User reviews

FLYING WILD (Monogram, 1941) directed by William West, marked the fifth installment to the "East Side Kids" series featuring regulars Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, David Gorcey, Donald Haines, Eugene Francis and Bobby Stone in leading roles. Though basically a Gorcey-Jordan story, it plays more like a chaptered serial minus the "To be continued next week" title card, along with some humor and suspense added.

After a brief image of the neighborhood streets in New York City, Mugs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey) calls out his friends, Skinny (Donald Haines), Danny Graham (Bobby Jordan) Pee-Wee (David Gorcey), Algy (Eugene Francis) and Scruno (Sunshine Sammy Morrison) so he can drive them to work at the Reynolds Aviation Company outside the city limits. Algy's father, Mr. Reynolds (Herbert Rawlinson), who has hired the boys at his advice, wonders about Mugs, who feels he doesn't need to work and is quite satisfied just hanging around the plant while the other boys make good earning a living. Because plans and blueprints are being stolen, and Mugs believing a series of "accidents" could be sabotage from within the company, Reynolds selects Danny to act as decoy to expose the ring leader. Though Mugs has his suspicions, both he and Danny are abducted and left tide up upside down in a barrel. With the help of Tom Larson (Dave O'Brien), the pilot of the flying ambulance, and Helen Munson (Joan Barclay), the flight nurse, the boys go undercover for further investigation. Co-starring George Pembroke (Doctor Richard Nagel III); Bobby Stone (Louie); Dennis Moore (George); Forrest Taylor (Mr. Forbes) and Mary Bovard (Maisie).

For its cast, it's interesting seeing former "East Side Kids" regular Dave O'Brien, who had played Danny's older brother and guardian, "Knuckles" Dolan in the first three 1940 installments (EAST SIDE KIDS, BOYS OF THE CITY and THAT GANG OF MINE) to continue in the series in a different role. Bobby Jordan, who had played Danny Dolan in two installments, is now Danny Graham. "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison returns as Scruno (who not part of the East Side Kids in PRIDE OF THE BOWERY), now back with the kids for comedy purposes. One scene has him smelling ether and running about in slow motion.

More drama than comedy, the only time the movie consists of airplane to be flying wild is when Mugs knocks out the pilot. Overall satisfactory entry, especially when spending more time at the aviation company than the local streets of the Bowery. Even though Gorcey's Mugs is the only one not working, he does more work through his sense of reasoning than with his hands. At 63 minutes, FLYING WILD sometimes suffers from poor editing and low-budget production values. It's interesting picking scenes and errors not scripted that remain in the final cut.

Available on both video cassette and DVD formats, FLYING WILD was one of the many "East Side Kids" entries to broadcast on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: September 13, 2004) during its "East Side Kids" movie marathon. Next installment: BOWERY BLITZKREIG (1941). (**)

This is the fifth in the set of East Side Kids films that form the middle grouping of the three series wherein Leo Gorcey, playing here as Muggs McGinnis, gives the members of the mini-mob that he leads little peace, with this wartime effort having a familiar subject: patriotic East Sider engagement versus enemy agents. While the others of the gang have found employment in support of the war effort as aircraft assemblers at a local plant, indolent Muggs prefers to remain unemployed while giving aid to his pals by driving them to and from work in his battered topless jalopy, and then merely hanging about while the rest are at labour. As he is poking about near plane hangars, Muggs discovers a "Flying Ambulance" experimental craft, as well as a good-looking nurse who goes with it, Helen, played by Joan Barclay, and due to an overheard conversation, he is convinced that the physician/owner of the plane and his cohorts are spies responsible for a developing crisis involving domestic sabotage. Although Muggs is unsuccessful at an attempt to convince the factory owner that his plant is housing saboteurs, Muggs' fellow East Siders endorse his theory and the storyline arranges for a climactic conflict between them and a coterie of subversives, with test pilot Tom (Dave O'Brien), boyfriend of Helen, joining in to tangle with the Forces of Evil. A skimpy budget always worked nicely for producer Sam Katzman with his Monogram Pictures releases, but for this item, the original title of which was AIR DEVILS, dependence upon single takes gives it a threadbare look, although expressions of dismay upon the faces of Gorcey, Bobby Jordan and others in a well-known scene as the Muggs-steered jalopy unexpectedly tips completely over are well beyond value. The comical ad libbing that enhances later productions in the series, especially after the addition of Huntz Hall, is scarce during the affair but it is noteworthy that Gorcey introduces his unique malapropisms with this work that also includes an appearance in the cast of veteran B film director Robert Hill, the same who was at the helm of the first East Side Kids undertaking.

We haven't gone to war yet and the kids are slightly too young for the armed services, but that doesn't mean the East Side Kids can't do their bit for the USA. They've gotten jobs at an aircraft factory and the closest to New York in those days was Farmingdale in Long Island where presumably this takes place in Flying Wild.

Before long the boys suspect enemy spies are at work stealing our aviation secrets and it's up to the East Side Kids to put a stop to them. Leo Gorcey suspects plant doctor George Pembroke of being head spy. He has to be because he shooed the kids away from his flying ambulance plane so therefore he's a meanie. That he happens to be the spy is just a bonus and its only the kids who figure it out.

Flying Wild is a pretty dated World War II era propaganda film. But believe me there would be better or worse to come depending on your point of view. Sometimes I don't think we'd have won the war without the East Side Kids and their home front efforts.

Loafing leader Leo Gorcey (as Muggs McGuiness) is unemployed, but Bobby Jordan (as Danny Graham), Donald Haines (as Skinny), David Gorcey (as Peewee), Bobby Stone (as Louie), and Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison (as Scruno) are figuratively "Flying Wild" with jobs at an aviation company. While at work, Mr. Jordan is recruited as a spy. Then, "The East Side Kids" get tangled up in a dangerous sabotage scheme. Soon, it will threaten to claim the life of an East Side Kid! - Don't miss the opening "car ride" to work; the car unexpectedly tips over on its side, after a sharp turn, and threatens to take the "real life" of several "East Side Kids". You may (not) want to hang in for the end "joke" (to see how a "black eye" might show up on Mr. Morrison's face).

** Flying Wild (3/10/41) William West ~ Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Eugene Francis, David Gorcey