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!

Private Eyes (1953)

** (out of 4)

The Bowery Boys Club is doing just fine in back of Louie's parlor but after Sach (Huntz Hall) is punched in the nose he grows the ability to read people's minds. Sach (Leo Gorcey) gets the bright idea to buy a detective agency and sure enough a beautiful blonde comes in asking for help and the boys soon find themselves battling crooks. If you've hung around the series long enough to reach this thirty-second film then you're not going to see anything you haven't already but the film moves along well enough for the fans. I think the first twenty-minutes are the best as the stuff dealing with the boys club will certainly have you flashing back to the East Side Kids days and the stuff with Sach getting beat up was rather funny. The early stuff dealing with Sach reading everyones mind actually had some well-written lines but once the entire subplot dealing with the crooks kicks in we get one tired joke after another. It's a real shame that everything was pretty straight-forward because there's enough material that they could have done to make this much better. Very briefly does Sach do his Sherlock Holmes impersonation so why they didn't keep this going is beyond me. They set up all sort of noir elements but do nothing with them. Instead we get the same boring joke over and over and the final slapstick dash through the health resort just falls on its face as we get the same gag over and over with the main one being men falling into a hot tub. Both Hall and Gorcey seem to be up for the events as both deliver fine performances with energy. Bernard Gorcey doesn't get much to do this time, although he at least gets a pie in the face. The rest of the cast are just so-so. PRIVATE EYES isn't a good film by any stretch of the imagination but it's certainly better than you'd expect from the thirty-second film in a series.

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.)

Private Eyes is exactly the next line of business that Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall find for themselves in their never ending search for careers. One of these days they'll find success.

Chick Chandler who has to leave town abruptly sells them his detective agency which is now available. Seems like a perfect fit because Huntz Hall after getting a whack on the noggin has the ability to read minds. It comes and goes though with each blow and the way he aggravates Gorcey, Leo has to keep his temper in check.

The usual clichés about private eye films is found in Private Eyes, but this one doesn't quite jell. A lot of Abbott&Costello material recycled and the climax which is in an insane asylum comes right out of the Bob Hope classic, My Favorite Brunette.

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