Loose in London

The Bowery Boys movies are hit and miss. This one is one of the hits. There are more smiles than laughs but that's okay. The movie is enjoyable. The boys are all in fine form, especially Huntz Hall. The last fifteen minutes or so of "Loose in London" is actually really funny. I put this one in the Bowery Boys win column.

Possible good fortune knocks on the door of Louie's Sweet Shop on the Bowery where four guys who every now and then have jobs are known to hang out. It seems as though a fellow with the high sounding moniker of Horace DeBussy Jones might actually rate that kind of a name. He could be the long lost descendant of a collateral branch of the Earl of Walsingham's family. And the current Earl is not doing all that well health wise.

Instead of just Huntz Hall coming over the whole gang departs and the sight of them seems to perk the old Earl played by Walter Kingsford up. They've been slowly poisoning him in the hopes of at least one of them being made his heir. But Kingsford is actually charmed by the moronic clowning of The Bowery Boys and he goes off the medicines the relatives have him on and starts getting a little color back in his cheeks.

The relatives are played by Norma Varden, Angela Greene, William Cottrell, John Dodsworth, and Rex Evans and they're not happy about their cousin from across the pond to say the least. It might further their interests if Kingsford got more suddenly dispatched and the Bowery Boys blamed for it.

The Bowery Boys recycle a lot of material from other films and use it in their's. The characters of Walsingham family come from just about every film with an English setting you can name. Still the results here aren't too bad. Huntz Hall's battle with a stuffed fox that may still have some life in it is a classic.

This Bowery Boys film did not have all that much of Leo Gorcey and his original language malapropisms. Huntz Hall has center stage here and if you are fans of his, this film is for you.

And, they nor anybody else in this film saw London or England during its six-day production.

As fate, and the writers, would have it, word comes to the Bowery that titled, great, great granduncle of Horace Debussy Jones (Huntz Hall), better known as Sach, is near death and has provided transportation to summon relatives from around the world. Sach and the Bowery Boys, Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey), Butch Williams (Bennie Bartlett), Chuck Anderson (David Gorcey as David Condon)and Soda Shoppe owner Louie Dumbrowsky (Bernard Gorcey), trade Sach's pre-paid first class ticket for lesser (much lesser) accommodations and embark for ye olde London towne.

There, they find the old man, the Earl of Walsingham (Walter Kingsford) already surrounded by sinister Sir Edgar Whipsnade (John Dodsworth); Reggie (William Cottrell), the obligatory Fop; the spinster Aunt Agatha (Norma Varden); the young and seductive Lady Marcia (the young and seductive Angela Greene), moronic Cousin Herbert (Rex Evans), and Hoskins (James Logan), the Butler.

They, of course,are assembled in a plot to slowly poison the old Earl and to get rid of Sach and his pals.

No giveaway to lay their chances at slim-to-none.

It is with this film that the focus of the Bowery Boys movies becomes pure comedy. The change from gangster melodramas to comedy is gradual, and many of the Jan Grippo and Jerry Thomas films which precede this one point in the direction of comedy. Ben Schwab, the new producer of the series, wanted a purer sense of comedy. After doing "Jalopy", which used the regular writers and the regular director, William "One Take" Beaudine, Schwab replaced them with Ed Bernds and Elwood Ullman. These men had been working on Three Stooges shorts for years. Ullman was always a writer and Bernds had started as a sound effects man and had graduated to writer-director. The Bernds directed Columbia short comedies are usually superior to the ones produced at the same time by Jules White. Bernds and Ullman brought their short subject slapstick comedy style to the Bowery Boys and this produced the funniest movies in the series. Sure, the stories might have been better before, but the formula of someone walking in Louie's Sweet Shop and taking the boys out of their element was a great set-up for slapstick comedy. The focus of the films became Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall; Bernard Gorcey is given better material, but David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett slip more into the background or even out of the films. Schwab also replaced longtime musical director Edward Kay, whose music consists of transformations of "Sidewalks of New York" and "B" western clichés, with the more modern and comic sound of Marlin Skiles.

This BB movie marks the first time that opening theme is an instrumental version of "The Gang's All Here." Also, this is the first time that caricatures of Slip and Sach appear on either side of the screen as the opening credits roll. These are fresh, welcome changes that emphasize that Sach and Slip are going to be the main focus of the BB movies from now on. Louie has better lines, but Chuck and Butch are pure background scenery and have almost no lines.

The plot revolves around Sach learning that he is one of the heirs to a British fortune. The patriarch, Sir Percy, wants to gather the clan at his London castle to see which one deserve to be named in his will. Naturally, a few of the other potential legatees want to do away with the Sir Percy. This is the situation the BBs find themselves in when they arrive at the castle. Can they protect Percy from the evil distant cousins?

Angela Greene plays Lady Marcia. In the early 1940s, she dated young naval Lieutenant John F. Kennedy. Seeing Angela in Loose in London, it's easy to see why the future President was so interested in her.

Loose in London does mark a big change in the Bowery Boys movies. The accent is now on Sach and Slip, the comedy, and away from the gangster/crime elements that featured so prominently in previous movies in the series.