Smart Alecks

Yes, the "Eastside Kids" are not exactly as young as the characters they seek to portray, but then this is the movies. I bought 10 CDs of the Eastside Kids for $19.95 and considered it a steal. Their movies are fun to watch, if only for the goofs. This was the fifth movies in the set that I watched. Of course, when I was a lot younger, I used to watch their movies on TV, but that was a long time ago.

I have to disagree with the other opinion about this film. Of the five I have watched so far, this was the best. It actually had a plot, and even subplots, and some good acting. I enjoyed it and laughed out loud at the final scene.

I just wish they had listed Ernest Morrison by his real name in the credits, as they do for all the other actors, instead of listing him as "Sunshine Sammy." Considering the part he has to play, he deserves it, as he plays meatier roles than some of the white actors.

Oh, and they finally got a good looking actress to play the female lead.

Tom

This is one of the better East Side Kids movies with Bobby Jordan playing the one who gets a reward for helping aid in the capture of a criminal because of that criminal refusing to give his baseball back. The leading lady is Gale Storm who a decade later would have a couple of hit TV shows in "My Little Margie" and "The Gale Storm Show". Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison does a couple of entertaining tap dancing routines. And then there's Leo Gorcey who does both comedy and drama in fine form throughout. And don't forget Huntz Hall with some of the funniest lines as well as great slapstick between him and Gorcey. It's easy to see why they'd become such a successful comedy team for years. So on that note, I highly recommend Smart Alecks.

Smart Alecks (1942)

*** (out of 4)

One of the better East Side Kids films has Danny knocking over a racket and getting a $200 reward. The rest of the gang turn their backs on him thinking he's sold them out. Like most of the others, this film suffers from a somewhat stale story but there are plenty of laughs with the best being the one where the gang poison's one of the crooks. The last fifteen minutes turn to drama and the actors handle this very well.

Clancy Street Boys (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Muggs' rich cowboy uncle is coming to town for the first time ever and he thinks Muggs' parents had seven kids instead of one. In order to full them Muggs has to get the gang to play his brothers and Hall to be his sister. Decent entry from The East Side Kids has the usual cheap story but we do gets some good laughs with the highlight being Hall in drag.

I've seen about a dozen of the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys films and I guess that they are an acquired taste that I just haven't been able to acquire. Once again, the gang (particularly Muggs) is made up of jerks and you wonder why Danny would have anything to do with them. In this case, Danny accidentally apprehends a wanted criminal and collects a $200 reward. The gang inexplicably thinks they are entitled to 6/7th of the money...and end up stealing it from Danny. What these little juvenile delinquents don't realize is that Danny was planning on buying uniforms for the gang so they could have a baseball team. Instead of telling them, Danny just decides he's had enough of these jerks and leaves the gang...or, perhaps the gang just left him. Fortunately, by the end of the film the gang came through and all was forgiven.

The film works much better than KID DYNAMITE because although the gang was pretty difficult to like, they did come through in the end and Leo Gorcey's jerk routine wasn't as Muggs wasn't as pronounced as in other films. While not brilliant entertainment by any standard, it is worth seeing and is a bit above average in quality and entertainment value compared to the other films I've seen from the series.

Whom do kids look up to and imitate? Certainly not parents nor any adults. Kids admire older kids. Thus, the East Side Kids were a good act for the grade school crowd of the 1940s.. Their later Bowery Boys iterations were way too old to be the comedy sensation of the fourth grade. They wore suits for Pete's sake. Thus, the East Side Kids could be-and should be- childishly silly and immature. They had to act like kids and to a great extent, they did. They seemed like a real gang of street kids (albeit a tad too old) as opposed to the adult hapless loafers of The Bowery Boys

Here the bad guys are kids also. Maxie Rosebloom played a character (as usual) so dumb that he made Satch/Glimpy seem like a veritable Stephen Hawkins He was the "boss" of the criminal gang-which only seemed to have one other member, anyway. Perfect!

The only critical issue is: did kids like this movie when it came out? Well, I did