O Cadáver Esperto

You either like the Bowery Boys films with their low brow humor or you don't. I like them. They're silly, funny, and light hearted. Slip gets and loses one job after another for being too hot tempered and quick with his fists but since his sister who he lives with has a steady job he doesn't worry about it. That is, until she gets fed up and insists he get a steady job. He first thinks he's going to make a bundle as a street peddler selling Pierce's Peerless Stain Remover. In this skit, Gorcey well demonstrates how very good he was at patter. Of course, the peddler scam doesn't work out and he then gets a job at the repossession firm that Sach is working at (somewhat surprisingly Sach has a steady job). They get the assignment of finding a couple of crooks, Patsy Clark and the crook known as The Pidgeon. Slip tells the boys that in tracking down Patsy they'll first make a list of the possibilities and then "It's just a process of illumination." Slip does indeed find Patsy who turns out to be a towering, violent and menacing crook played by Mike Mazurki. There are a number of pretty funny bits in the movie but my favorite was the scene at the high class nightclub, the 'High Hat' where Slip takes his girlfriend as part of a car repo job. After hearing from Slip that "money is no objection," the snooty waiter recommends a 1928 champagne. Slip and his girlfriend are mightily annoyed and insist that the waiter bring something newer than that.

The first entry in the Bowery Boys series for Monogram. The Boys, led by Leo Gorcey, previously went by other names and even worked on some major movies for studios like Warner Bros. before landing at Poverty Row. This series of movies is my favorite of theirs, with Gorcey and Huntz Hall shining and none of that Billy Halop nonsense. The humor with these guys is not everybody's cup of tea. I've always found them very funny, albeit simple and silly, but there are many who find them grating and stupid. The plot in this one is that little tough guy Terrance Aloysius 'Slip' Mahoney (Gorcey) has trouble keeping a job because he's always punching people. He lands a job working as a repo man with his friend Sach (Hall) and winds up tangling with gangsters. In addition to Gorcey and Hall, the gang includes Bobby Jordan and William Benedict. Leo Gorcey's father, Bernard, also appears in this one. He would become a regular character, Louie, in the next entry in the series. It's a funny movie but not the Boys' best. Gorcey's hilarious malapropisms provide many of the laughs. The scene in the fancy restaurant is a riot. Short runtime certainly helps. A good time-passer that should put a smile on most faces.

Enjoyable if unspectacular flick about a hothead who, unable to hold down a job, gets a job where he starts running into gangsters. Phil Karlson's "Live Wires" was the first movie in which the group previously known as the Dead End Kids got called the Bowery Boys. There's nothing particularly original about this movie, but the protagonist's short temper and Archie Bunker-like malapropisms provide plenty of laughs. Leo Gorcey's accent certainly drives the role.

I should note that the only movie in which I've previously seen this crowd was the 1937 crime drama "Angels with Dirty Faces", starring James Cagney, Pat O'Brien and Humphrey Bogart. Obviously this is a completely different kind of movie. It's not the greatest comedy, but an okay way to pass an hour and a half. Quite silly, but likable.

This is the very first of the true "Bowery Boys" pictures (not confusing them with earlier films where they were billed as "The Dead End Kids" and "The East Side Kids"). From here on into the late 1950s, Leo Gorcey (as Terrence Aloysius "Slip" Mahoney) and Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) would gradually become more of a comical duo and take center stage over the rest of their gang members.

For me, LIVE WIRES is a promising start to this revamped series. Leo Gorcey plays his usual short-fused self who can't seem to hold down a job because he keeps resorting to punching people in the nose. A highlight of the film comes when he tries to sell a fake liquid stain removing product on the streets of the city. His faithful sister keeps after him, and eventually he and his buddy Sach land jobs as men who repossess unpaid-for merchandise (such as automobiles). The slapstick ensues as Slip and Sach get stuck having to confront a large-sized but simple-minded gangster (played by Mike Mazurki), who beats up on them. For fans of Huntz Hall, he is rather underused in this debut entry and it's mostly Leo Gorcey's show, but Leo acquits himself very well. Things would change as the films went on with Sach becoming on equal footing with Slip. What's odd here too is that the gang hangs out at "Louie's Ice Cream Parlor" in this movie, but the actor who would go on to play Louie himself (Bernard Gorcey, Leo's father) is cast in another part. **1/2 out of ****

Well, this one opens with Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) losing his job as a taxi driver, and coming home to his sister Mary (Pamela Blake) and friends... check out that dolled up, rolled-up 1940s hair-do on Blake! Huntz Hall is "Sach Jones", Slip's sidekick; Acc to IMDb, they would work or appear together 69 times! Keep an eye out for Bernard Gorcey (Leo's real dad) as Jack Kane at the soda fountain. Also keep an eye out for Bill Benedict, the blond-haired tall skinny guy in all those films from the 1940s.. he was called "Whitie" in most of the roles he played. Slip tries various schemes to earn some money, with mixed results along the way... mostly bad. This post- WW II film shows life on the gritty side of town, and the difficulty in getting work, with some humor thrown in along the way. Not bad. A film that's short & sweet, mostly a more mature version of the "Muggs Maloney" characters Gorcey had played in the early 1940s. A bit more slapstick right at the end than I like, but they got some mile-age out of real-life wrestler Mike Mazurki. Also a pleasant number "The Right Kind of Man" sung by Claudia Drake in the nightclub. Phil Karlson directed this 65 minute shortie from Monogram Pictures.