The Worst Film Ever

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

A Disappointing Continuation

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Okay this is a typical Kids format. Troubled youth one step from reform school get a second chance. This one sees them get offered reform school or a country camp. They chose the camp naturally. There is a crooked judge going to trial for corruption and embezzlement and the mob is trying to off him. His male secretary is in on the deal and tries to facilitate the judges demise. There is the young niece whose estate is being embezzled from. We have the adult chaperone Knuckles who is an almost executed for a murder he didn't do by guess who this judge!! While the boys are on their way to the camp the judge, niece, secretary, and a bodyguard are on their way to his country house. The judges party needs a lift and as you might expect get one from the boys et al. When they get to the judges house they reluctantly get an invite to stay the night. Things pick up from here. Ghosts in the cemetery, a scary housekeeper, frightening notes and occurrences, and the usual secret passages. Though this is a murder mystery it also has some very funny moments from the Kids. There are a couple of uncomfortable scenes by today's standards concerning the black Kid. There is watermelon served as dessert only to him and he does get called boy once. All in all though this is a really funny but predictable movie except for who turns out to be the killer. I will leave that for you to discover.

The gang are hot and looking to find a way to cool off during the summer heat. They decide to open up a fire hydrant and naturally are caught by the cops. But instead of punishing them, the kids are convinced to go to a summer camp by their friend, Knuckles. On the way, they meet up with a car load of strange people--people who are on the run. Together, the East Side Kids, Knuckles and these strangers are unexpectedly stuck in a house--a seemingly haunted house. And, in the sorts of coincidences that only happen in films, Knuckles just happens to have a reason to kill one of the strangers (a judge) and the housekeeper just happens to be a crazed lady bent on revenge who makes the housekeeper in "Rebecca" seem like Maria von Trapp!! This sort of haunted house film might be awfully familiar to those acquainted with the East Side Kids and their later incarnation as the Bowery Boys--too familiar. Such films as "Ghost on the Loose", "Spooks Run Wild" and "Spook Busters" had similar themes that seemed to work pretty well in these B-movies but were just over-used. Plus, the films were far from intellectual fare and seemed very similar to each other.While Sunshine Sammy (Ernest Morrison) was a familiar black member of the gang (it's nice to see they were integrated), in this film he's given some rather distasteful lines--such as when Muggs (Leo Gorcey) treats him like a servant and calls him 'boy' in one scene, his constantly being afraid of 'ghostes' and at one point he's sitting down to a giant plate of watermelon! Not exactly enlightened entertainment!Overall, a rather low-brow and familiar but generally enjoyable B-film. Aside from the awful stereotypical humor, the film also seems a bit contrived--as there are just one too many coincidences to make this anything other than a time-passer.

The East Side Kids had a couple of films going by "Spooks Run Wild" and "Ghosts on the Loose", but this one seems even better suited to a ghost story than the other two. It's got some atmospheric creepy sets, a long dungeon like room, and someone even dons the white sheets unlike the aforementioned films. What hampers the story though is some really shoddy writing and a make it up as you go sensibility that just about kills any interest in the story once it's under way. For me, this was not one of the better East Side Kids efforts.It starts out with a familiar premise; get the boys out of the city to keep them out of trouble, under the watchful eye of Danny's (Bobby Jordan) big brother Knuckles (Dave O'Brien). The core group this time out includes Muggs (Leo Gorcey) and Scruno (Sunshine Sammy Morrison), with a little help from Peewee (Donald Haines) and Skinny (Frankie Burke). Burke looks every bit the young Jimmy Cagney here, maybe even more so than he did as the young Rocky Sullivan in "Angels With Dirty Faces".If you're not used to it, the racial connotations to Scruno's character get a workout in the film to the point of embarrassment. In the bouncy car ride to the country, he complains of getting bruised 'black and blue'; at Briarcliff Manor, he's the only one served a huge slice of watermelon and he fairly dives right into it. Scruno takes it all in stride as in all of his appearances, also making the most of the bug eyed stereotype whenever something remotely scary might happen.The surprise of the film for me was Minerva Urecal, she's really got the sinister housekeeper act nailed in this outing. The next time you see Cloris Leachman in "Young Frankenstein", she's doing Minerva's Agatha character from this film, I would bet on it.Once things get going, the film gets some mileage out of the old sliding bookcase trick and the occasional sound of sinister organ music. The murder mystery itself is handled a bit sloppy, especially when the unknown character under the Manor turns out to be from the District Attorney's office. The revelation that Judge Parker's bodyguard was a member of the Maury Gang who wanted him rubbed out seemed a bit curious after the fact. Didn't anyone have an idea what Maury's guys might have looked like? Best line of the film this time around goes to Leo Gorcey - "Say, what's the Thin Man got that I ain't got?"

The pieces weren't quite all there yet (paging Huntz Hall!), but this erratic poverty row feature set the parameters for the long running Bowery Boys series. Additionally, the film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, who did his best to add interesting camera angles and spooky lighting to this low budget affair. Unfortunately, TCM's print is in very rough condition and a lot of Lewis' work has been washed out by decades of mishandling. Nonetheless, this is well worth a look for fans of the noir director as well as those who enjoy the teenage antics of the East Side Kids. If there's one regrettable element in Boys of the City, it's the appalling racism of screenwriter William Lively's script. One of the most commendable things about the later films in this series is the (generally) colour blind approach to Sammy Morrison's character, but in this effort, poor Sammy was burdened with jokes about spooks, watermelon, the ol' plantation, and his beloved Mammy. Still and all, he does a good job with the material and remains (after Gorcey and Hall) the most memorable of the series' characters.