own hypnotist, to trick Sach back into believing that Sach is Sach. Or something.

Okay, so this is the boxing entry. That’s two standards so far: ghosts, boxing. More importantly, this is The Bowery Boys’ first foray into the realm of true unbelievability, treating hypnosis as an all-powerful magic plot coupon to justify whatever strangeness Gorcey and Hall wish for. This’ll become a regular series element, not hypnosis but simply embracing strangeness, which is precisely the way these movies will evolve (or devolve) into greater comedy. Hell, if the Great Gazo shows up at some point, I won’t be too surprised!

Notably as well, Mr. Hex shifts the focus more than ever solely onto Slip & Sach, leaving the other three “Boys” in the background with nothing to do. This would continue for the next 43 movies, but not without repercussions.


6. Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947) – Complications ensue, Slip is mistaken for a dick – a private eye, that is. They investigate a suspect (a spiritualist, fulfilling the new need for “strange”), but this person is dead. It’s a noir murder mystery pastiche (add that to the story list), with two women pretending to be each other’s sister even though neither is, for reasons that sound needlessly convoluted probably because that’s a good way to mock the plots of real mysteries.


7. News Hounds (1947) – Slip is a copyboy. Sach is a photographer. They’re both…News Hounds! Trailing a big case, the duo uncovers an illegal sports book ring headed by the most nefarious gangsters possible. Using the power of “printed media,” a major 20th Century form of communication, the pair defeats these gangsters.

It’s not even clear where the forgotten three fit into this scenario. Clearly it was in Gorcey’s interest to self-promote, his teaming with Hall the best thing he had going. This benefits none of the costars, though (except for brother David Gorcey, content with being his bigger brother’s slave). Bobby Jordan particularly started to lament (Leo) Gorcey’s newfound News Hound omnipotence, and sought to leave. That means Bowery Buckaroos would be his last film with the franchise – and they knew it.

8. Bowery Buckaroos (1947) – For the production of Bowery Buckaroos saw Gorcey running rampage, with nary a person to stop the great star/executive producer. He even started stealing funny lines scripted for others, which would become a regular issue.

As for the film, it’s a western. Because all of a sudden, for this entry’s sake, Louie is a former gunslinger, wanted for murder, with a map leading to buried treasure tattooed on his back. Ah, retcons. Naturally the Boys, meaning basically Slip & Sach and three obedient hangers-on, find the treasure and clear Louie’s name. They bring justice to Hangman’s Hollow, defeat the villainous Blackjack McCoy and Injun Joe (Joe being villainous due to his race alone), and –

It turns out it was all just a dream. Boy, I sure hope that doesn’t become a regular element used to excuse continuity violation.


9. Angels’ Alley (1948) – Bobby Jordan’s replacement, and new Bowery Boys regular, is Bennie Bartlett. He was a piano prodigy as a young age, meaning of course this later career subjugation (as one of Gorcey’s on-screen yes-Boys) was naturally the only option later available. He plays Butch Williams…well, usually. For this one entry, Bartlett essays Jordan’s Whitey, for what difference it makes, because “search & replace” script technology didn’t exist then.

And the plot? A friend of Slip’s is released from prison, only to become embroiled with…nefarious gangsters. He starts stealing cars, only Slip doesn’t want him stealing cars, so Slip starts stealing cars, intending that by stealing cars Slip shall lead the police to the car-stealing masterminds who are now resolutely not stealing cars.

Even the available joke descriptions betray Gorcey’s ever-expanding egomania, for he gets an underhanded gag in as Jordan’s abandonment. Sach, mocking Jordan in the whiniest possible tone of voice (I assume), declares to Slip: “This is the last time I make a movie with you.” All this in regards to Slip taking credit for something Sach did. Man, Gorcey is laughing at his own villainy! He’s not self-conscious, he’s flaunting his power! He forgets there wouldn’t even be a Bowery Boys without Jordan’s initial proposition!

10. Jinx Money (1948) – Another formula element positively identified: The Boys come into possession of a (nefarious) gangster item, and are thus wanted by both cops and crooks. Here, that item is $50,000, and soon everyone connected to the Bowery Boys starts dying horribly. This is still a 1940s family comedy, right?

This whole murderous giallo thing dies an early death, like many a fictional character, as the rest of Jinx Money concerns a more realistic problem people with money face: the IRS! [Da dum dum!] Enough of gangsters, at last a real antagonist! One only hopes some IRS agents get punched in their faces.


