The Gang's All Here

This is the story of two friends who end up driving for a trucking company that has become plagued by hijackings. As things go on one falls for the daughter of the company owner, things get complicated as the hijackings turn deadly and the friends realize that there is much more going on than meets the eye.

Montan Moreland was paired several times with Frankie Darro. What was great about this was that Moreland was always portrayed as Darro's equal even if he was just being comedy relief. This put a nice spin on things and proved that you could get away with a fair representation of how people got along. Better for the audience was the fact that the interplay became sharper and more real. We end up with two friends talking to each other and not two actors.

The movie itself is not one of the best that Moreland and Darro did together. The plot is a bit herky jerky and there was one or two times that I thought things were being kept in motion just to meet a required running time. Allowing for that this is a good little thriller and certainly worth a bag of popcorn and an hour of your time. You may not remember it three days later but you certainly will enjoy it while its on.

Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland made a bunch of films together, but since they seem to play different characters in each, the movies can't be really considered a series.

Years ago, some commentator noted that when these movies got re-made, the Moreland character was made white and played by white actors. It means, among other things, that Mantan Moreland played more than a stereotype.

Keye Luke's character was also not a stereotype, and the producers of this picture deserve a lot of credit for avoiding such things.

It bothered me how often the Darro character was bossy, even harsh, to the Moreland character, but ultimately the two were friends.

The rest of the cast is first rate, and the dialogue is often funny. Making it all even more enjoyable was that frequently the Darro character smiled or even laughed at some comment by the Moreland character.

"The Gang's All Here" title was used by other movies, and at least some of this plot was used also, but this is for fun, and probably needn't be compared to great classic cinema. But, it is good fun, and I recommend it -- except for one problem: The print at YouTube is terribly dark and much of the action is lost because of that. Still, it can be enjoyed with tolerance and patience.

"Two young friends decide to become truck drivers but find themselves thrown into the middle of a war between the trucking firm owner and a gang of saboteurs. Hoping to help their new employer, the two men set out to track down the head of the saboteurs. Their hope is to expose the gang leader and save the company from being bought out by a rival firm," according to the DVD sleeve summary. "The Gang's All Here" features some occasionally amusing but more often offensive observations on race and gender.

The "two men" are ambitious, tough Frankie Darro (as Frankie O'Malley) and his shiftless, cowardly companion Mantan Moreland (as Jefferson "Jeff" Smith). Mr. Darro and Mr. Moreland played these characters, the young tough and stereotypically lazy sidekick, in a series of films. A romantic subplot involves young mechanic Jackie Moran (as Chick Daly) and pretty girlfriend Marcia Mae Jones (as Patsy Wallace). While smaller in stature, Darro threatens to take Chick's chick, because Darro acts more manly.

*** The Gang's All Here (6/11/41) Jean Yarbrough ~ Frankie Darro, Mantan Moreland, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran

Stars Fank Darro as "Frank"... takes a job as a truck driver, unaware of the shenanigans behind the scenes. Apparently the competitor has hired thugs to drive the company out of business, but Frank and sidekick "Jeff" need the money. A lot of repetition.. we keep seeing the same two trucks on the same stretch of road.... but in different incidents and different smashups. Then Mr. Lee shows up, and no-one knows what he's really doing there. Because of his shorter size, Darro had played the robot in "Forbidden Planet", although someone else did the robot's voice. Darro died quite young of a heart attack. This one is a Monogram Pictures shortie, at only 62 minutes. Which in this case is a blessing, since it's really not so good. Directed by Jean Yarbrough, who was known as king of the hacks, according to his bio here. Yarbrough and writer Edmond Kelso made twelve films together! It's just ok. No big names in this one.

While this comedy does not feature the complex screenplay of "Up In the Air," the best of the Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland team-ups, it is certainly an above-average comedy for its time -- that being a time of segregation laws and the dawning of the nascent civil rights movement. And as if a Black/White buddy movie were not enough of a ground-breaker for 1941, this film also features the wonderful Chinese-American actor Keye Luke as an insurance investigator. Nowadays dual-racial and cross-cultural buddy movies are so common as to hardly merit special notice, but long before such famous films as "48 Hours" with Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy, savvy audiences were amazed at the comedic interplay between Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland. I sincerely believe that in their own way, fun little movies like this laid the groundwork for racial tolerance and an end to segregation laws -- but that is not the only reason to watch them -- the truth is, Mantan Moreland is one of the great comedians of the 20th century, and every film he made is worth a look.