Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

The Bowery Boys---Slip , Sach, Bobby, Gabe, Whitey, and Chuck---accidentally enter the detective business with the disappearance of a beautiful girl, Eleanor Williams, as their first case ... See full summary »

Director:

William Beaudine

Writers:

Cy Endfield (original screenplay), Edmond Seward (additional dialogue),

Stars:

Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leo Gorcey	...	Terence Aloysius 'Slip' Mahoney
Huntz Hall	...	Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones
Bobby Jordan	...	Bobby
Gabriel Dell	...	Gabe 'Gabie'
Betty Compson	...	Selena Webster
William 'Billy' Benedict	...	Whitey (as Billy Benedict)
David Gorcey	...	Chuck
Teala Loring	...	Eleanor Williams
Dan Seymour	...	Dr. Armand
Byron Foulger	...	Prof. Quizard
Patti Brill	...	Alice
Pierre Watkin	...	Dr. Rolfe Carter
Danny Beck	...	Lennie the Meatball
Bernard Gorcey	...	Louie
Carmen D'Antonio	...	Armand's Receptionist (as Carmen De Antonio)

Storyline

The Bowery Boys---Slip , Sach, Bobby, Gabe, Whitey, and Chuck---accidentally enter the detective business with the disappearance of a beautiful girl, Eleanor Williams, as their first case to solve. They are retained by Selena, who says she is the missing girl's sister. The disappearance is doubly puzzling because Eleanor has just learned that her long-lost husband, Tom Williams, is returning from South America. Slip and Company trace Eleanor to the apartment of Dr. Rolfe Carter, to whom she first went when Tom was reported missing three years earlier. Slip witnesses the doctor's murder, but does not know who fired the fatal shot. Slip and his friends learn that Dr. Carter was a pseudo-psychic, who was into blackmailing his clients. He is linked with syndicate-chief Armand. The latter, and his henchman, knowing that Slip has information regarding Carter's murder, set out to kill the boys.

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Plot Keywords:

murder | apartment | fortune teller | client | blackmail | 

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Taglines:

The MADDEST Mystery in LAUGH History! THOSE BUGGY-BUDDIES ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A LAUGH-WRACKED RIDDLE!

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Mystery

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 May 1947 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Monogram Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

63 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The sixth of forty-eight Bowery Boys movies.

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Quotes

Prof. Quizard: How many hairs are there on the average head?
[Horace scratches his head]
Prof. Quizard: Ah... no counting.
Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones: I got it. One!
Prof. Quizard: That's incorrect.
Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones: My uncle's got an average head and he only has one hair on it.

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Connections

Followed by High Society (1955)

User Reviews

Bowery Boys #6

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Weak sixth entry in the Bowery Boys series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) pretending to be a detective and getting hired to locate a missing girl. Soon him and the gang are in over their heads as they must go up against a psychic who holds a lot more secrets than the boys realize. This here is (so far) the weakest of the series as we get very few laughs and enough bad plot for three different movies. There's no question that this here is a take off on the film noir genre that was big at the time but the screenplay is so lazy that we don't get any good jokes aimed at the genre and even the main cast members seem to be overlooked. The biggest problem here is the screenplay because there aren't very many good jokes written. The type of humor they go for here is incredibly lazy and the perfect example of this is a scene where Sach is told to "hold onto your hat" until the boys can meet up with him. The joke? Sach holds onto his hat until they arrive. The film is all over the place and there's way too much attempted plot. There are a few twist and turns but everything is so muddy that you really won't care about the actual mystery going on. The film actually runs out of steam around the thirty-minute mark and it's pretty bad when it's hard to get through 63-minutes. It seems even the actors are bored here as Gorcey doesn't have any energy and even his line-delivery seems to be slow as if he was wishing to be somewhere else. Huntz Hall is also pretty quiet here and the rest of the boys are so far in the background that they might not have even been in the picture (especially the wasted Bobby Jordan). In the end, the lack of laughs really kill this one and the sluggish running time doesn't help matters.