Mr. Hex

"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.

Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) and "The Bowery Boys" are in Louie's "Sweet Shop" when mysterious hypnotist Ian Keith (as Raymond) enters, to buy some cigars. Commiserating about "Mr. Hex", the "happy hooligans" go to a nickel machine and listen to a song from their favorite vocalist, gorgeous Gale Robbins (as Gloria Williams). After listening to Ms. Robbins' "A Love Song to Remember", Mr. Gorcey, Huntz Hall (as Sach Sullivan), Bobby Jordan (as Bobby), William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), and David Gorcey (as Chuck) learn the blonde songstress has fallen on hard times, due to an ailing mother.

To help Robbins raise money for her mother (and career), Gorcey and company enter a $2,500 boxing contest, with Mr. Hall chosen (railroaded, actually) as the Bowery team's designated fighter. After Mr. Keith teaches Gorcey "the inner mysteries of the mesmeric art," he is able to hypnotize Hall into believing he is a winning strongman; consequently, Hall easily wins his boxing matches. Then, criminal forces employ both Gabriel Dell (as Gabe Moreno), and their own "Evil-Eye" Sammy Cohen (as Fagin) to halt Hall's winning ways, and take the $2,500 cash prize.

The hypnotist plot suits the series' comedy; and, the film gets off to a very good start with Keith and the cast practicing Hocus-Pocus; it's a nicely staged, and performed, scene. Hall has a "Shadow Boxing" scene to watch for, and he dominates the story, also. And, Robbins is a fine vocalist. Finally, Gorcey explains why he's called "Slip"; and, amusingly, he calls Butterworth "Butter-ball". The plot gets a little too wound up, but you do get Gabriel Dell and a bunch of engaging character actors in the mix.

****** Mr. Hex (11/9/46) William Beaudine ~ Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Ian Keith, Gabriel Dell

Mr. Hex (1946)

** (out of 4)

Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) both have a crush on a young lady but she's had to put her singing dreams on hold due to taking care of her sick mother. Slip gets the bright idea to hypnotize Sach so that he thinks he's a top boxer and they can win a large prize and in return help the girl out with her singing. This is far from a bad movie but at the same time it's not a very good one either. The biggest problem with this film is that it really doesn't know what type of film it wants to be or what type of story it wants to go after. The movie starts off as a comedy and goes for the Sach is an idiot route with him being hypnotized and doing various silly things. The film then takes a side turn and centers on the singing career for a while and the bad guys she gets involved in. The final act of the film turns to more drama as these bad guys turn violent in some of their ways of handling things. I'm really not sure if Beaudine was the proper director for a film like this, although I'm sure he got the thing made on time and under budget. The movie is pretty uneven from start to finish and the final ten-minutes takes place inside the ring when Sach must try and fight a ringer even after the hex on him gets broken by "Eagle Eye" (Sammy Cohen). This entire sequence runs on way too long and there just aren't enough laughs to make it worth while. Cohen is certainly giving it his all with all the facial gestures but it just doesn't lead to laughs. The comic timing is missing as Gorcey tries to find the right coin to put the hex back on Sach. There are a few good moments early on including the scene where Sach first gets hypnotized but that's about it. This fifth entry in the Bowery Boys series is a disappointing one that only fans will want to check out.

Our favorite gang of street yutes is back in this fifth Bowery Boys film. In this one, Sach (Huntz Hall) is turned into an unbeatable prizefighter by a hypnotist. The boys try to use Sach's newfound talent to win some contest money for a friend. Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, William Benedict, and David Gorcey are all fun but this is primarily a vehicle for Huntz Hall, whose silliness always manage to make me laugh. Also appearing in this one is series regular Bernard Gorcey as Louie (who apparently makes a great onion sandwich). Gabriel Dell returns as Gabe, whose membership in the gang is a matter of dispute at this point. He doesn't get involved in any of the funny shenanigans, instead playing the "hero" side character who gets the girl. So he's the Zeppo, basically, and just as interesting. Which is another way of saying he isn't interesting at all. No mention is made of Gabe's French wife from the last movie. In fact, in this one he's hung up on aspiring singer Gloria Robbins. For her part, Robbins is very pretty and sings a couple of forgettable torch songs. An interesting note for fans of the series: in this one, Sach's last name is said to be Sullivan. Later entries would tell us his full name is Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones. Highlights include the hypnotism scene, those cute newspaper headlines, and Evil Eye Fagin. Fun movie.

It's a boxing film --BOWERY BOYS STYLE, and you know what that means. Insanity.

The gang is helping another damsel in distress (played by Gale Robbins), and the way to do it is to win money in a boxing match? Of course, Sach is elected to go a few rounds with a bone crusher? The clever angle here is that hypnotism is introduced, via professor Ian Keith, who gets Sach into the ring with his special powers.

Hilarious stuff, which was actually co-writen by the series producer, Jan Grippo. The focus is especially on pretty Gale Robbins, who was originally a popular model, then singer for Jan Garber's orchestra. This was her second film role and she's good, caught between all the goofy situations these guys usually get themselves into anyway.

Also watch for Ian Keith as the hypnotist. Keith was a popular actor in many B films, and at the time was appearing in the DICK TRACY series as the vitamin popper.

This is one of the first series entries directed by William Beaudine, whose career went back to silent films, and considered the "poppa" of the Bowery Boys films, One of the few directors who could work with the guys and keep everybody on the same page. Not an easy job.

Top honors also to funny character actor Ben Welden as Bull Laguna, who would go on to play bad guys on the SUPERMAN tv series, also Sammy Cohen as Evil Eye Fagan, a cross-eyed goon who tries to break the spell on Sach when he's in the ring. Eddie Gribbon plays Blackie. Eddie appeared in more than 200 films and was one of the original Keystone Cops in early silent films.

Is it Billy Butterworth OR Billy Butterball?

Packaged in 8 episodes per dvd box set by Warner Brothers for all of us fearless fans.