Hard Boiled Mahoney

Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) is unhappily unemployed. His friend Sach (Huntz Hall) shows up after working as a private eye. Sach hasn't been paid after getting fired. Slip takes him back to the office but nobody's there. A woman comes in looking for help and assumes Slip to be the private eye. She's looking for her missing sister Eleanor Williams and sends the boys to spiritualist Dr. Carter.

The Bowery Boys are doing stupid Bowery Boys stuff. It has all the moronic Bowery Boys comedy especially Sach. Fans will like it. Most other people will probably tolerate it. Some in the high brow crowd will look down on it. It's a Bowery Boys movie.

FOLLOWING THE TRADITION and almost obligatory foraying into the realm of the Detective Story, THE BOWERY BOYS made their contribution to the comic parody of the genre. To be sure, this sort of a send-up had been done before. Its history dates back to the days of the Silents with the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy. It continued with the advent of the "Talkies" with people like both the Brothers Ritz & Marx, the Stooges, Red Skelton and even Bob Hope.

IN TAKING THIS foray into these heretofore uncharted waters for the Bowery Boys series, all stops were pulled out. The story had the office of the gumshoe that would have doubled for that of either Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe. A weeping and partially veiled, weepy female victim brings a sad story which is obviously not wholly the truth.

THE NOTION OF having Leo Gorcey's "Slip" Mahoney becoming the tough was not such a stretch. Anyone who's seen Leo's dramatic abilities as "Spit" in the film version of DEAD END certainly would not have been surprised. He possessed an intensity that was both totally believable and natural.

HOWEVER, WE DIGRESS, as we are supposed to be putting the comic aspects of the movie under a sort of microscope, OF COURSE, WE have rounding out the action sleuth spoofing from the boys (Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, David Gorcey). Proper and atmospheric characters provided by the likes of Pierre Watkin, Dan Seymour, Byron Folger and Noble Johnson provide the necessary mysterious and menacing characters befitting a Dashell Hammitt or Raymond Chandler story.

OH, DEAR ME! How could we forget the 'subtle' performance of Huntz Hall, comic relief supreme. In this outing he sports a calabash pipe and a deerstalker hat. Now, Schultz, who do you suppose that he was lampooning here? No Schultz, Basil Rathbone is incorrect!

Even though the story of this film is serious, we are witnessing the evolution of the Bowery Boys. Gorcey and Hall are becoming comic actors. After their debut in "Dead End", the kids appeared at Warners in serious crime melodramas. By the end of their Warners' tenure, they became respectable. The early Monogram East Side Kids films and the Universal Dead End Kids films had them in teary melodramas, where they were supposed to provide comic relief.

By the time they became the Bowery Boys, the comedy was beginning to overshadow the melodrama. "Hard Boiled Mahoney" is still an over-plotted crime melodrama, but the comedy of Gorcey and Hall was beginning to take center stage. Hall now refers to Gorcey as "Chief" more often than not, and Gorcey hits Hall with his hat constantly. The story still centers as Gorcey, as most of the previous efforts had, but Hall is almost his equal. Unfortunately, the other boys suffer because of this. Jordan was terrific as the leading man in the early East Side films, but he has been relegated to background boy. What a shame! Billy Benedict had some good moments in the past and will have some good moments in future films, but he is definitely subordinate to Leo and Huntz. David Gorcey was always a background boy. Surprisingly, Gabe Dell is just one of the gang in this picture. He had had that role in the Warners and Universal series, but even in the early Monogram films he had varied roles. After this point, Dell would play the mature member of the gang, sometimes on the right side of the law and sometimes on the wrong side of the law. The character he plays here is reminiscent of the one he played in the East Side film "Come Out Fighting". He is a bi-speckled stooge.

This is not a bad Bowery Boys film, but Ed Bernds was really needed to later turn Gorcey and Hall into comedy stars.

The Bowery Boys try their hand at detective work in this breezy sixth entry in the Monogram series. Slip Mahoney is mistaken for a private detective and, naturally, uses it to his advantage to try and earn fifty bucks investigating a missing girl. With help from his friends, of course. It's a good one with hilarious malapropisms from Leo Gorcey, rubberfacing goofiness from Huntz Hall, and wacky support from Bobby Jordan, William Benedict, and David Gorcey. Gabriel Dell is also part of the gang, taking a part in the slapstick more than he has been in the series so far, where he's mostly been playing it straight. Teala Loring and Patti Brill provide the pretty. Brill also has a funny bit at the end. Bernard Gorcey is fun as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. I never get tired of the Bowery Boys, particularly Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. I'm not sure what some other reviewers were complaining about. I thought this one was very funny with a quick pace and many great lines. Love the trivia contest bit!

Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall), Bobby (Bobby Jordan), Gabe (Gabriel Dell), Whitey (Billy Benedicy) and Chuck (David Gorcey)---the gang's all here---accidentally enter the detective business with the disappearance of a beautiful girl, Eleanor Williams (Teala Loring), as their first case to solve.

They are retained by Selena (Betty Compson), who says she is the missing girl's sister but, at this stage in her career, Betty Compson characters were sometimes less than truthful. The disappearance is doubly puzzling because Eleanor has just learned that her long-lost husband, Tom Williams (Bob Faust), is returning from South America. Slip and Company trace Eleanor to the apartment of Dr. Rolfe Carter (Pierre Watkin), to whom she first went when Tom was reported missing three years earlier. Slip witnesses the doctor's murder, but does not know who fired the fatal shot.

Slip and his friends learn that Dr. Carter (no relation to the Little Liver Pills guy)was a pseudo-psychic (there are real ones?), who was into blackmailing his clients. He is linked with syndicate-chief Armand (Dan Seymour).

The latter, and his henchies, knowing that Slip has information regarding Carter's murder, set out to kill the boys.

Patti Brill, as Slip's girl friend, doesn't hurt this one any, either. Monogram was very good at rounding up lovely little de-icers to populate their films.