Bowery Blitzkrieg

This East Side Kids film from Monagram has a two track plot line with two estranged best friends Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan. Gorcey is training for the amateur Golden Gloves boxing tournament when he's offered a nice hefty bribe to tank it.

As for Jordan he gets himself involved with a young punk played by Bobby Stone who commits a series of robberies until he's caught and Stone shoots Jordan after Jordan prevents him from shooting police officer Warren Hull who is both going out with Charlotte Henry who is Jordan's sister and Hull is also training Gorcey for his fight.

Playing a very small role is trainer Pat Costello who had a more famous brother Lou Costello whom he occasionally doubled for as they had similar builds. Pat has a very nice scene where plays straight man to Huntz Hall trying to show him what a corner man does in the boxing game. Interesting to see a Costello as a straight man.

The two estranged kids do come together in the end though I won't tell about the courageous, but almost costly decision Gorcey makes involving Jordan.

Note the title, Bowery Blitzkrieg. That German word was coming into the English language as an idiom for a lightning attack that the opponent has no time to defend against be it in war or in the ring.

It's a Monagram Picture so don't expect too much production values, but Bowery Blitzkrieg does have a nice sentimental story in it if your taste runs in that direction.

Leo Gorcey has a chance to redeem himself if he doesn't throw a fight. This was Huntz Hall's first time in an East Side Kids flick and he has quite a goofily amusing presence so it's not surprising that he and Leo eventually took over the series and made them actual comedies when the team became the Bowery Boys. Keye Luke-Charlie Chan's No. 1 son-plays a pool hall worker named Clancy. Charlotte Henry (L & H version of Babes in Toyland, 1933 live-action version of Alice in Wonderland) is the lady who's involved in the cop who's trying to reform Gorcey. Oh, and Pat Costello-yes, Lou's brother-has an amusing scene with Hall as a boxing trainer. I really liked this entry in the ESK series so on that note, Bowery Blitzkrieg is worth a look for fans of the people I just mentioned.

The public domain prints suck. Bad print. Sound is horrible. But these comedies were fun.

The Plot East Side Kids: Fighters Danny Breslin and Muggs McGinnis, once boyhood chums, have drifted apart. Policeman Tom Brady - because his own former friend fell into a life of crime and got the electric chair - takes rough and tumble Muggs under his wing to turn the lad's life around, but Danny, brother of Mary Breslin (whom Tom plans to marry), is also at risk. Everyone believes studious Danny is on his way to being president someday, but while Tom's focus goes toward putting Muggs on the straight and narrow, ambitious petty criminal Monk Martin's been working slyly on steering Danny into a life of crime. Adding a little complication, racketeers get involved, trying to set up a fixed fight with Muggs.

I enjoyed this lightweight pre-war drama/comedy.

In those days I guess life was simple. Tough Irish kids had golden hearts if you could just get them a mentor in the police department. Fighting showed character. There were good guys and bad guys. Loyalties ran strong. Not much a good right/left combo would not solve.

But, you know, this movie was fun. It all fell together. There were moments of drama. There was some humor. Muggsy, the anti-hero turned hero was a likable kid. The lines were snappy. The exposition brisk.

So, hey, watch this movie with your young kids. See the gang at the pool hall. Learn about bad guys trying to fix fights. Learn about loyalties to the family, to the gang, and to the police force. See Muggsy take on all comers, from the college-bound kid, to the police, to organized crime, to the reform school.

This East Side Kids melodrama introduces Huntz Hall, one of the original Dead End boys, to this series, and quaintly casts Keye Luke, Charlie Chan's "Number One Son" as a pool hall manager (named Clancy!), but each performer plays only a small role in this story of Muggs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey) and his gang. Released before the U.S. entry into WWII (ergo the Teutonic title), the film is devoid of the customary wartime propaganda that the series featured, but it is also shorn of the snappy ad libbing that caught the Gotham flavour of most of these affairs, and we must settle for a rapidly moving but largely uninvolving account of Muggs' decision to go straight amidst the usual background of the fight game and gangsters.