Lucky Losers

Saw "Lucky Losers" when I was 7 years old. It was the first time I had ever seen a Bowery Boys movie. My main memory of it is that I laughed harder while watching it than any other movie before or since. It made me an instant Bowery Boys fan. Saw it again (on TV) a few months ago. Doesn't seem nearly as funny now, but still a solid Bowery Boys entry.

Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) are working as runners for a New York brokerage firm owned by David J. Thurston (Selmer Jackson, and the name is Thurston as in Thurston.) Carol Thurston (Wendy Waldron, and the name is Thurston as in Thurston, no matter what Selmer Jackson's handwriting looked like) is romantically involved with Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell), a crusading television producer.

David Thurston is found dead and the coroner's ruling is suicide. Slip isn't buying that, snoops around Thurston's office, and discovers a matchbox and pair of dice carrying the insignia, "The High Hat Club." Slip engages a spiel artist,Wellington J. "Buffer" McGee (Harry Tyler), to teach him, Sach and their friends, Butch (Buddy Gorman), Chuck (David Gorcey)and Whitey (Billy Benedict)how to beat all games of chance.

Slip, posing as "Slippery" Mahoney, and Sach as Sacramento Sach obtain jobs at the dice table of "The High Hat Club,", operated by Bruce McDermott (Lyle Talbot) and "Countess" Margo (Hillary Brooke), and they bring in their friends to operate the card tables. Moreno, aided by information supplied by Mahoney, launches a campaign against McDermott, and has City Councilman John Martin (Harry V, Cheshire)aid him in his fight.

Slip discovers a canceled check for $120,000, signed by Thurston, in McDermott's desk. A young millionaire, Andrew Stone, III (Glenn Vernon), is killed in a brawl with McDermott, but the latter is exonerated after making a mysterious call to to a higher-up in the racket. Slip and the Boys, with the aid of assistant District Attorney Tom Whitney (Douglas Evans), discover the higher-up is the man any viewer has already pegged as the higher-up, simply on the basis that the Gabe Moreno character is never as smart as he pretends to be in this series.

Made with the usual mixture of melodrama and comedy this series had under producer Jan Grippo, who stayed with the formula Sam Katzman used before the East Side Kids became the Bowery Boys and, as such, is better than the straight buffoon, slap-stick entries later produced by Ben Schwab.

The gambling blood in me really appreciated the gambling scenes in this movie, as Harry Tyler, a gambling expert, teaches the boys the art of cheating in cards and dice. We are treated to some fancy legerdemain actually done by producer Jan Grippo in a hand cameo - what a checkered life he must have led! All five boys (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, David Gorcey, William Benedict and Buddy Gorman) go undercover as workers in a gambling casino to try to unravel the details of Selmer Jackson's apparent suicide. It's all a lot of fun. I enjoyed the scene where Benedict purposely deals two losing unbilled dowagers blackjacks after urging them to bet the rest of their money. (The writers must have seen Casablanca.)

Our forgetful writers department: Selmer Jackson's character name is apparently "David J. Thurston," since it is engraved in the stone facing of his building. But when he signs a letter, it is "David J. Thurstinn."

Lucky Losers has our set of overage delinquents from the Bowery investigating some illegal gambling after a prominent Wall Street broker commits 'suicide'. Selmar Jackson had gotten Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall jobs on Wall Street and the boys take his demise quite personal.

Their investigation leads them to a gambling club, illegal of course, that's operated by Lyle Talbot and his mostly fetching moll Hillary Brooke. In order to crash that world they get a course in how to be a crooked gambler and what to watch out for by small time grifter Harry Tyler. The scenes with Tyler are the best in the film.

This is a pretty good entry in The Bowery Boys series, a must for fans of the eternal delinquents.

"Lucky Losers" is too straight-forward to be a memorable Bowery Boys picture, though it does contain a good supporting cast. It's just not wacky enough and it lacks memorable set pieces. The scenes with Louis posing as a rich gambling fool, for example, fall flat. Still, it manages to be quite amusing and the Gorcey-Hall chemistry is as incomparable as ever.

Hillary Brooke is one of the glories of B cinema (although, regrettably, she doesn't have much to do here). Dick Elliott, who plays the drunken conventioneer, would turn up as Mike Clancy in a couple entries at the tail end of the series.