Pretty Good

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The acting in this movie is really good.

FOLLOWING THE TRADITION and almost obligatory foraying into the realm of the Detective Story, THE BOWERY BOYS made their contribution to the comic parody of the genre. To be sure, this sort of a send-up had been done before. Its history dates back to the days of the Silents with the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy. It continued with the advent of the "Talkies" with people like both the Brothers Ritz & Marx, the Stooges, Red Skelton and even Bob Hope.IN TAKING THIS foray into these heretofore uncharted waters for the Bowery Boys series, all stops were pulled out. The story had the office of the gumshoe that would have doubled for that of either Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe. A weeping and partially veiled, weepy female victim brings a sad story which is obviously not wholly the truth.THE NOTION OF having Leo Gorcey's "Slip" Mahoney becoming the tough was not such a stretch. Anyone who's seen Leo's dramatic abilities as "Spit" in the film version of DEAD END certainly would not have been surprised. He possessed an intensity that was both totally believable and natural.HOWEVER, WE DIGRESS, as we are supposed to be putting the comic aspects of the movie under a sort of microscope, OF COURSE, WE have rounding out the action sleuth spoofing from the boys (Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, David Gorcey). Proper and atmospheric characters provided by the likes of Pierre Watkin, Dan Seymour, Byron Folger and Noble Johnson provide the necessary mysterious and menacing characters befitting a Dashell Hammitt or Raymond Chandler story.OH, DEAR ME! How could we forget the 'subtle' performance of Huntz Hall, comic relief supreme. In this outing he sports a calabash pipe and a deerstalker hat. Now, Schultz, who do you suppose that he was lampooning here? No Schultz, Basil Rathbone is incorrect!

It was only two pictures earlier that Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) organized the Mahoney Extermonating Company (Slip's spelling, not mine), and already he's expanding his endeavors to form the Mahoney Detecting Corporation. At least in the prior story the Bowery Boys graduated from the College of Insect Extermination, in this one they'll just drive you buggy.I got the distinct impression while watching this flick that the writers didn't know what it was supposed to be about. There's some kind of business about a letter being held for ransom that comes to naught, and when the Boys showed up as contestants on a quiz show, I began to wonder if I was suddenly watching a different movie than the one that started out. You know the gimmick is being stretched whenever one of these era flicks uses the old lights out trick, and having reached that point, the picture doesn't hesitate to use it.But you now what the topper for me was? Anyone who's ever seen Leo Gorcey in action well knows his penchant for massacring the English language, which he does here with his usual subtle finesse. So I thought I was hearing things when he asked Selena Webster (Betty Compson) for the definition of the word 'extortion'. This intrigued me because on any other occasion, Slip would have considered all possible meanings and then come up on his own with the correct seclusion.

At the "Elite Detective Agency" hoping to collect some much needed funds, "The Bowery Boys" leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) and "sidekick for years" Huntz Hall (as Sach) are mistaken for agency detectives. Mr. Gorcey accepts a $50 retainer from Betty Compson (as Selena Webster) to help find her attractive younger "sister." Bobby Jordan (as Bobby), Gabriel Dell (as Gabe), William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), and David Gorcey (as Chuck) are deputized as Gorcey's private dicks. After a few pratfalls, the gang locates Teala Loring (as Eleanor Williams), but she says she's not Ms. Compson's sister.This series entry is so loosely plotted, you tend to forget what is going on, exactly. The cast is obviously not being used well. Character actor and frequent TV guest star Byron Foulger (as Professor Quizard) enlivens a segment. Points of interest... prematurely nearing the end of her career, Betty Compson was a major film star for a decade, beginning with "The Miracle Man" (1919). Hall says "Sach" was named after the character's "Aunt Satchel". And, irregular regular Dell uncharacteristically appears as a nearsighted addition to the increasingly wallpaper-like, underused supporting "Bowery Boys".**** Hard Boiled Mahoney (4/26/47) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Betty Compson, Teala Loring

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.