Paris Playboys

When the film begins, you learn that one of the smartest men in the world, the Frenchman Professor Gaston Le Beau, is missing. However, he turns out to be an exact double of Sach...and soon some UN officials see Sach and think he's the brilliant guy. Well, even when they soon realize it isn't Le Beau, they decide to bring him as well as Slip and Louie to Paris and pretend they've found the Professor. Not surprisingly, Sach behaves like a cretin and his goofiness is explained away by saying Le Beau has amnesia. Unfortunately, there are some killers who are planning on doing away with the Professor...and soon the real Le Beau shows up as well.

This installment of the Bowery Boys is typical in some ways for the later films in the series in that it's really all about Sach (Huntz Hall), Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Louie (Bernard Gorcey)...plus calling these middle-aged men 'boys' is a bit ridiculous! It's not so typical because the film is a bit goofier than usual, such as the stupid scene involving the Professor's favorite drink (not one of cinema's finer moments). Plus, while Hall playing Sach is ridiculous, his playing the real Frenchman is REALLY over the top! Of course, folks don't expect Shakespeare or an art film when they see the Bowery Boys!!

By the way, I was curious after hearing one of the characters say 'sacre bleu' in the film and I looked up this curse. Apparently, real French folks never say this and it's something foreign films show supposedly French people saying!

MUCH later in the Bowery Boys series of films... but it's another ongoing episode of Sach and the guys stumbling into trouble. When Sach (Hunts Hall ) is mistaken for a famous french scientist, he and Slip (Leo Gorcey) take a quick little trip to Paris to help in some escapade. of course, Gorcey's real father Bernard and brother David are also here. Veola Vonn is "the girl" Mimi, but she played so many tiny parts, she doesn't even get a photo in imdb. the usual clever word play and pratfalls by the guys, but no-one seems to notice. it's all very silly and fluffy, but makes the time go by. (the three stooges must have been busy that day...similar humor and pranks) meh. no great work here, but entertaining enough for fans of the bowery boys. Directed by William Beaudine, who had directed many of the bowery boys films.

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.

If you are expecting, based on the title, from this movie to take you on a tour of Paris, forget it. It's pretty obvious that the cast and the production crew never set foot outside the Hollywood studios where this was filmed (there are only some brief establishing shots outside). With that said, the film is lively and short enough not to cause any boredom. Huntz Hall gets to play a dual role, and he does it well, while Veola Vonn is gorgeous as the Parisian fiancè. Funniest scene (in my book): the Boys changing the rules of a high-class French dinner, with the guests gradually joining in. **1/2 out of 4.

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.