This is a rather sloppy and not particularly entertaining B-movie. It surprised me a bit, as the East Side Kids films were generally pretty decent--and a bit better than their later incarnation as the Bowery Boys in a long string of forgettable films.
The plot involves the gang getting jobs as an airplane plant where they are testing and designing new planes. Eventually, Muggs (Leo Gorcey) hits on the idea that the Doctor and his pals are spies and that their frequent trips in the company's hospital plane are really being done to sneak out secrets to 'the enemy'--an enemy that is not named, as the US was not yet at war and there actually was a law congress passed that prohibited films taking any sort of stand about the war raging in Europe. By 1941, some studios were ignoring the law (it WAS a clear violation of the First Amendment's right to free speech). Monogram Studios must have decided not to flaunt the law and so no mention is ever made of the most logical spies--Nazis.
In so many ways, this is just a very sloppy outing. The biggest problem was the writing. The film just had a very lackluster plot and the whole thing seemed fake and contrived--such as the low energy fight at the supposed climax. In addition, the stunts were god-awful. The worst was the sequence where the plane was flying without a pilot--making sharp turns that aren't even possible with a Harrier jet today! Ridiculous angles and the plane doing loops (while scene inside the plane show everyone barely being shaken) make this a dreadful sequence--like they really didn't care how it looked. In addition, although I understand that too often I am a nit-picker for accuracy in aviation films (often I spot planes changing into other similar model planes in films), here even Ray Charles could have possibly spotted the sloppy substitution. In one scene, a flat-sided and corrugated metal Ford Tri-Motor plane becomes a smooth-skinned airliner with a round fuselage! They just didn't care....
The film isn't worth writing as it really needed a re-write. Plus, making the baddies stereotypical Nazis would have also been better--as it's easy to hate a real enemy and what's scarier than Nazis?! 39 minute mark--wrong plane.
The plot involves the gang getting jobs as an airplane plant where they are testing and designing new planes. Eventually, Muggs (Leo Gorcey) hits on the idea that the Doctor and his pals are spies and that their frequent trips in the company's hospital plane are really being done to sneak out secrets to 'the enemy'--an enemy that is not named, as the US was not yet at war and there actually was a law congress passed that prohibited films taking any sort of stand about the war raging in Europe. By 1941, some studios were ignoring the law (it WAS a clear violation of the First Amendment's right to free speech). Monogram Studios must have decided not to flaunt the law and so no mention is ever made of the most logical spies--Nazis.
In so many ways, this is just a very sloppy outing. The biggest problem was the writing. The film just had a very lackluster plot and the whole thing seemed fake and contrived--such as the low energy fight at the supposed climax. In addition, the stunts were god-awful. The worst was the sequence where the plane was flying without a pilot--making sharp turns that aren't even possible with a Harrier jet today! Ridiculous angles and the plane doing loops (while scene inside the plane show everyone barely being shaken) make this a dreadful sequence--like they really didn't care how it looked. In addition, although I understand that too often I am a nit-picker for accuracy in aviation films (often I spot planes changing into other similar model planes in films), here even Ray Charles could have possibly spotted the sloppy substitution. In one scene, a flat-sided and corrugated metal Ford Tri-Motor plane becomes a smooth-skinned airliner with a round fuselage! They just didn't care....
The film isn't worth writing as it really needed a re-write. Plus, making the baddies stereotypical Nazis would have also been better--as it's easy to hate a real enemy and what's scarier than Nazis?! 39 minute mark--wrong plane.