11. Smugglers’ Cove (1948) - ________ leads to Slip _______, and the Boys to go a _______ overrun with nefarious _______. They save the day.

A) “A case of mistaken identity”
B) “earning a huge inheritance”
C) “mansion on Long Island”
D) “diamond smugglers”

12. Trouble Makers (1948) – It’s “murder mystery” again. This one follows the Rear Window format, 8 years early, which somehow just makes the Hitchcock movie look that much cleverer. So while playing with a telescope, the Bowery Boys see a murder. Because, unlike Jimmy Stewart, they have the ability of locomotion, the Boys become bellhops at the hotel where the murder happened. Nefarious gangsters are involved.

If it’s not evident, the series has clearly found its momentum now. No new formula elements or story structures are emerging, and the subservient supporting cast is momentarily consistent. Hence the only commentary paragraphs are those like this one pointing out the current lack of commentary paragraphs.

13. Fighting Fools (1949) – Boxing entry. Nefarious gangsters are replaced at this stage with crooked gangsters, crooked gangsters who rig a boxing match, resulting in a boxer’s death. The Bowery Boys seek the boxer’s brother, a former boxer, and convince him to box again, “one final score.” Then the former-boxer-turned-boxer’s brother is kidnapped, not his boxer brother, but a third brother, a non-boxer brother. No matter whatever that last sentence means, the good guys win.

14. Hold That Baby! (1949) – Now Louie’s Sweet Shop is house to the Boys’ latest one-off venture, a Laundromat (that bold new technology of the 1940s). One day they find hidden in a laundry basket something I assume all Laundromats are just crawling with – a baby. A baby that is due to inherit a huge sum of moolah, they somehow learn, if only it can crawl its pre-linguistic way over to the reading of the will. Of course, crooked gangsters show up.

This sounds like the basis for screenwriter John Hughes’ worst effort, Baby’s Day Out, which is reason enough to detest Hold That Baby!

15. Angels in Disguise (1949) – Gabriel Dell has been shot dead!...Well, actually, it’s just his character, “Gabe,” the same name he always employs in every entry, so…Huh, I guess they don’t care about continuity after all.

Anyway, the Duo (Slip & Sach) are copyboys again, so “newspaper” is a story type apparently. To investigate Dell’s murder (meaning this also counts as “murder mystery”), they go undercover in the mob. So…it’s just News Hounds repeated, essentially, with different sketches and also, as it turns out, an increased attention given to nurses. Which alone makes this the better entry.


16. Master Minds (1949) – It’s a return to absolute strangeness! Okay, how does this work? Sach gets a toothache from eating too much candy, which gives him the power to – predict the future! Say WHA’?!

A mad scientist (story type!) learns of Sach’s newfound career as a freak show at the carnival (Slip is as loving a benefactor on film as Leo Gorcey is in real life). Presented with Sach, this scientist can only think of one thing to do: Transfer Sach’s brain with that of a humanoid creature called Atlas! At least it’s not a gorilla this time. And this time the brain transfer actually happens, with presumably zero medical complication. This is some Abbott & Costello shit here, like a cut-rate Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

This is not a comparison I simply throw out there. It’s true that ever since East Side Kids, Leo Gorcey has held Abbott & Costello in the highest of regards, building his own career on a combination of ripping them off and lording it over his “friends.” Of course Gorcey and Hall were a naturally talented comedy duo, and it’s simply a fact of the ‘40s that pretty much the only accepted form of comedy was ripping off Abbott & Costello. That’s the problem with devotion to formula over genuine comedy, which is why the era’s funniest comedies are the Ealing stuff out of England, where slapstick and farce weren’t so regimented. (Regimented farce?!)

The general tenor of The Bowery Boys REALLY starts to ape Abbott & Costello from here on out. This increased the series’ popularity, making it arguably the most successful thing Monogram has ever done. (Which beggars the question why none of this is now available.) Things become ever more removed from reality, and the dictates of a “comedy duo” mean the Forgotten Three recede further into the background.

But until next time…


Related posts:
• Nos. 1 - 3 (1946)
• Nos. 17 - 28 (1950 - 1952)
• Nos. 29 - 39 (1953 - 1955)
• Nos. 40 - 48 (1956 - 1958)