Fighting Trouble

SEEING THAT FTHIS was one of those BOWERY BOYS movies mad in the Post-Leo & Bernard Gorcey period, our first inclination was to skip it and do something more exciting, like watching the paint dry. But circumstances conspired to deliver us a different fare. We wound up watching it today via the TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES cable channel and discovered that this pre-judgment about those last entries in the series was jut a trifle harsh.

AS WE ALL were well aware, the interplay between gang chief, 'Slip Mahoney' (Leo Gorcey) and his right hand stooge, Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones (Huntz Hall)was long the main attraction of the series*. In fact, the dialog in just about all the previous entries was about 80+% reserved for the twosome; leaving little for the remaining players.

SO AT THIS point, with Leo gone, the nature of the beast found itself altered slightly with Mr. Huntz Hall's being promoted to top billing and to sort of a different sort of leader. Without any mention of 'Slip' Mahoney's tenor at the helm of around 10 years, the movie brought us one Stanislaus 'Duke' Kovaleskie (Stanley Clements), who did not replace Leo in rank; but did fill the niche and void of Sach's foil.

IN THIS AREA, 'Duke' did a fine job, providing a near perfect straight man to Huntz Hall's buffoonery. And there was no doubt about who was the straight man here, as Gorcey's fondness for double talk and malapropism often made for a difficulty in defining the roles of each.

ANOTHER BENEFIT CAME to the other two or sometimes three BB members in the sudden increase in their lines to speak. David Gorcey (here billed as Dsvid Condon**) for example had much more to say on screen with older brother , Leo, now retired.

THE ADDITION OF Stanley Clements' character did enough to the cast for the series to be propelled along for six pictures. That makes it the longest running series of "B" pictures ever.

The Bowery Boys attempt to soldier on without Leo Gorcey's Slip Mahoney in this forty-second entry in the series. The plot has Sach trying to get a picture of a notorious gangster. It's a yawner that sets the template for the remainder of the Bowery films. Huntz Hall is now the only star, so almost all of the gags revolve around him. If you're not a fan of his limited comedic talents, then you may want to sit this one out. Personally, I always enjoyed Leo Gorcey's malapropisms more than Hall's rubberfacing buffoonery. I also enjoyed the chemistry between Gorcey and Hall, which is sorely missed with Gorcey's replacement -- the dull and colorless Stanley Clements. He plays Duke, the supposed new leader of the gang. He's basically just a straight man for Hall, yelling at him and attempting to mimic the dynamic Hall had with Gorcey. He gets few gags of his own and none that are funny. Also joining the series is Queenie Smith as the Boys' landlady, a pathetic attempt to replace the irreplaceable Bernard Gorcey, who died the year before. In the background are forgettable David Gorcey and Danny Welton (his only Bowery film). This isn't fun. Obviously the series is well past its expiration date here. It's never funny but, if you're a big Huntz fan, maybe you can find something of worth here.

With leader Leo Gorcey retiring from the Bowery series due to personal problems (see "Crashing Las Vegas"), "Fighting Trouble" introduces streetwise Stanley Clements (as Stanislaus "Duke" Covelske) to lead the group. A good fit, but not all the film series needed, Mr. Clements was a member of previous group "The East Side Kids" (as Stash) for a few films during 1942-43. Breaking from the juvenile gang roles, Clements won critical acclaim for his performance in "Salty O'Rourke" (1945), but found his career stalled thereafter...

With no story explanation, Clements would lead "The Bowery Boys" to their final comic escapades. Long-running sidekick Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) now held star-billing. In this wearisome outing, ever-present David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck) and one-shot Danny Welton (as Danny) round out the quartet. To help the latter, Clements and Mr. Hall arm themselves with binoculars and a camera. Eventually, everyone becomes involved with gangsters. A heart attack made this regular Tim Ryan's last Bowery adventure.

