The Bowery Boys attempt to soldier on without Leo Gorcey's Slip Mahoney in this forty-second entry in the series. The plot has Sach trying to get a picture of a notorious gangster. It's a yawner that sets the template for the remainder of the Bowery films. Huntz Hall is now the only star, so almost all of the gags revolve around him. If you're not a fan of his limited comedic talents, then you may want to sit this one out. Personally, I always enjoyed Leo Gorcey's malapropisms more than Hall's rubberfacing buffoonery. I also enjoyed the chemistry between Gorcey and Hall, which is sorely missed with Gorcey's replacement -- the dull and colorless Stanley Clements. He plays Duke, the supposed new leader of the gang. He's basically just a straight man for Hall, yelling at him and attempting to mimic the dynamic Hall had with Gorcey. He gets few gags of his own and none that are funny. Also joining the series is Queenie Smith as the Boys' landlady, a pathetic attempt to replace the irreplaceable Bernard Gorcey, who died the year before. In the background are forgettable David Gorcey and Danny Welton (his only Bowery film). This isn't fun. Obviously the series is well past its expiration date here. It's never funny but, if you're a big Huntz fan, maybe you can find something of worth here.
13 Reviews
I Come to Praise Duke
davjazzer9 March 2011
I actually enjoy the 1956-8 finale of the Bowery Boys series. Despite the absence of Leo and Bernard Gorcey, the series still gave us the usual quota of laughs and fun. Huntz Hall did get a bit over the top now that he was the lead player but Stanley Clements complemented him well as Duke Covaleske. There wasn't much time to develop chemistry as Gorcey left the series in early 1956. Taking that into consideration, I thought Clements was an able replacement. Two of the entries from 1957, Hold that Hypnotist and Spook Chasers are personal favorites and have much of the spirit of the 3 Stooges with predictable slapstick. We also have the old standby David Gorcey and good support from Jimmy Murphy and Eddie Leroy. The Mike Clancy character was a good idea bringing back shades of Louie Dumbrowski. These last Bowery Boys adventures have their moments and don't deserve the dire reviews from my colleagues.
Camera Shy Mobster Meets the Bowery Boys
bkoganbing5 March 2011
The one thing you can say about Fighting Trouble is that billing wise Huntz Hall finally came into his own in the series. For years Leo Gorcey got top billing and Hall was only the first featured name albeit in larger type.
Hall was certainly the attraction here because try as they might the chemistry between Leo Gorcey and Hall just is not there with Stanley Clements. You wonder why Clements is hanging around with these guys half the time.
In this one Hall's trying to get into the newspaper photography business and he takes an advance from editor Tim Ryan to get the goods on mobster Tom Browne Henry. With the help of Clements and the rest including their landlady Queenie Smith they get more than just pictures on Henry. Playing mob molls and very well are the statuesque Adele Jergens and Laurie Mitchell.
Queenie Smith as Mrs. Kelly was trying to take the place of Bernard Gorcey as Louie Dumbrowski. When Bernard was killed and Leo just quit the series altogether after his dad died a whole lot was just gone.
This does have its moments, but Allied Artists should have just quit the whole business/
Hall was certainly the attraction here because try as they might the chemistry between Leo Gorcey and Hall just is not there with Stanley Clements. You wonder why Clements is hanging around with these guys half the time.
In this one Hall's trying to get into the newspaper photography business and he takes an advance from editor Tim Ryan to get the goods on mobster Tom Browne Henry. With the help of Clements and the rest including their landlady Queenie Smith they get more than just pictures on Henry. Playing mob molls and very well are the statuesque Adele Jergens and Laurie Mitchell.
Queenie Smith as Mrs. Kelly was trying to take the place of Bernard Gorcey as Louie Dumbrowski. When Bernard was killed and Leo just quit the series altogether after his dad died a whole lot was just gone.
This does have its moments, but Allied Artists should have just quit the whole business/
Not many laughs to be had
JohnSeal20 November 1999
Even Huntz Hall seems to be tiring of the schtick in this post-Leo Gorcey Bowery Boys entry. It's the usual stuff only with fewer laughs, and without the Gorcey's (bar David, still filling his familiar role of Chuck) Huntz looked pretty bored.
