Private Eyes

Don't miss this!

When Monogram Pictures became Allied Artists, the Bowery Boys series got a bigger budget and new talent (behind the scenes), and it showed. Actually, Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall decided to try out a new director with a different style and writer. They settled on Edward Bernds (as director) and Elwood Ullman as head writer, both behind many of THE THREE STOOGES shorts.

Here's the dirty secret... Gorcey and Hall didn't want to change "their" style. Tempers flared, Hall even threatened to walk out of the series. Both sides reluctantly gave in, and, as luck would have it, PRIVATE EYES became one of their funniest films. It actually was a cross between HARD BOILED MAHONEY, where the Boys become amateur detectives, and HOLD THAT BABY! (minus the baby), as they track kidnappers to a sanitarium.

10 STARS.

Best of it all has Slip dressing up as a European doctor (with thick accent and glasses to match) and Sach in drag (with lots of curls!). Special nod to the very funny Emil Sitka, long a foil for the Stooges. No doubt brought in by Bernds. Here he plays a dazed and confused patient in a wheelchair with no brakes?

Look for child actor Rudy Lee as Herbie. Rudy was terrific, a veteran actor who went on to appear regularly on the MICKEY MOUSE CLUB tv show. Shortly after this episode, he had a bit part in THE LONG, LONG TRAILER with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Rudy would show up again in the BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS as one of the kids in the neighborhood.

Interestingly, Ed Bernds noted the reason this film was so successful was Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall DID have some good material (ad libs and one liners) that they would toss in. At first, he was against it, later admitting their stuff --at times-- was better than his own comedy bits. Bernds added they would rehearse a lot, sort of toss routines back and forth until they got it right. This is the same thing Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello did for years.

Also, if you notice the goofy cartoon drawings at the beginning of each film, they were inspired by similar drawings Laurel and Hardy used (of themselves) in their films at Fox in the 1940s.

A real gem. Released via Warner Brothers, dvd sets containing 6 to 8 remastered episodes in each box. Thanks TCM for remembering the gang!

When Sach (Huntz Hall) is hit on the nose by Herbie (Rudy Lee), Sach develops a mystic-mind power. This prompts Slip (Leo Gorcey), Chcuk (David Gorcey as David Condon), Butch (Bennie Bartlett)and Louie (Bernard Gorcey) to buy the Eagle Eye Detective Agency...using, of course, Louie's money.

In waltzes Myra Hagen (Joyce Holden), who leaves with the boys a valuable fur coat and a sealed letter, to be given to the District Attorney, in the event anything happens to her. John Graham (William Forrest), makes his entrance following Myra's exit, and he poses as an insurance man, but is actually with the fur crooks, and he is given the coat but the Boys are unable to produce the letter, inasmuch as Sach, has wrecked the office by blowing up the safe, and the latter has vanished.

But, in the event it shows up, Professor Damon (Robert Osterloh), leader of the gang and operating a Health Farm as a cover, has his henchmen "Soapy" (William Phillips) and Al (Gil Perkins, whom some source evidently doesn't know and has him tagged 'unconfirmed')kidnap Herbie as a ransom against the delivery of the letter, which blows the lid on the gang.

Slip, disguised as a Viennese doctor, and Sach, as an invalid old woman wearing Mary Pickford curls, go the the Farm to rescue Myra---understandable---and Herbie.

Sach gets a punch in the face and he somehow gains the ability to read minds. They really weren't trying at this point, were they? Anyhoo, this is the thirty-second entry in the Bowery Boys series. This one has the gang opening a private detective business, using Sach's newfound mental power to get mixed up with gangsters and an attractive blonde. They'd been mixed up with gangsters and blondes before without the mind-reading angle so I'm not sure why they felt it was necessary. But a lot of these movies tend to center around Sach getting a special power or ability. Also in this entry we learn that Louie apparently has a back room to his little Sweet Shop that is big enough to be used as a gym. Lazy writing is lazy. It's not great stuff but there are some laughs here and there, mostly coming from Leo Gorcey's humorous malapropisms. Even as a fan of the Bowery Boys, I will admit at this point the series was getting tired and monotonous. The Boys were boys in name only (at least one has a receding hairline) and the plots were repeating themselves movie after movie with some superficial changes. Anyway it's watchable for fans but doubtful casual viewers will like it much.

The Bowery Boys movies are a hit or miss kind of thing. On which side of the ledger would I place "Private Eyes"? I'm not sure. I guess I would have to place it on the "hit" side but it's a close call. The story isn't that good but the cast is fine. There aren't that many laughs but there aren't that many groaners either. "Private Eyes" was an okay way to kill an hour on a very cold Saturday morning. (IMDB has a six hundred character minimum so I have to ramble on for a while. I have seen a bunch of Bowery Boys movies over the last couple of years. I wouldn't say that I'm a fan but they're usually a pretty easy watch. Mostly because they're only a little over an hour.)

Run by entrepreneurial unemployed Leo Gorcey (as "Slip" Mahoney), the back-room of "Louie's Ice Cream Parlor" hosts "The Bowery Boys Club" for young lads who need a place to learn, as Mr. Gorcey explains, "the manly art of self-defense." While sparring with little Rudy Lee (as Herbie), bent-nosed boxer Huntz Hall (as "Sach" Jones) acquires mind-reading powers, after a hit in the head. As he does in other Bowery boy adventures, Gorcey decides to use Mr. Hall's super-power for monetary gain. In this case, the old boys open the "Eagle Eye Detective Agency". Beautiful blonde Joyce Holden (as Myra Hagen) heats up the plot.

There is nothing new here, but it moves along. Hall's stunt double is obvious as he tries to blast open a safe. His mind-reading power doesn't fulfill plot potential. The recent emphasis on "Three Stooges"-type sound-effects slapstick is advanced; director Edward Bernds handled both "The Bowery Boys" and the Stooges. Fatherly Bernard Gorcey (as Louie Dumbrowsky) continues to muse, while second son David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck Anderson) and Benny Bartlett (as Butch Williams) are kept to a minimum. Best are the later bits with Gorcey as a bearded doctor, Hall as an old lady patient, and Edith Leslie as his anxious nurse.

**** Private Eyes (12/6/53) Edward Bernds ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Rudy Lee