Farristas de Paris

Paris Playboys finds Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall off to Gay Paree for the life of a pair on bon vivants. I doubt either could spell that and Gorcey was sure to misinterpret the words.

It's all a case of 'mistaken indemnity' as a quartet of continental gentlemen enter Louie's Sweet Shop on the Bowery and are sure that Hall is a famous French rocket scientist who disappeared as he was working on a new fuel formula. As the scientist was known for being quite the ladies man as well as a brilliant researcher, it ain't rocket science to figure out Horace DeBussy Jones isn't him even if he does look alike.

Still in a scheme to aid the free world, Hall, Gorcey, and Bernard Gorcey head to Paris in the hope that the ringer Hall might lure out those who are trying to disrupt his work one way or another.

Despite Leo Gorcey's usual command of the English language this Bowery Boy film belongs to Huntz Hall in his dual role as the simple minded Satch and the playboy scientist. For Huntz Hall's fans.

Paris Playboys (1954)

** (out of 4)

Weak entry in the series has a few good ideas but the execution is rather poor. In the film Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) head to Paris after some French scientist mistake Sach for a brilliant professor who has disappeared. Their hopes is that the real professor will see the impersonator, get jealous and come back home but sure enough some bad guys mistake Sach for the real thing. One-Shot Beaudine returned to the director's chair for this thirty-third entry and you can tell due to the slower pacing compared to the previous few films. Once again we're treated to some rather good things but the majority of the film is just deja vu as we've seen this stuff countless times before. It's amazing how little the series has changed even after thirty films as we get the same basic set up and then the familiar conclusion as a group of bad guys get involved and mess everything up. The bad guys here are all poorly written and appear to be rejects from countless other movies that we've all watched. Another problem is that nothing really goes on here until the very end of the film when things finally pick up. When the "professor", also played by Hall, shows up the film goes into overdrive and we actually get several laughs because the professor is an insane jerk who is constantly slapping Gorcey around and even Bernard Gorcey is brought to tears by his meanness. Hall finally got his name above the title and next to Gorcey and it was about time as the series is certainly going into his direction. Hall handles Sach with ease but the really impressive bits come from him playing the professor. The French accent is fun but seeing him playing a passionate lover and tough guy was great fun and he pulled it off nicely. It's just too bad they saved this until the end of the movie. Gorcey goes through the motions but is fine and good old Bernard gets some funny moments as well. In the end, Paris PLAYBOYS is pretty much what you'd expect.

At the UN headquarters, diplomats are searching for missing famed French scientist Professor Maurice Gaston Le Beau. One claims that he spotted Le Beau at a sweet shop in the Bowery. He does look exactly like Sach (Huntz Hall). When they go to the sweet shop, all they find is Sach and the rest of the gang. They invite the gang to go to Paris so that Sach can be a decoy.

The fake French accents can get a little annoying. Sometimes, an established franchise goes to Europe for a bit of exotic fun. These guys are never actually going to Paris, but they could fake it better. It could be a funny gag for Sach to be walking in front of various Paris backdrops. This does get funnier with the doubling of Sach. They do a mirror bit although not the one that I'm expecting. All in all, it's fine but not as funny as it could be.

Huntz Hall fans will glory in "Paris Playboys" (1954), one of the funnier Bowery Boys movies, as their beloved Horace Debussy Jones, better known as "Sach," dominates the story and even puts the abusive Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) in his place a few times. The clever premise has Sach recruited by a team of U.N. scientists to take the place of a missing French scientist, Maurice Gaston Le Beau, who looks just like him. An all-expenses-paid trip to Paris follows, with Slip and soda shop proprietor Louie Dumbrowsky (Bernard Gorcey) going along for the ride (leaving the rest of the "Bowery Boys" in nothing more than walk-on roles). Once in Paris, the U.N. team disappears from the film, leaving poor Sach at the mercy of a corrupt pair (Steven Geray and John Wengraf) who've been told Le Beau has amnesia and who spend much of the film trying to jog his memory enough to recall the high-powered rocket fuel formula he'd invented.

Sach has the time of his life, adopting a broad French accent and making comic attempts to fit in with the high life Le Beau enjoyed, including fancy French cuisine ("Finger bowl? My favorite soup!"); kisses from Le Beau's attractive fiancée, Mimi (Veola Vonn); the attentions of a gaggle of Le Beau's female admirers; alcoholic concoctions at a sidewalk café (with Fritz Feld as the waiter!); and even putting on a beret, sitting at an easel and attempting a painting. The diminutive Louie even gets into the act and dresses up as "TouLouie-Lautrec." Even though the material is never as funny as it ought to be (a frequent problem with Bowery Boys comedies), Hall just runs with it and gives it his all, making for a very entertaining 62 minutes.

Things get even better when the real Dr. Le Beau (also played by Hall, of course) shows up after a South Seas vacation spent with a flock of "native" girls (who oblige him every time he says, "You may kiss me") and confronts all these strangers in his house. Some great farcical situations play out as Sach and Le Beau pop in and out of rooms without knowing the other is there and poor Louie and Slip are ordered about by the outraged Dr. Le Beau, followed by Sach coming in and gently asking what the matter is. Le Beau finally challenges Slip to a sword duel, broken up only when Sach enters and the truth is revealed. Eventually they all have to take on the bad guys who want the rocket fuel.

Hall is hilarious in these scenes as he plays grandly against type as the womanizing French scientist who is quite aggressive and quite put out by all the "foreigners" in his house, mixing French words with his English in a way that Sach could never hope to have achieved. Hall must have had a ball filming the scenes where he plays the real doctor. He was an actor with great comic gifts that were never fully utilized by his role as second banana to Gorcey in the East Side Kids and Bowery Boys series. He may have reveled in sharing top dog status with Gorcey at Monogram Pictures throughout the 1940s and '50s and he may have lived comfortably off of it (until it all ended), but I can't help but wonder how Hall's career might have turned out had he gotten the chance to work with some great comedy directors along the lines of Preston Sturges or Frank Tashlin, or any of the old hands who guided Bob Hope's comedies at Paramount during Hope's peak years. Don't get me wrong, I love Hall's work in these films and am grateful to have been exposed to so many of them on TV while growing up. It's just that he might have done even greater work under other circumstances.

The thirty-third Bowery Boys movie has Sach impersonating his doppelganger, a missing French scientist. Of course, Slip and Sach must head to France and we get the usual "fish out of water" story that the series had beaten into the ground by this point. Still, the stories were never the strong suit of this series so give it a look if you like Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Bernard Gorcey doing what they do best, malapropisms and rubberfacing and so on. The other two members of the gang, Chuck and Butch, are left behind when the others go to Paris. This is no big loss since all they usually do is stand around anyway, waiting on their one line per movie (if they even get one). Ultimately, this is a fairly lame picture but it'll pass an hour and change if you're desperate.