Fighting to Stay Awake
wes-connors5 March 2011
With leader Leo Gorcey retiring from the Bowery series due to personal problems (see "Crashing Las Vegas"), "Fighting Trouble" introduces streetwise Stanley Clements (as Stanislaus "Duke" Covelske) to lead the group. A good fit, but not all the film series needed, Mr. Clements was a member of previous group "The East Side Kids" (as Stash) for a few films during 1942-43. Breaking from the juvenile gang roles, Clements won critical acclaim for his performance in "Salty O'Rourke" (1945), but found his career stalled thereafter...
With no story explanation, Clements would lead "The Bowery Boys" to their final comic escapades. Long-running sidekick Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) now held star-billing. In this wearisome outing, ever-present David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck) and one-shot Danny Welton (as Danny) round out the quartet. To help the latter, Clements and Mr. Hall arm themselves with binoculars and a camera. Eventually, everyone becomes involved with gangsters. A heart attack made this regular Tim Ryan's last Bowery adventure.
*** Fighting Trouble (9/16/56) George Blair ~ Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Tim Ryan, David Gorcey
With no story explanation, Clements would lead "The Bowery Boys" to their final comic escapades. Long-running sidekick Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) now held star-billing. In this wearisome outing, ever-present David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck) and one-shot Danny Welton (as Danny) round out the quartet. To help the latter, Clements and Mr. Hall arm themselves with binoculars and a camera. Eventually, everyone becomes involved with gangsters. A heart attack made this regular Tim Ryan's last Bowery adventure.
*** Fighting Trouble (9/16/56) George Blair ~ Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Tim Ryan, David Gorcey
The funniest camera on screen since Buster Keaton's, but not much else....
mark.waltz8 March 2011
Warning: Spoilers
It's a shame that one of the funniest openings of a Bowery Boys movie (this one the first minus Leo Gorcey) ends up with hardly any laughs. Since Gorcey's Slip has slid out of the series, Sach (Huntz Hall) is now the only original cast member of the series left. He is now apparently a newspaper photographer with a camera that can detect movement and its prey, much like a snake. Today's paparazzi never had it so good!
Sach is out to get the scoop of the year by getting pictures of the inside of a New York mob, so he poses as a visiting Chicago mobster by the name of Handsome Hal, who is anything but. Typical dumb New York gangsters are abound, as is moll Adele Jergens in her 3rd Bowery Boys appearance. There really isn't much different in this than the previous 30 something entries in the series, although Queenie Smith's Miss Kelly is the cutest landlady since Elizabeth Patterson's Mrs. Trumball on "I Love Lucy".
Interesting note about visiting moll Dolly Tate (played by Laurie Mitchell)....her character's name is the same as Frank Butler's sidekick in "Annie Get Your Gun!". A battering ram of coconuts is the only other slightly amusing gag in the film.
Sach is out to get the scoop of the year by getting pictures of the inside of a New York mob, so he poses as a visiting Chicago mobster by the name of Handsome Hal, who is anything but. Typical dumb New York gangsters are abound, as is moll Adele Jergens in her 3rd Bowery Boys appearance. There really isn't much different in this than the previous 30 something entries in the series, although Queenie Smith's Miss Kelly is the cutest landlady since Elizabeth Patterson's Mrs. Trumball on "I Love Lucy".
Interesting note about visiting moll Dolly Tate (played by Laurie Mitchell)....her character's name is the same as Frank Butler's sidekick in "Annie Get Your Gun!". A battering ram of coconuts is the only other slightly amusing gag in the film.
Bowery Boys #42
Michael_Elliott7 March 2011
Fighting Trouble (1956)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
This forty-second film in the Bowery Boys series finally had Huntz Hall getting top-billing as Leo Gorcey retired from the series after the previous film. Stanley Clements, who appeared in several East Side Kids films, replaces Gorcey and this first offering of the new comic team doesn't work at all. After one of their friends is falsely accused of stealing two-hundred dollars, Sach (Hall), Duke (Clements) and the rest of the gang decide to start working for a newspaper editor who needs a photograph of a notorious gangster. Sach, the camera man, must try and snap a picture but before long the boys are in over their heads. The Gorcey-Hall team were never going to be confused with Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello but they were decent in their "B" movies. After watching this film you can see how much chemistry they actually had together because Hall and Clements certainly don't mix and match very well. It really seems like two comedians trying to work together but not knowing each others style or timing because there are some really embarrassing moments throughout the film. One happens when the boys bust in on the editor and it appears the two just don't know how to do the bit or how to time everything off the other. Another silly sequence has the boys sneaking into the gangster's girlfriends apartment where they pretend to be fashion designers. No laughs follow simply because of the bad timing between the two. Hall's Sach getting the lead was a long time coming but the character really comes across quite annoying when Gorcey isn't here to level him out. Just take a look at the scene where there's an easy picture to take but the way Hall blows it is just annoying and never funny. As you'd expect, there's silliness running throughout the picture and when the boys come under attack by the gangsters nothing funny happens. This first film in the "new" series is certainly a major bust and at just 60-minutes it still feels way too long.
