Bowery Buckaroos

The Bowery Boys go west in this film to clear the good name of their patron Louis Dombrowski owner of Louie's Sweet Shop where the kids hangout mainly because most of the time they have no gainful employment.

Bernard Gorcey who played Louie in the series tells the kids he's got a past life out west when he was prospecting and his partner killed and Louie framed for the murder. The past comes home when rustic western sheriff Russell Simpson comes east after searching twenty years for this varmint.

Of course it's up to Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the rest of the gang to clear the elder Gorcey of this blot upon his name and restore the gold mine that Louie and his partner found to his daughter, Julie Gibson.

The Bowery Boys are in their usual fish out of water element where Gorcey fractures the language trying to sound smart and Hall just plays it as dumb as he is. Still fortune does smile upon them as they scrape through for yet another film in the series. This one's pretty funny in spots. Check out their third degree torture of head villain Norman Willis with an angry Brahma Bull.

One of the earlier chapters of the bower boy adventures. All three gorceys in this one.. leo, david, and dad. This time, the boys decide to take a trip out west, to find louie's lost gold. Suddenly, we're back in time, in the old west, trying to clear louie's name, from some misunderstanding. All the ingredients of a regular western... a marshall, a hanging, a secret map, pretty girls singing in the saloon. It's all pretty good. Fast moving script, at only 66 minutes. They even got iron eyes and chief yowlachie! It's all done tongue in cheek, with a sense of humor. Especially that ending. Directed by the usual director, bill beaudine. Co-stars julie gibson, minerva urecal.

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IT IS PERHAPS one of the greatest of contradictions in Film History that a very serious and socially conscious a Stage Play and resulting adaptation to the movie version of DEAD END should have sired, not a greater understanding of juvenile delinquency, but rather years and tears of comedy. It doesn't matter what the name of the group (although the earlier movies were a little more serious than farcical), there was always a great resemblance to the rest of the other series films.

SO IT WAS that The Dead End Kids begot The Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids Followed and the terminus of the family tree was the now grown-up, not kids or teens, but young men known as the Bowery Boys. These have proved to be particularly durable and popular over the years. There were four Bowery Boys movies released during this Baby Boomer's childhood in the 1950's and we saw many of them at either the Ogden or the Hi-Way theatres here o Chicago's Southside ("the Baddest Part of town")

IN THE EARLY 1960's, the series came to television and we recall their being shown every Wednesday afternoon over ABC Channel 7, WBKB (now WLS).

AS FOR THIS entry that we are reviewing today, BOWERY BUCKAROOS, we do remember it well from TV and have always considered it to be one of the best of the series; as ell as a favourite. There are several reasons for such honors.

FIRST OF ALL, it is generally a rule of thumb that earlier entries in a series, be that TV or "B" movies, are usually the better and more meticulously crafted and more expensive looking installments. This assertion is certainly evident in this 1947 production. There are larger casts., more and varied sets & locations.

FURTHERMORE, WHEN ONE views an earlier edition of the series, you have more of the original "Kids" from DEAD END in the cast. BOWERY BUCKAROOS has the talents of both Bobby Jordan and Gabriel Dell in addition to the two featured players, Leo Gorcey (Slip) and Huntz Hall (Sach). David Gorcey and Billy Benedict round out the cast.

IN ADDITION TO the above mentioned reasons, this movie adds the elements of a dream sequence as well as a lively spoof of the Western "Cowboy" picture. Although we really enjoyed most of the entries into this now venerable series and they did run the table in subjects to spoof (Jungle pictures, War pictures, Detective & Cops, Boxing & Wrestling, etc.), they never did it so well and enjoyably.

IT WOULD BE a grave injustice to close out our dissertation without mentioning the movie's one very unique bit of musical contribution to the Bowery Boys series. No Schultz, we're not talking about any of the incidental music (probably stock),nor the series latter day appropriation of "Hail, Hail The Gang's All Here" as its theme.

