Triple Trouble

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.

Well if you did not grow up watching the DEAD END KIDS/EASTEND KIDS/ BOWERY BOYS...then it is hard to imagine you would find any of their films entertaining. But if you did, like me, then you will enjoy rewatching Triple Trouble. Their huge volume of work (40 plus films) is often the same zaniness rehashed but a few stand out as above average stories and comedies. Triple has a decent script that gives good parts to all the lads including Louie Dumbrowki (Gorceys real life father). The dialogue is witty and the story moves along in fine comedic fashion. A suggested viewing for people first getting a taste of the Bowery Boys to see what they are all about.

And Whitey (Billy Benedict) has a pivotal role in this 19th entry in the Bowery Boys series, other than just standing behind Slip (Leo Gorvey) and Sach (Huntz Hall.) Slip, Sach, Whitey, Butch (Buddy Gorman) and Chuck (David Gorcey)witness a warehouse robbery, and are arrested and jailed on suspicion. Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell), their lawyer-friend gets them released on bail. Since the charge of suspicion is one that the Monogram prosecutors appear to believe can be easily proved, the gang is awaiting trail, when Whitey, a short-wave radio fan, picks up information that leads him to believe that instructions for the warehouse robbery and others are given by an inmate in the penitentiary to his pals on the outside via short-wave radio.

When the five go on trail, Slip and Sach plead guilty so that they may be imprisoned and the other three are given probation. Once in the Big House, Slip and Sach learn immediately learn that two notorious gangsters, Pretty Boy Gleason (Paul Dubov) and Benny the Blood (Joseph Turkel), expected to arrive at the prison have received a last-minute stay-of-sentence, so they decide to pose as Pretty Boy and Benny, in order to be readily accepted among the Cons and learn which of them is the one sending out the robbery instructions.

They meet the leader, Bat Armstrong (Pat Collins), and learn from Whitey, who has intercepted one of Bat's short-wave messages, that a prison break is planned. But before they can do much about that, the real Pretty Boy and Benny are imprisoned, and Slip and Sach are now known by Bat and his friends to be impostors.

The jig would appear to be up.But, in the Bowery Boys series, anything can happen.

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 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.