* 1/2 (out of 4)
This forty-second film in the Bowery Boys series finally had Huntz Hall getting top-billing as Leo Gorcey retired from the series after the previous film. Stanley Clements, who appeared in several East Side Kids films, replaces Gorcey and this first offering of the new comic team doesn't work at all. After one of their friends is falsely accused of stealing two-hundred dollars, Sach (Hall), Duke (Clements) and the rest of the gang decide to start working for a newspaper editor who needs a photograph of a notorious gangster. Sach, the camera man, must try and snap a picture but before long the boys are in over their heads. The Gorcey-Hall team were never going to be confused with Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello but they were decent in their "B" movies. After watching this film you can see how much chemistry they actually had together because Hall and Clements certainly don't mix and match very well. It really seems like two comedians trying to work together but not knowing each others style or timing because there are some really embarrassing moments throughout the film. One happens when the boys bust in on the editor and it appears the two just don't know how to do the bit or how to time everything off the other. Another silly sequence has the boys sneaking into the gangster's girlfriends apartment where they pretend to be fashion designers. No laughs follow simply because of the bad timing between the two. Hall's Sach getting the lead was a long time coming but the character really comes across quite annoying when Gorcey isn't here to level him out. Just take a look at the scene where there's an easy picture to take but the way Hall blows it is just annoying and never funny. As you'd expect, there's silliness running throughout the picture and when the boys come under attack by the gangsters nothing funny happens. This first film in the "new" series is certainly a major bust and at just 60-minutes it still feels way too long.
Character Transplant Saves Series
redryan6417 December 2016
SEEING THAT FTHIS was one of those BOWERY BOYS movies mad in the Post-Leo & Bernard Gorcey period, our first inclination was to skip it and do something more exciting, like watching the paint dry. But circumstances conspired to deliver us a different fare. We wound up watching it today via the TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES cable channel and discovered that this pre-judgment about those last entries in the series was jut a trifle harsh.
AS WE ALL were well aware, the interplay between gang chief, 'Slip Mahoney' (Leo Gorcey) and his right hand stooge, Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones (Huntz Hall)was long the main attraction of the series*. In fact, the dialog in just about all the previous entries was about 80+% reserved for the twosome; leaving little for the remaining players.
SO AT THIS point, with Leo gone, the nature of the beast found itself altered slightly with Mr. Huntz Hall's being promoted to top billing and to sort of a different sort of leader. Without any mention of 'Slip' Mahoney's tenor at the helm of around 10 years, the movie brought us one Stanislaus 'Duke' Kovaleskie (Stanley Clements), who did not replace Leo in rank; but did fill the niche and void of Sach's foil.
IN THIS AREA, 'Duke' did a fine job, providing a near perfect straight man to Huntz Hall's buffoonery. And there was no doubt about who was the straight man here, as Gorcey's fondness for double talk and malapropism often made for a difficulty in defining the roles of each.
ANOTHER BENEFIT CAME to the other two or sometimes three BB members in the sudden increase in their lines to speak. David Gorcey (here billed as Dsvid Condon**) for example had much more to say on screen with older brother , Leo, now retired.
THE ADDITION OF Stanley Clements' character did enough to the cast for the series to be propelled along for six pictures. That makes it the longest running series of "B" pictures ever.
AS WE ALL were well aware, the interplay between gang chief, 'Slip Mahoney' (Leo Gorcey) and his right hand stooge, Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones (Huntz Hall)was long the main attraction of the series*. In fact, the dialog in just about all the previous entries was about 80+% reserved for the twosome; leaving little for the remaining players.
SO AT THIS point, with Leo gone, the nature of the beast found itself altered slightly with Mr. Huntz Hall's being promoted to top billing and to sort of a different sort of leader. Without any mention of 'Slip' Mahoney's tenor at the helm of around 10 years, the movie brought us one Stanislaus 'Duke' Kovaleskie (Stanley Clements), who did not replace Leo in rank; but did fill the niche and void of Sach's foil.
