I always get a kick out of Leo Gorcey's malapropisms, but relative to my summary line above, maybe he really meant it that way. The Bowery Boys always seemed to be running around in circles.
In a rare extended period covering the past few weeks, I find my schedule uniquely positioned to catch these later Bowery Boys flicks as they're offered Saturday mornings on Turner Classics. I found this one to be more entertaining than the last couple I've seen, probably because of some of the nuances offered. Like Slip Mahoney's remark that his laundry washes shirts better than Jack Benny. That had to be a reference to one of Benny's money schemes corresponding to his persona as a tightwad. There's also the early scene when the washing machine goes haywire and starts gushing water all over the place. If you watch Sach (Huntz Hall), he's beside himself just cracking up at how goofy the whole thing is.
I also got a kick out of a Frankie Darro line. As hood Bananas Stewart, he comments on the Boys playing mama to the abandoned baby at the laundromat - "Just a bunch o' little mothers, huh?" For 1949, that might have been pushing the envelope.
At the center of the story is a rather gruesome plot to have Laura Andrews (Anabel Shaw) committed to a sanitarium by her deceased husband's aunts, inappropriately named Faith and Hope (Ida Moore and Florence Auer). A large inheritance will go to the baby Andrews, but only if he's there to collect at the reading of the will. With the little tyke's life in danger, the widow Andrews finds it OK and convenient to drop him off for an adventure with the Bowery Boys.
Slip and Sach get some mileage out of a baby carriage switcheroo with the mother of a black baby, but then resort to black-face to extend the gimmick one more time when it wasn't needed. The rest of the story is played out with the Boys outwitting Cherry Nose Mason (John Kellogg) and his goons, along with a goofy scene at the Midvale Sanitarium where it looks like Slip might have Sach committed. The more I think about it, maybe those two card hustlers were patients too.
With this film I think I finally figured something out. In the early Dead End/East Side/Bowery Boys flicks, Gabriel Dell would often appear as one of the gang. In these later stories, he wound up playing a character who knew the boys but had a respectable position in the neighborhood. Unlike Gorcey and Hall, he obviously outgrew the young street tough persona.
One final thought as it relates to this picture. Don't you find it odd that the conniving duo, Faith and Hope, if referred to by their last names, would have been the Andrews Sisters!
In a rare extended period covering the past few weeks, I find my schedule uniquely positioned to catch these later Bowery Boys flicks as they're offered Saturday mornings on Turner Classics. I found this one to be more entertaining than the last couple I've seen, probably because of some of the nuances offered. Like Slip Mahoney's remark that his laundry washes shirts better than Jack Benny. That had to be a reference to one of Benny's money schemes corresponding to his persona as a tightwad. There's also the early scene when the washing machine goes haywire and starts gushing water all over the place. If you watch Sach (Huntz Hall), he's beside himself just cracking up at how goofy the whole thing is.
I also got a kick out of a Frankie Darro line. As hood Bananas Stewart, he comments on the Boys playing mama to the abandoned baby at the laundromat - "Just a bunch o' little mothers, huh?" For 1949, that might have been pushing the envelope.
At the center of the story is a rather gruesome plot to have Laura Andrews (Anabel Shaw) committed to a sanitarium by her deceased husband's aunts, inappropriately named Faith and Hope (Ida Moore and Florence Auer). A large inheritance will go to the baby Andrews, but only if he's there to collect at the reading of the will. With the little tyke's life in danger, the widow Andrews finds it OK and convenient to drop him off for an adventure with the Bowery Boys.
Slip and Sach get some mileage out of a baby carriage switcheroo with the mother of a black baby, but then resort to black-face to extend the gimmick one more time when it wasn't needed. The rest of the story is played out with the Boys outwitting Cherry Nose Mason (John Kellogg) and his goons, along with a goofy scene at the Midvale Sanitarium where it looks like Slip might have Sach committed. The more I think about it, maybe those two card hustlers were patients too.
With this film I think I finally figured something out. In the early Dead End/East Side/Bowery Boys flicks, Gabriel Dell would often appear as one of the gang. In these later stories, he wound up playing a character who knew the boys but had a respectable position in the neighborhood. Unlike Gorcey and Hall, he obviously outgrew the young street tough persona.
One final thought as it relates to this picture. Don't you find it odd that the conniving duo, Faith and Hope, if referred to by their last names, would have been the Andrews Sisters!