INSTEAD WE WANTED to draw one's attention to the opening solo performance of "Louie the Lout" as performed by the Sweet Shop proprietor. Louie Dombrowski It's both entertaining and functional; as it adds to the story, provides us with some exposition and brings one to the threshold of being ready to be entertained. That's precisely why we watch a Bowery Boys movie to begin with.

AND FOR THOSE not already aware, Bernard Gorcey (Louie), veteran actor of the legitimate theater, was the real life father of real life brothers, Leo & David Gorcey; being Slip and Chuck respectively.

Bowery Buckaroos (1947)

** (out of 4)

Eighth film in the Bowery Boys series has the boys heading out West where they must try and prove that Louie (Bernard Gorcey) was framed twenty-years earlier when some said he shot a man in the back. Once out West the boys must pretend (once again) to be someone they're not and get to the truth. Considering most comic duos or groups traveled out West at some point in their careers it should come as no shock that the Bowery Boys would eventually find themselves out there. For the most part this is yet another harmless entry in the series and there are some nice laughs but in the end there's no question that there's no enough to carry the short 66-minutes. I thought the film got off to a very good start with Bernard Gorcey really getting many laughs as he gets a tad bit more to do here than in some of the previous movies. Him telling about the "map" on his back was very funny as was his opening song. Speaking of songs, we get a later scene with the boys driving out West that is very funny as well. Once we get to the West things start off pretty good with a spoof of Indian attacks but after this things slow down rather quickly. I think the biggest problem is that the majority of the jokes simply aren't funny and instead of spoofing the genre the film just gives us one cliché after another. I think had the film kept the spoofing up then it could have gotten a lot more laughs than what's actually here. Leo and Huntz are their typical selves but we get some nice supporting performances by Minerva Urecal, Russell Simpson and Julie Gibson. This here also marked the last entry for Bobby Jordan, which was a shame considering how good he was but it's understandable that he left considering how he wasn't given much to do.

While Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) reads "Hair Trigger Western Yarns", sweet shop proprietor Bernard Gorcey (as Louie) sings "Louie, the Lout" to Bobby Jordan (as Bobby), William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), and David Gorcey (as Chuck). Wrapped up in his western pulp stories, Mr. Hall daydreams about the days of "Cowboys & Indians", and "Louie" hints about a western past... Suddenly, a sheriff enters the scene, on horseback; he claims "Louie, the Lout' is a WANTED outlaw. Then, Bowery leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) arrives to find (his real-life father) the elder Gorcey hiding from the sheriff. Gorcey takes "The Bowery Boys" out west, to solve the case of the falsely accused "Louie".

The New York City group meet up with Cowboys and Native American Indians, in an old-fashioned western setting. Bowery chum Gabriel Dell (as Gabe) arrives in the town ("Hangman's Hollow"), undercover as "The Klondike Kid", to help the "Bowery Buckaroos" clear "Louie" and locate a gold mine. This is one of the cleverest movies in the "Bowery Boys" series. Gorcey delivers some of his best "malaprops" (a nude baby picture is "Exhibition A"); and the rest of the cast is uniformly smooth. The story is very nicely plotted, with Mr. Hall figuring prominently. "Marshall" Minerva Urecal and "Indian" Iron Eyes Cody are terrific. Regulars Bernard Gorcey and Gabriel Dell have good roles, too.

And, this is the last appearance of Bobby Jordan, who was in the originally named "Dead End" (1937) group. In the early 1940s, Mr. Jordan was featured much more prominently in these films - the stories were often about his character - but, as the comic antics of Gorcey and Hall took center stage, Jordan was derailed by both "Uncle Sam" and injury. In "Bowery Buckaroos", Jordan leads the secondary "Bowery Boys" in making the most out of their supporting roles. It's a shame the producers couldn't work Jordan into more stories, perhaps in spin-offs with Mr. Benedict's "Whitey" character (they have some good "bits" herein). In future films, Jordan will be missed.

******* Bowery Buckaroos (10/8/47) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan