Mr. Hex

The boys are fans of their friend Gloria's singing. Only she is struggling to take care of her sick mother. Slip (Leo Gorcey) spots a poster offering $2500 prize for a boxing tournament and suggests giving the money to her. Sach (Huntz Hall) gets roped into fighting but he's not good. Slip has the idea to hypnotize him.

The boxing should be filmed closer and it probably doesn't need to go that long. The hypnotism idea is fun although I may suggest turning it around. Slip could be the fighter and being hypnotized. Sach would be hypnotized in the background since he's so weak-minded. This is a fun Bowery Boys caper.

As is often the case in Bowery Boys films, Sach develops some amazing powers...which by the next film have magically disappeared. For instance, in one film he could accurately predict gambling results in one! Here in "Mr. Hex", he's become hypnotized and when under he becomes an unbeatable boxer! Not surprisingly, Slip decides to exploit Sach's powers to the utmost. But some evil gangsters don't like it and they want Sach to take a dive in an upcoming match. However, instead they resort to bringing in a man 'with the evil eye' as well as stealing the coin that Slip uses to re-hypnotize Sach. What will happen at the end in the big bout?

This is easy viewing and more enjoyable than most of the installments in the series. Brilliant? Nah...but entertaining and fun...and worth your time.

Just watched this on Turner Classic Movies this morning. Man do they need to upgrade their copy! The last half of the movie was blurry. It was like watching from behind a fishbowl. As to the movie itself it is a pretty minor Bowery Boys effort nothing special. The last few minutes are the best as things start to get slapsticky in the boxing ring.

Years ago Major League outfielder Jackie Jensen tried hypnotism to cure his fear of flying. I guarantee it did not work as well as the hypnotism that Leo Gorcey learns from Ian Keith to work on Huntz Hall to make him a fearless boxing champion.

The Bowery Boys are back and in Mr. Hex they try to make some money to help Gale Robbins's singing career by hypnotizing Hall to become fearless in the ring. But as with every good gimmick there's always someone to take advantage of it. In this case it's racketeer Ben Welden and he's got several tricks of his own to put the old Double Whammy on the plans of the Bowery Boys.

In fact what makes this particular Bowery Boys film memorable is the presence of Sammy Cohen as Evil Eye Fagin who flashes those pop eyes in any direction and the weak crumble. See how the Bowery Boys deal with him.

Mr. Hex is not too bad an entry in the Bowery Boys series. You'll love the final climax in the ring where Welden puts in a professional ringer and sends Evil Eye Fagin to weave his magic. Lots of laughs here.

"Mr. Hex" starts off a little slow and has a couple of forgettable songs but, at the end of the day, it delivers a pretty good Bowery Boys movie. This movie is not among the Boys best but it's not one of the weaker ones either. It's in the upper middle if you know what I mean. I'll probably check this one out again sometime down the road. Honorable mention: a dreamy Gale Robbins.