Os Anjos e o Necromante

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Weak sixth entry in the Bowery Boys series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) pretending to be a detective and getting hired to locate a missing girl. Soon him and the gang are in over their heads as they must go up against a psychic who holds a lot more secrets than the boys realize. This here is (so far) the weakest of the series as we get very few laughs and enough bad plot for three different movies. There's no question that this here is a take off on the film noir genre that was big at the time but the screenplay is so lazy that we don't get any good jokes aimed at the genre and even the main cast members seem to be overlooked. The biggest problem here is the screenplay because there aren't very many good jokes written. The type of humor they go for here is incredibly lazy and the perfect example of this is a scene where Sach is told to "hold onto your hat" until the boys can meet up with him. The joke? Sach holds onto his hat until they arrive. The film is all over the place and there's way too much attempted plot. There are a few twist and turns but everything is so muddy that you really won't care about the actual mystery going on. The film actually runs out of steam around the thirty-minute mark and it's pretty bad when it's hard to get through 63-minutes. It seems even the actors are bored here as Gorcey doesn't have any energy and even his line-delivery seems to be slow as if he was wishing to be somewhere else. Huntz Hall is also pretty quiet here and the rest of the boys are so far in the background that they might not have even been in the picture (especially the wasted Bobby Jordan). In the end, the lack of laughs really kill this one and the sluggish running time doesn't help matters.

Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) is unhappily unemployed. His friend Sach (Huntz Hall) shows up after working as a private eye. Sach hasn't been paid after getting fired. Slip takes him back to the office but nobody's there. A woman comes in looking for help and assumes Slip to be the private eye. She's looking for her missing sister Eleanor Williams and sends the boys to spiritualist Dr. Carter.

The Bowery Boys are doing stupid Bowery Boys stuff. It has all the moronic Bowery Boys comedy especially Sach. Fans will like it. Most other people will probably tolerate it. Some in the high brow crowd will look down on it. It's a Bowery Boys movie.

"In order to be a detective ya gotta have a deductible mind. Ya gotta have the power of treason."

Not one of the more agreeable Bowery Boys movies for me. The plot is bungled as Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) takes it upon himself to become a self-made private eye attempting to find a missing woman. Not much humor to howl about in the mix. Interesting note: Gabriel Dell, who as far as I've known up till this viewing had usually played the straight man against all the insanity, actually dons a pair of geeky glasses as one of the zanies in the group this time around. He looks completely forced and out of his element.

With a plot gimmick borrowed from the Bob Hope classic My Favorite Brunette, the Bowery Boys get launched into the detective business in Hard Boiled Mahoney.

If you remember Alan Ladd has a cameo appearance in the Hope film and Hope is minding the office when he's hired for a case. Here Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are trying to get some money owed to Sach by a detective who is out. A mysterious woman comes in to hire said detective to find her sister and what self respecting Bowery Boy ever could refuse a mysterious woman?

There's a little more plot than usual in this Bowery Boy film and you will enjoy the climax involving the boys in eluding the bad guys taking up the guises of that band of professors from Ball Of Fire and going on an Information Please type show with Byron Foulger as the Clifton Fadiman type host. Even without most of today's audience knowing about Information Please or Clifton Fadiman it can still be enjoyed.

Guaranteed laughs from Hard Boiled Mahoney.

Relatively early in the Bowery Boys series of films. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Leo's dad and brother of course, all meet up with trouble, with the usual mis-haps and word play. when a lady thinks her kid sister has been kidnapped, Slip and the guys decide to go into the detecting business. and naturally, they get caught up in a moidah. Fun Bonus: Dan Seymour as the evil Doctor Armand. you'll recognize his sultry, french accent from To Have and Have Not and Key Largo! scene stealer. and billy benedict was always the skinny sidekick in the 1930s and 1940s. he worked with Gorcey 34 times. this one is pretty good. the usual fare of bowery boys. getting in and out of trouble. Directed by Bill Beaudine, who had directed a TON of the bowery boys films.