IN THIS AREA, 'Duke' did a fine job, providing a near perfect straight man to Huntz Hall's buffoonery. And there was no doubt about who was the straight man here, as Gorcey's fondness for double talk and malapropism often made for a difficulty in defining the roles of each.
ANOTHER BENEFIT CAME to the other two or sometimes three BB members in the sudden increase in their lines to speak. David Gorcey (here billed as Dsvid Condon**) for example had much more to say on screen with older brother , Leo, now retired.
THE ADDITION OF Stanley Clements' character did enough to the cast for the series to be propelled along for six pictures. That makes it the longest running series of "B" pictures ever.
The parade's gone by
pmtelefon6 January 2020
"Fighting Trouble" makes for a long hour. Not only is it practically laughless, it's also kind of stupid. The cast is fine but the material is just not there. For what it's worth I did like the set design. "Fighting Trouble" is a Bowery Boys pass.
The first post-Gorcey Bowery Boys pic...and it isn't very good.
planktonrules1 August 2020
While a few of the Bowery Boys films made after Leo Gorcey left the series were pretty good (such as "Hold That Hypnotist"), most of these later efforts weren't particularly well made and the series had clearly seen better days. And, "Fighting Trouble", the first of these post-Gorcey pictures, is particularly weak. I think the biggest reason was that Sach was a complete imbecile...and in films where he was less dopey, the stories worked better. Here, he's just too dim to be enjoyable...and actually pretty annoying.
The boys in this film hardly look like boys at all. They are naturally older but they also dress in suits and appear nothing like guys who were supposed to be from the lowest elements of the Bowery. The new boss of the series is Duke (Stanley Clements) but with the loss of Leo Gorcey, more emphasis is on Huntz Hall ('Sach') to pick up the slack and lion's share of the picture.
In this story, the guys are trying to get money to help out a friend. Sach loves taking photos so Duke is convinced they'll make quick money with a local newspaper. Unfortunately, the photo contest is long over....but the editor hires them to get incriminating photos on some local gangsters. To get close to them, Duke and Sach pretend to be gangsters who have come to work with the local hoods. But what to do if the REAL gangster, Handsome Hal, shows up as well??
Again and again, Sach gets incriminating photos and time and again, he ends up exposing them and ruining them. Once is funny...repeatedly is just annoying. And, 'annoying' is probably the best way to described this one. A weak story and an over-reliance on Hall mark a down-turn in the quality of the series.
The boys in this film hardly look like boys at all. They are naturally older but they also dress in suits and appear nothing like guys who were supposed to be from the lowest elements of the Bowery. The new boss of the series is Duke (Stanley Clements) but with the loss of Leo Gorcey, more emphasis is on Huntz Hall ('Sach') to pick up the slack and lion's share of the picture.
In this story, the guys are trying to get money to help out a friend. Sach loves taking photos so Duke is convinced they'll make quick money with a local newspaper. Unfortunately, the photo contest is long over....but the editor hires them to get incriminating photos on some local gangsters. To get close to them, Duke and Sach pretend to be gangsters who have come to work with the local hoods. But what to do if the REAL gangster, Handsome Hal, shows up as well??
Again and again, Sach gets incriminating photos and time and again, he ends up exposing them and ruining them. Once is funny...repeatedly is just annoying. And, 'annoying' is probably the best way to described this one. A weak story and an over-reliance on Hall mark a down-turn in the quality of the series.
Reminds me of a penthouse I once had in the basement
kapelusznik1826 June 2015
Warning: Spoilers
****SPOILERS**** First "Bowery Boys" film without their leader Leo Grocey who dropped out of the series due to his dad's tragic, in a car accident, death as the #2 man of the group Horace Debussy-or just plain Sach to his friends- Jones, Huntz Hall, involved with a counterfeit ring that he and his friend "Bowery Boy" Stanislaus "Duke" Coveleskie, Stanley Cllements, are trying to get the goods on. It's both Sach & Duke who got a job as photo journalist due to Sach's amazing skills as a free lance artistic photographer. Infilterating the gang and pretending to be top Chiocago mobster Handsome Hal, Joseph Downing, Sach & Duke plan to photograph the gang in action with a combination camera cigarette lighter that Sach invented in his spear time. The problem is for the boys to keep the pill popping and always worried about his health Hamdsome Hal on ice in Miss Kelly's, Queenie Smith, boarding house. That's before the head of the counterfeit ring Frankie Arbo, Thomas B. Henry, finds out that Sach, all dressed up looking like a Mississippi riverboat gambler, isn't Handsome Hal at all!
It's just when the boys are about to pull off their plan by having Frankie Arbo and his gang caught red handed on film printed up by their newspaper that Handsome Hal's girlfriend who he's been cheating on Miss Dolly, Laurie Mitchall, pops up at the Hula Hut where the counterfeiting is going on and all hell breaks loose! Not for Sach & Duke but for Handsome Hal himself by Dolly, in getting even with the big heel, identifies Sach not her ex-boyfriend Handsome Hal as being Handsome Hal!
***SPOILERS*** With all the work that the two "Bowery Boys" did to expose the Frankie Arbo gang Sach as you would have expected screwed everything up in the end. That's in him exposing the film before it was developed in his hast to get it developed in the photo lab! With their boss newspaper editor Vance, Tom Ryan, mad as hell and with murder on his mind about to slice them to ribbons, with his machete, he finds a fate far more appropriate as well as horrific for them. Halking his paper around the clock at minimum wage pay until their both eligible, if they live that long, to collect their social security checks!
It's just when the boys are about to pull off their plan by having Frankie Arbo and his gang caught red handed on film printed up by their newspaper that Handsome Hal's girlfriend who he's been cheating on Miss Dolly, Laurie Mitchall, pops up at the Hula Hut where the counterfeiting is going on and all hell breaks loose! Not for Sach & Duke but for Handsome Hal himself by Dolly, in getting even with the big heel, identifies Sach not her ex-boyfriend Handsome Hal as being Handsome Hal!
***SPOILERS*** With all the work that the two "Bowery Boys" did to expose the Frankie Arbo gang Sach as you would have expected screwed everything up in the end. That's in him exposing the film before it was developed in his hast to get it developed in the photo lab! With their boss newspaper editor Vance, Tom Ryan, mad as hell and with murder on his mind about to slice them to ribbons, with his machete, he finds a fate far more appropriate as well as horrific for them. Halking his paper around the clock at minimum wage pay until their both eligible, if they live that long, to collect their social security checks!
Maybe Kate Kelly was lying about once having a husband.
horn-518 April 2006
Anyway, Miss (according to some sources) Kate Kelly (Queenie Smith) runs a rooming house called Mrs. Kelly's and some of the boarders include "Sach" (Huntz Hall), "Duke" (Stanley Clements), Chuck Andrews (David Gorcey as David Condon) and "Butch" (the very-much credited Danny Welton but a WHO? then and now.)"Sach" has become a camera fiend so, in the pursuit of some ready cash, "Duke" takes him and his photographs to the editor of the New York Morning Blade, Mr. Ray Vance (Tim Ryan.) He hires them to get some photos of gangland boss Frankie Arbo (Thomas B. Henry) but Mr. Arbo does not care to have his picture in the papers and dislikes cameramen for the same reason.
"Sach" and "Duke" pose as interior decorators in the penthouse of Mae Randall (Adele Jergens, who was billed above Marilyn Monroe in "Ladies of the Chorus, although the MM-revisionists don't seem to be aware of it nor accept it)in order to get photos of Arbo. Later, at Arbo's night club, the boys learn that the gangster is importing a tough hoodlum from Chicago---and no one in the East knows him. "Sach" and "Duke" lure the visiting gunman, Handsome Hal Lomax (Joe Downing, who must have replaced a handsome actor first cast in the role)to Mrs. Kelly's and trick him into staying there through false police calls.
"Sach" masquerades as Handsome Hal (and is at least as handsome as Joe Downing) and gets away with it, and he and "Duke" manage to get into Arbo's inner office with the Boss and his henchies, which, compared to the henchies in the earlier Bowery Boys films, are a sorry and wimpy lot, and the boys are cut into the gang's racket, which is counterfeit money.
Then Handsome Hal shows up and things are getting dicey for the boys until Handsome Hal's jilted sweetheart, Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell, indeed a dolly of the 50's) makes her appearance, and she is so put out with getting jilted by the not-handsome Handsome Hal that she ups and identifies "Sach" as the real Handsome Hal, and fingers Handsome himself as the impostor. Handsome taking up with two interior decorators may have been what hacked Dolly off the most.