*** Fighting Trouble (9/16/56) George Blair ~ Huntz Hall, Stanley Clements, Tim Ryan, David Gorcey

Anyway, Miss (according to some sources) Kate Kelly (Queenie Smith) runs a rooming house called Mrs. Kelly's and some of the boarders include "Sach" (Huntz Hall), "Duke" (Stanley Clements), Chuck Andrews (David Gorcey as David Condon) and "Butch" (the very-much credited Danny Welton but a WHO? then and now.)"Sach" has become a camera fiend so, in the pursuit of some ready cash, "Duke" takes him and his photographs to the editor of the New York Morning Blade, Mr. Ray Vance (Tim Ryan.) He hires them to get some photos of gangland boss Frankie Arbo (Thomas B. Henry) but Mr. Arbo does not care to have his picture in the papers and dislikes cameramen for the same reason.

"Sach" and "Duke" pose as interior decorators in the penthouse of Mae Randall (Adele Jergens, who was billed above Marilyn Monroe in "Ladies of the Chorus, although the MM-revisionists don't seem to be aware of it nor accept it)in order to get photos of Arbo. Later, at Arbo's night club, the boys learn that the gangster is importing a tough hoodlum from Chicago---and no one in the East knows him. "Sach" and "Duke" lure the visiting gunman, Handsome Hal Lomax (Joe Downing, who must have replaced a handsome actor first cast in the role)to Mrs. Kelly's and trick him into staying there through false police calls.

"Sach" masquerades as Handsome Hal (and is at least as handsome as Joe Downing) and gets away with it, and he and "Duke" manage to get into Arbo's inner office with the Boss and his henchies, which, compared to the henchies in the earlier Bowery Boys films, are a sorry and wimpy lot, and the boys are cut into the gang's racket, which is counterfeit money.

Then Handsome Hal shows up and things are getting dicey for the boys until Handsome Hal's jilted sweetheart, Dolly Tate (Laurie Mitchell, indeed a dolly of the 50's) makes her appearance, and she is so put out with getting jilted by the not-handsome Handsome Hal that she ups and identifies "Sach" as the real Handsome Hal, and fingers Handsome himself as the impostor. Handsome taking up with two interior decorators may have been what hacked Dolly off the most.

"Sach" has been taking photos with a miniature camera hidden in his cigarette holder, but accidentally unloads the camera, and the film falls out, exposing the boys and the film. What a revolting development! The gangsters then shoot the boys dead and the film ends. Wait, that was some other film. Probably one of those non-Noir Noirs. Something else happens here.

Fighting Trouble (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

This forty-second film in the Bowery Boys series finally had Huntz Hall getting top-billing as Leo Gorcey retired from the series after the previous film. Stanley Clements, who appeared in several East Side Kids films, replaces Gorcey and this first offering of the new comic team doesn't work at all. After one of their friends is falsely accused of stealing two-hundred dollars, Sach (Hall), Duke (Clements) and the rest of the gang decide to start working for a newspaper editor who needs a photograph of a notorious gangster. Sach, the camera man, must try and snap a picture but before long the boys are in over their heads. The Gorcey-Hall team were never going to be confused with Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello but they were decent in their "B" movies. After watching this film you can see how much chemistry they actually had together because Hall and Clements certainly don't mix and match very well. It really seems like two comedians trying to work together but not knowing each others style or timing because there are some really embarrassing moments throughout the film. One happens when the boys bust in on the editor and it appears the two just don't know how to do the bit or how to time everything off the other. Another silly sequence has the boys sneaking into the gangster's girlfriends apartment where they pretend to be fashion designers. No laughs follow simply because of the bad timing between the two. Hall's Sach getting the lead was a long time coming but the character really comes across quite annoying when Gorcey isn't here to level him out. Just take a look at the scene where there's an easy picture to take but the way Hall blows it is just annoying and never funny. As you'd expect, there's silliness running throughout the picture and when the boys come under attack by the gangsters nothing funny happens. This first film in the "new" series is certainly a major bust and at just 60-minutes it still feels way too long.