Trouble Makers

The Bowery Boys get a telescope and offer a peak into the stars for a nickel. Slip is the barker. Sach is using the telescope to look at more grounded sights and spots a struggle in a distant hotel. It's a murder. The boys tell honest rookie cop Gabe Moreno and together they search for the murder scene. They can't find the body. Some time later, the dead body is found in another location. Slip and Sach go undercover as bellboys in the hotel with help from Ann Prescott. Her father is the dead man and she inherited the hotel from him. Gangster 'Hatchet' Moran mistakes Sach as a fellow criminal.

The starting premise is interesting. I thought Gabe Moreno would have a bigger role in the second half. Quite frankly, Moreno is an unnecessary detour. I also expected Ann Prescott to join in the hijinx. Lionel Stander is a great thug. It does try to turn into a Scooby Doo slapstick comedy. There are some issues there. This has some early fun and it's fine for a Bowery Boys flick.

Plus Fritz Feld, Lionel Stander, Helen Parrish and the usual top-notch supporting cast of toughs and characters.

Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) are in the sidewalk star-gazing business when they see a murder committed in a room at the El Royale Hotel, blocks away. In spite of the fussy-and-fidget objections of the hotel manager, Andre Schmidtlapp (Fritz Feld), the Bowery Boys (including Frankie Darro and Billy Benedict with lines and David Gorcey and Benny Bartlett looking on...as usual) and their friend Police Officer Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell)search the murder room and find nothing beyond learning that the room is occupied by "Silky" Thomas (John Ridgely.) Police Captain Madison (Cliff Clark)reprimands Gabe for leaving his beat on a false alarm, but later tips from Slip and Sach help Gabe lead raids on Silky's gambling operations.

The latter sends Gabe's former friend "Feathers" (Frankie Darro)to Gabe with a bribe offer but Gabe refuses. The boys read about the killing of a Professor Prescott and identify him as the man they saw murdered. Slip and Sach tell the professor's daughter, Ann Prescott (Helen Parrish), they will find her father's killers, and they get jobs as bellhops at the hotel. "Hatchet" (Lionel Stander), one of the gangsters, thinks Sach is a former cellmate and this causes a complication or two along the way.

Trouble Makers was kind of in the middle of the Bowery Boys stories. Sach (Huntz Hall) and Slip (Leo Gorcey, along with his real dad and brother, of course!) get into the usual trouble when they accidentally witness a moidah. keep an eye out for Lionel Stander, who made films for years, but we all know him as Max in Hart to Hart. in this one, slip and sach take up jobs as bellboys in a hotel to keep an eye on things and figure out how the body disappeared. of course, they take on the bad guys, and there must be a big rough and tumble at the end. bake at 350 for an hour and you have a bowery boys adventure. Directed by Reginald Le Borg.. the first of three he would make with the gang. it's the usual fare, probably aimed at a younger audience.

Trouble Makers (1948)

*** (out of 4)

Good entry in the long-running series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) witnessing a murder inside a hotel but no one will believe them as no body was found there. Gabe (Gabriel Dell), now working as a cop, tries to investigate but ends up suspended off the force so it's up to the boys to try and figure out who did the killing and why. This was a nice surprise as it turned out to be one of the better entries in the series as we get some very good laughs, nice crime action and a fairly good mystery as well. These Bowery Boys movies often tried mixing various genres but rarely did they all work so well as they do here. What really helps the film is the wonderful supporting cast, which is full of some veteran actors. By having such great support the film didn't have to rely on Gorcey and Hall to get all the laughs. Lionel Stander, who would be blacklisted in upcoming years, is perfect as "Hatchet" Moran, a gangster who loves his friend "Abby" who just happens to be a machine gun. John Ridgely, veteran of many Warner classics, plays Silky Thomas, the main suspect. Both actors are excellent in their roles with Stander getting a great number of laughs and Ridgely being very believable in the crime boss role. Also strong here is Helen Parrish as the murder man's daughter. Both Gorcey and Hall are a lot better here than they were in a couple of the previous films. Gorcey gets some wonderful mangled dialogue that he nails perfectly and even Hall gets some terrific scenes. He plays extremely well with Stander as the two go down memory lanes of when they were knocking off various locations (Stander's character thinks Sach is a former gangster). Dell is also really coming into his own, acting wise, even though he's playing yet a different character. This film really stands out because it actually appears like they took their time with a good screenplay and got some respectable actors to help share the load. The film starts off with some great laughs and they continue all the way through the picture.

Ever the entrepreneurs, in this one the Bowery Boys are hawking star gazing to passers-by for 5 cents a pop. While playing around with the telescope, Sach sees two men fighting in a room of a hotel several blocks away. Then Slip takes over and sees one of the men strangled by the other and then he convinces up and coming rookie cop Gabe Marino to leave his beat and investigate the incident. However, when they arrive at the hotel, there is no body in the room. Slip tells Sach "to search every nook and granny." When the police captain arrives, Slip explains to him what he saw but that "we can't find the corpus delicious." With tips from Slip, Gabe is putting a big bookmaker's operations under a lot of pressure and in return they set Gabe up and he ends up suspended from force for 90 days. This Bowery Boys outing benefits from a strong supporting cast in Fritz Feld as the delightfully officious hotel manager, Lionel Stander as the humorously murderous "Hatchet" Moran and Frankie Darro as the small time thug Ben Feathers.