"Sach" has been taking photos with a miniature camera hidden in his cigarette holder, but accidentally unloads the camera, and the film falls out, exposing the boys and the film. What a revolting development! The gangsters then shoot the boys dead and the film ends. Wait, that was some other film. Probably one of those non-Noir Noirs. Something else happens here.
"Sach" and "Duke" pose as interior decorators in the penthouse of Mae Randall (Adele Jergens, who was billed above Marilyn Monroe in "Ladies of the Chorus, although the MM-revisionists don't seem to be aware of it nor accept it)in order to get photos of Arbo. Later, at Arbo's night club, the boys learn that the gangster is importing a tough hoodlum from Chicago---and no one in the East knows him. "Sach" and "Duke" lure the visiting gunman, Handsome Hal Lomax (Joe Downing, who must have replaced a handsome actor first cast in the role)to Mrs. Kelly's and trick him into staying there through false police calls.
"Sach" masquerades as Handsome Hal (and is at least as handsome as Joe Downing) and gets away with it, and he and "Duke" manage to get into Arbo's inner office with the Boss and his henchies, which, compared to the henchies in the earlier Bowery Boys films, are a sorry and wimpy lot, and the boys are cut into the gang's racket, which is counterfeit money.
Then Handsome Hal shows up and things are getting dicey for the boys until Handsome Hal's jilted sweetheart, Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell, indeed a dolly of the 50's) makes her appearance, and she is so put out with getting jilted by the not-handsome Handsome Hal that she ups and identifies "Sach" as the real Handsome Hal, and fingers Handsome himself as the impostor. Handsome taking up with two interior decorators may have been what hacked Dolly off the most.
"Sach" has been taking photos with a miniature camera hidden in his cigarette holder, but accidentally unloads the camera, and the film falls out, exposing the boys and the film. What a revolting development! The gangsters then shoot the boys dead and the film ends. Wait, that was some other film. Probably one of those non-Noir Noirs. Something else happens here.
"Well, listen to this idea that I don't mind calling brilliant!"
classicsoncall18 December 2016
Warning: Spoilers
With Leo Gorcey out of the picture, it only made sense that the opening credits would list the players as 'Huntz Hall and The Bowery Boys'. It's not like Sach (Hall) is the new gang leader though, that role seems to fall to Duke Coveleskie, a somewhat ambiguous assignment given to actor Stanley Clements. I'd like to think that the pair would have had good chemistry together but it just wasn't so, at least not in this first outing with 'Slip' Mahoney nowhere in sight.
But it's a Bowery Boys flick so the usual nonsense prevails in this tale of Sach and his trusty cigarette lighter/camera attempting to get a reluctant snapshot of gangster Frankie Arbo (Thomas B. Henry) for the New York Blade. At least Sach got to do a couple of unique undercover gigs, one as a French interior decorator, and later posing as a Chicago underworld hood, passing himself off as Handsome Hal Lomax. In that guise, it appeared to me that Hall was doing a bit of a faux Bogart. One thing for sure, Sach looked more like a Handsome Hal to me than the real Handsome Hal (Joe Downing). The budget for this flick must have really hit the skids because actor Downing didn't come close to his namesake.
Which made it all the more laughable when Hal's moll from Chicago showed up. Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell) had just the right figure to be positioned for all those well framed profile shots before the police arrived on scene to bust up the Arbo counterfeit racket. Talk about a puzzler - how did the cops know when to show up? Just another one of those imponderables for a goofy Bowery Boys script.
But it's a Bowery Boys flick so the usual nonsense prevails in this tale of Sach and his trusty cigarette lighter/camera attempting to get a reluctant snapshot of gangster Frankie Arbo (Thomas B. Henry) for the New York Blade. At least Sach got to do a couple of unique undercover gigs, one as a French interior decorator, and later posing as a Chicago underworld hood, passing himself off as Handsome Hal Lomax. In that guise, it appeared to me that Hall was doing a bit of a faux Bogart. One thing for sure, Sach looked more like a Handsome Hal to me than the real Handsome Hal (Joe Downing). The budget for this flick must have really hit the skids because actor Downing didn't come close to his namesake.
Which made it all the more laughable when Hal's moll from Chicago showed up. Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell) had just the right figure to be positioned for all those well framed profile shots before the police arrived on scene to bust up the Arbo counterfeit racket. Talk about a puzzler - how did the cops know when to show up? Just another one of those imponderables for a goofy Bowery Boys script.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
