Triple Trouble

The Bowery Boys do a nice job in "Triple Trouble". Slip and Sach both end up in prison and impersonate some famous thugs. There are some laughs and even more smiles when it comes to the Boys prison life. "Triple Trouble" has a good story and a fast pace. Not all of the Bowery Boys movies are worth watching but this one is. (IMDB has a six hundred character minimum so I have to ramble on for a little while longer. I enjoyed "Triple Trouble" but how much can you really write about a movie like this? What else is there to say? Anyway, how was your Thanksgiving weekend? Mine was nice. Thanks for asking.)

Criminals are breaking into a vault in a storage company. Five masked men come upon the crime and chase away the robbers. The cops finally arrive and catch the five masked men freeing the guard. It's the Bowery Boys going to a costume party when they heard the robbers. Now, the boys are stuck in jail. Louie puts up his sweet shop for bail.

It's another Bowery Boys film. It has all the elements. It has Slip and Sach and a bunch of extra boys. Louie continues to be the father figure. The boys essentially tapped into an illegal cell in prison. Slip's solution is a little extreme and unrealistic and slightly humorous. That's the franchise in a nutshell.

This one starts off kind of creepy, with the guys wearing Halloween masks and stumbling upon some real deal crooks late at night. Actually, it's a take-off on all those Warner Brothers crime thrillers, and even Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall do some goofy impersonations of Cagney and Eddie G. Robinson.

Bottom line. Slip, Sach and the guys go to prison to expose a ring of tough robbers --lead by a little old lady??? Hilarious stuff, and the gangs schtick and one liners are everywhere. Best scenes are jail, especially Sach whose stuck with a loon named Squirley, played over the top by George Chandler.

Squirley likes to cut off ears and cook 'em, to which Sach replies, "Ears give me heartburn!"

Veteran actor G. Pat Collins is excellent, playing a hardened criminal called Bat Armstrong, who runs the outside operations from the inside --via a secret radio, and he sounds like he gargles with razor blades! Collins was in films for decades, and even had a small role in the classic James Cagney thriller, WHITE HEAT. He is perfect for this stuff.

Some other honorable mentions here, such as Richard Benedict, as Skeets, who would later become a popular tv director. The warden is played by old reliable Joseph Crehan, who seemed born to play cops and exasperated Jonathan Hale (best known as Mr. Dithers in BLONDIE), plays the judge who can't figure the Bowery Boys out.

The gang's all here, and Louie, as usual goes nuts, learning that his sweetshop is going to be robbed.

Also some fun stuff from Whitey (Billy Benedict), who always was the most ingenious of the bunch. This time around Gabe Dell plays a lawyer, who sort of bounced from one career to the next in the series.

And don't forget the secret code, ""Three times three o'clock, black as night...." Best line from Leo Gorcey, "Let me vegetate this matter over in my mind!" And many more...

Do NOT miss. Followed by the classic musical comedy BLUES BUSTERS. Released on dvd via Warner Brothers in box sets of 6 to 8 films. A thank you to TCM for rerunning the Bowery Boys on Saturdays, like the old days.

This has to be one of the dumbest plot premises ever for a Bowery Boys flick. Is there any of you out there that really thinks that any penal institution would allow a short wave radio on the premises or that if one was there it couldn't be located rather easily? Nevertheless Triple Trouble does provide a few laughs in the rough house Bowery Boy style.

The guys witness a warehouse robbery and then they get arrested for it. Billy Benedict as Whitey who for while he was with the gang competed with Huntz Hall for laughs in the dunce department is a ham radio operator and he thinks that instructions for the crime came via a short wave located in state prison.

What to do but plead guilty despite advice from lawyer Gabriel Dell and Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. Where somehow they're mistaken for two reputed killers. Two reputed killers? That somehow strains credulity especially with Horace DeBussy Jones. Nevertheless the rest of the story is Slip and Sach doing their investigation and trying awfully hard to live up to their false reputations.

Triple Trouble is both a laugh and a strain.

THEY STARTED WITH a vague title and finished up with a weak ending. In between the two "bookends" director Jean Yarbrough & the production put together about as entertaining, funny and even somewhat as complex an entry into the BOWERY BOYS Series as there was.

STARTING WITH THE premise of a botched attempt by the Boys to prevent a robbery and their unlikely status of being charged with the crime (the stick-up gang got away) and their trial, both Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) take to pleading guilty and, after refusing to accept Probation from the Judge (Jonathon Hale) go off to the State Penitentiary. all of this in spite of the efforts of their lawyer, Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell).

THERE IS SOME indication of this entry's being greatly influenced by some of the popular Film Noir and other gangster pictures that had been so very popular at the time. So many elements portrayed point to one in particular; that being WHITE HEAT (Warner Brothers, 1949). The fact that the gang had the leader's mother in it, the in-prison undercover work by Slip & Sach and a a spectacular prison break with hostages all support our assertion.

FURTHERMORE, MORE THAN once the two break into impersonations of Warner Brothers' stars with racketeer resumes. Leo does a fine impersonation of Edward G. Robinson(Gorcey's idol) while Huntz does his best as James Cagney (doing Mr. Cagney's Coady Jarrett psycho from WHITE HEAT).

THEY ALSO EMPLOYED a seemingly greater number of extras and non-credited players, including (surprisingly) Lyle Talbot, unbilled and briefly appearing as a very wise "Screw." (Convict slang for a Prison Guard)

THE REST OF the regular characters does a good job in support, as usual; but, as always, Chuck (David Gorcey), Whitey (Billy Benedict) and Butch (Buddy Gorman) could really have used some more dialogue.