The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters

Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, The (1954)

*** (out of 4)

Fast-paced and fun entry in the series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) traveling to a creepy mansion so that they can ask the owners if the Bowery kids can use their lot to play ball. Soon the duo are being held captive by the mad scientists who want to use their brains in some crazy experiments. After several so-so entries, it's good to see the series back with a winner as this one perfectly mixes the laughs with the various horror elements. This is clearly influenced by the Abbott and Costello flicks but that's not a bad thing especially when you get such a winning film. I really loved the fact that Bernds was back behind the camera as he kept the action coming very fast and helped keep everything moving. The laughs are plenty as we get countless good jokes including one that must have been seen by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder as it would later be used in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. At one point the creepy butler tells Sach and Slip to "walk this way" which they do by mocking the way he's walking. Other funny jokes include the various horror elements including a sexy vampire, a living tree who eats humans, a killer gorilla and a robot who keeps losing its head. All of these elements are perfectly blended into the story and we also get a kind old lady who wants to feed the fat Slip to her tree. Both Gorcey and Hall are on the top of their game and deliver fine performances. The comedy here is pretty wide ranged as we get a lot of physical stuff but also a lot of one liners and both of them deliver just fine. Bernard Gorcey has a couple funny bits including a very good incident with the gorilla. Some might be disappointed that the "monsters" aren't Dracula, Frankenstein or the Mummy but it really doesn't matter because of how well everything works here. A lot of the jokes fall on their face but that's only because so many are flying around that your bound not to have them all work. Fans of the series will certainly find this to be a winner but I think even those who can't stand them will find this one entertaining.

In order to appreciate the slapstick comedy of the Bowery Boys, one must first be able to wholeheartedly laugh at the Three Stooges. Many of the comedy team films of the 40s and 50s centered around the same theme - haunted house, mad scientist, gorilla, brain transplant, etc. This one is like the rest. The most hilarious part of this film is how the Chief (Leo Gorcey) manages to mangle the English language, many times stumping Dr. Gravesend into trying to figure out what he's actually saying. Unlike The Three Stooges, the Bowery Boys are not really physical comedians. Huntz Hall's facial expressions are really not as funny as Curly's, Larry's or Moe's. Leo Gorcey tries to play it for laughs as best as he can by being bug-eyed, but it just doesn't come off. Perhaps his age was showing by this time and he just couldn't quite cut it anymore like in his earlier films. Still, the premise of the film is familiar, there are some good laughs from the entire cast, and it is worth a look, even if just for nostalgia's sake. Although I think the group's earlier films were much funnier, this is about the best one out of the series that were made in the 50s. Worth a peek.

I'm one of the few people around who can still recall seeing first release Bowery Boy movies. I was eleven years old when this one hit the silver screen. I can recall laughing until I cried when the monsters began appearing. Any hard core Bowery boy enthusiast recalls the wonderful job done by Leo Gorcy, who played "Slip" Mahoney and Huntz Hall who played "Satch". They played off each other perfectly and their on screen characterization of a pair of gang members from the mid century Bowery made the comedy that much sweeter. I can't recall seeing a Bowery Boys movie that I didn't like. Some were better than others, but my buddies and I would have walked to the next town to see any of their movies. Oddly enough, Leo Gorcy died quite young without much money. He passed away in 1969 at about 52 years of age. Huntz Hall on the other hand lived to be about 80 years old and passed away in 1999. He apparently was quite well off, having owned a 10% interest in the Bowery Boys and having made some very profitable oil and gas investments. I owe a lot of happy hours to these two fine actors from the early years of movie comedy.

The title The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters is somewhat a misnomer since there are no real monsters in the film, just a weird family who'd like to make one. A 'temporary' one does appear, but you'll have to see the film to find out just exactly what I mean.

Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall ran into a few unworldly types in their various films. In this case what brings them to the house of the Gravesend family is they're representing the kids in the neighborhood who would like to use a vacant lot that the family owns for a baseball field.

What an interesting crew the Gravesends are, a kind of Vanderhof family from You Can't Take It With You on steroids. Three siblings, John Dehner, Ellen Corby, and Lloyd Corrigan all pursue their various scientific interests and their butler Grisson aka Gruesome played by Paul Wexler. Dehner and Corrigan have made tests on Huntz Hall and discover he's got the proper cranial capacity for a brain transplant. But they're fighting over whether it will be Dehner's gorilla or Corrigan's robot. Corby has a Venus Man-Trap plant that needs feeding and the black sheep of the family is Laura Mason who is a vampire who also needs feeding. With this family she gets leftovers.

The boys have their hands full with this crew and in one of their better films, the audience will have its laughs full.

A baseball smashes the front window at Louie's Sweet Shop. It's the neighborhood kids. The adults decide to call up the Gravesend residence for permission to let the kids play baseball in their lot. Slip and Sach travel up to the mansion but they don't realize that the family is disturbed and the house is full of monsters.

This is trying to be Abbott and Costello. I don't hate it but I prefer to have Abbott and Costello. Costello is a comedic genius. These guys are a step below. This is still good clean fun if not necessarily original.