Fighting Trouble

Fighting Trouble (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This forty-second film in the Bowery Boys series finally had Huntz Hall getting top-billing as Leo Gorcey retired from the series after the previous film. Stanley Clements, who appeared in several East Side Kids films, replaces Gorcey and this first offering of the new comic team doesn't work at all. After one of their friends is falsely accused of stealing two-hundred dollars, Sach (Hall), Duke (Clements) and the rest of the gang decide to start working for a newspaper editor who needs a photograph of a notorious gangster. Sach, the camera man, must try and snap a picture but before long the boys are in over their heads. The Gorcey-Hall team were never going to be confused with Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello but they were decent in their "B" movies. After watching this film you can see how much chemistry they actually had together because Hall and Clements certainly don't mix and match very well. It really seems like two comedians trying to work together but not knowing each others style or timing because there are some really embarrassing moments throughout the film. One happens when the boys bust in on the editor and it appears the two just don't know how to do the bit or how to time everything off the other. Another silly sequence has the boys sneaking into the gangster's girlfriends apartment where they pretend to be fashion designers. No laughs follow simply because of the bad timing between the two. Hall's Sach getting the lead was a long time coming but the character really comes across quite annoying when Gorcey isn't here to level him out. Just take a look at the scene where there's an easy picture to take but the way Hall blows it is just annoying and never funny. As you'd expect, there's silliness running throughout the picture and when the boys come under attack by the gangsters nothing funny happens. This first film in the "new" series is certainly a major bust and at just 60-minutes it still feels way too long.

SEEING THAT FTHIS was one of those BOWERY BOYS movies mad in the Post-Leo & Bernard Gorcey period, our first inclination was to skip it and do something more exciting, like watching the paint dry. But circumstances conspired to deliver us a different fare. We wound up watching it today via the TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES cable channel and discovered that this pre-judgment about those last entries in the series was jut a trifle harsh.

AS WE ALL were well aware, the interplay between gang chief, 'Slip Mahoney' (Leo Gorcey) and his right hand stooge, Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones (Huntz Hall)was long the main attraction of the series*. In fact, the dialog in just about all the previous entries was about 80+% reserved for the twosome; leaving little for the remaining players.

SO AT THIS point, with Leo gone, the nature of the beast found itself altered slightly with Mr. Huntz Hall's being promoted to top billing and to sort of a different sort of leader. Without any mention of 'Slip' Mahoney's tenor at the helm of around 10 years, the movie brought us one Stanislaus 'Duke' Kovaleskie (Stanley Clements), who did not replace Leo in rank; but did fill the niche and void of Sach's foil.

IN THIS AREA, 'Duke' did a fine job, providing a near perfect straight man to Huntz Hall's buffoonery. And there was no doubt about who was the straight man here, as Gorcey's fondness for double talk and malapropism often made for a difficulty in defining the roles of each.

ANOTHER BENEFIT CAME to the other two or sometimes three BB members in the sudden increase in their lines to speak. David Gorcey (here billed as Dsvid Condon**) for example had much more to say on screen with older brother , Leo, now retired.

THE ADDITION OF Stanley Clements' character did enough to the cast for the series to be propelled along for six pictures. That makes it the longest running series of "B" pictures ever.

The one thing you can say about Fighting Trouble is that billing wise Huntz Hall finally came into his own in the series. For years Leo Gorcey got top billing and Hall was only the first featured name albeit in larger type.

Hall was certainly the attraction here because try as they might the chemistry between Leo Gorcey and Hall just is not there with Stanley Clements. You wonder why Clements is hanging around with these guys half the time.

In this one Hall's trying to get into the newspaper photography business and he takes an advance from editor Tim Ryan to get the goods on mobster Tom Browne Henry. With the help of Clements and the rest including their landlady Queenie Smith they get more than just pictures on Henry. Playing mob molls and very well are the statuesque Adele Jergens and Laurie Mitchell.

Queenie Smith as Mrs. Kelly was trying to take the place of Bernard Gorcey as Louie Dumbrowski. When Bernard was killed and Leo just quit the series altogether after his dad died a whole lot was just gone.

This does have its moments, but Allied Artists should have just quit the whole business/

Anyway, Miss (according to some sources) Kate Kelly (Queenie Smith) runs a rooming house called Mrs. Kelly's and some of the boarders include "Sach" (Huntz Hall), "Duke" (Stanley Clements), Chuck Andrews (David Gorcey as David Condon) and "Butch" (the very-much credited Danny Welton but a WHO? then and now.)"Sach" has become a camera fiend so, in the pursuit of some ready cash, "Duke" takes him and his photographs to the editor of the New York Morning Blade, Mr. Ray Vance (Tim Ryan.) He hires them to get some photos of gangland boss Frankie Arbo (Thomas B. Henry) but Mr. Arbo does not care to have his picture in the papers and dislikes cameramen for the same reason.

"Sach" and "Duke" pose as interior decorators in the penthouse of Mae Randall (Adele Jergens, who was billed above Marilyn Monroe in "Ladies of the Chorus, although the MM-revisionists don't seem to be aware of it nor accept it)in order to get photos of Arbo. Later, at Arbo's night club, the boys learn that the gangster is importing a tough hoodlum from Chicago---and no one in the East knows him. "Sach" and "Duke" lure the visiting gunman, Handsome Hal Lomax (Joe Downing, who must have replaced a handsome actor first cast in the role)to Mrs. Kelly's and trick him into staying there through false police calls.

"Sach" masquerades as Handsome Hal (and is at least as handsome as Joe Downing) and gets away with it, and he and "Duke" manage to get into Arbo's inner office with the Boss and his henchies, which, compared to the henchies in the earlier Bowery Boys films, are a sorry and wimpy lot, and the boys are cut into the gang's racket, which is counterfeit money.

Then Handsome Hal shows up and things are getting dicey for the boys until Handsome Hal's jilted sweetheart, Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell, indeed a dolly of the 50's) makes her appearance, and she is so put out with getting jilted by the not-handsome Handsome Hal that she ups and identifies "Sach" as the real Handsome Hal, and fingers Handsome himself as the impostor. Handsome taking up with two interior decorators may have been what hacked Dolly off the most.

"Sach" has been taking photos with a miniature camera hidden in his cigarette holder, but accidentally unloads the camera, and the film falls out, exposing the boys and the film. What a revolting development! The gangsters then shoot the boys dead and the film ends. Wait, that was some other film. Probably one of those non-Noir Noirs. Something else happens here.

I actually enjoy the 1956-8 finale of the Bowery Boys series. Despite the absence of Leo and Bernard Gorcey, the series still gave us the usual quota of laughs and fun. Huntz Hall did get a bit over the top now that he was the lead player but Stanley Clements complemented him well as Duke Covaleske. There wasn't much time to develop chemistry as Gorcey left the series in early 1956. Taking that into consideration, I thought Clements was an able replacement. Two of the entries from 1957, Hold that Hypnotist and Spook Chasers are personal favorites and have much of the spirit of the 3 Stooges with predictable slapstick. We also have the old standby David Gorcey and good support from Jimmy Murphy and Eddie Leroy. The Mike Clancy character was a good idea bringing back shades of Louie Dumbrowski. These last Bowery Boys adventures have their moments and don't deserve the dire reviews from my colleagues.