Crazy Over Horses

CRAZY OVER HORSES is actually a reworking of BLONDIE IN SOCIETY (1941), where Dagwood brings home a Great Dane to Blondie in exchange for a debt. Here, Louie (Bernard Gorcey) is owed money and the gang brings home a horse, called MY GIRL!

The trick of it is that the horse is a champion dark horse winner, worthy of a small fortune. Off to the races we go with Sach now as a jockey! Lots of crazy fun, and with an appearance of Tim Ryan (playing Mr. Flynn), who was the head writer for the Bowery Boys (and in real life married to Irene Ryan who played Granny on the BEVERLY HILLBILLIES). Ryan knew comedy and kept the Bowery Boys going and going. This episode obviously had a slightly bigger budget, and with the casting of veterans Allen Jenkins (always a treat to watch) and Ted de Corsia, as the gravel voiced bad guy. This was also the last appearance for Billy Benedict (as Whitey), who said he had had enough and went the way of Gabe Dell and Bobby Jordan, although Billy would never be forgotten.

Bennie Bartlett, a child prodigy pianist, returned as Butch for the rest of the series, later to retire and sell insurance in real life. CRAZY OVER HORSES also introduced the artful comic book drawings of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall in the opening credits, similar to what 20th Century Fox did for Laurel and Hardy in the 1940s. It worked well. This was one of the first episodes to be included in a box set release via Warner Brothers.

Good stuff.

I'm watching Crazy Over Horses (1951) on TCM right now. The Mahoney Collection Agency goes to work for Louie, and collect a $200 debt owed him by a stable owner. Slip winds up accepting a race horse, My Girl, as payment. Unfortunately, the horse was owned by gambler Duke, who hadn't paid his boarding fees to the stable owner. Duke plans to run My Girl in a race as a ringer for a slower horse, Tarzana. When Slip and Louie won't sell the horse back to Duke, he decides to steal her back by switching her for Tarzana. The slapstick involves both sides switching the horses back and forth until race day. Somehow, Sachs winds up as the jockey in the big race. But which horse is he actually riding?

In Crazy Over Horses (1951, Louie has a female counter employee, Mazie, played by Peggy Wynne. She even has a couple of lines. Chuck (David Gorcey billed as David Condon) and Butch (Benny Bartlett) are on hand as scenery, and Whitey (William Benedict) returns, looking like Louie's older brother. Louie (Bernard Gorcey) has some good scenes. Pretty Gloria Saunders plays Terry, the stable owner's daughter and obligatory female presence. Veteran heavy Ted de Corsica is Duke. And Allen Jenkins is on hand as Weepin' Willie.

Watching Crazy Over Horses (1951) is an OK way to spend a freezing cold Saturday morning, but it's not the best of The Bowery Boys.

The twenty-fourth Bowery Boys movie has the boys going to collect a debt for Louie and instead getting a race horse, which leads to them getting mixed up with gangsters. They were always mixed up with gangsters, it seems. A funny entry in the series with an increased amount of screen time for the always entertaining Bernard Gorcey as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. His scenes are among the movie's highlights. Leo Gorcey's malapropisms and Huntz Hall's rubberfaced idiocy provide the usual laughs. David Gorcey (now going by David Condon) hangs around in the background rarely speaking. Bennie Bartlett returns to playing Butch after a two-year absence. This is the last Bowery Boys film for William "Whitey" Benedict, who had been with the boys since the Little Tough Guys and East Side Kids days. Allen Jenkins is fun in a supporting role, his second consecutive Bowery Boys film (playing a different character than last time). Lovely Gloria Saunders plays the obligatory pretty girl (every movie in the series seemed to have one). Ted de Corsia is good as the main heavy. The plot is familiar but it doesn't hurt the picture much. The things that work well here (Slip, Sach, Louie) are what I enjoy most about the series.

To cancel a debt owed sweet shop owner Bernard Gorcey (as Louis "Louie" Xavier Dumbrowsky), "The Bowery Boys" leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) and sidekick Huntz Hall (as Sach Jones) agree to take "My Girl" off the hands of series writer Tim Ryan (as Flynn). At first, they think "My Girl" is Mr. Ryan's fetching daughter, but she's really a horse. "My Girl" rides into residence with Bowery pals William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck), and Benny "Bennie" Bartlett (as Butch).

Then, gangster Allen Jenkins (as Weepin' Willie) and others get interested in horse racing with "My Girl". Mr. Hall appears in "black-face" make-up and Mr. Gorcey appears to have been over-indulging in alcohol. But, "Crazy Over Horses" is most notable for being the last appearance of Mr. Benedict as a "Bowery Boy" trying to get a line in edgewise. It proved to be a good time to exit, as the series was on a downward spiral. It's also the first time little brother David Gorcey is billed as "David Condon" in the credits.

*** Crazy Over Horses (11/18/51) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Tim Ryan

Crazy Over Horses (1951)

** (out of 4)

Rather bland entry in the series has the Louie being owed money by an old friend so he sends the boys out to collect but instead of cash they come back with a horse. It turns out this is a very special horse as gangsters plan on replacing it with a lookalike so that they can have the odds go up on a bad horse and then they'll race the quick one. Number twenty-four (if you're still counting) isn't all that memorable as we get a rather familiar story of the boys getting involved with a crooked scam and nothing here is one bit original or and we've seen it countless times before. The entire movie just had a very lazy feel to it as if everyone involved knew they weren't doing anything overly special and they just mailed everything in. The only sequence that comes off mildly entertaining is one where the boys charge into Louie's restaurant thinking that he has turned the horse into hamburger and what happens to the customer inside the store is pretty funny. Outside of that this is pretty weak all around. The most surprising thing is that the cast pretty much just sleepwalks through things. Leo Gorcey is once again back as Slip but he appears to be bored and many of his mixed up words simply aren't funny or too cleaver here. Huntz Hall continues to grow dumber and dumber but the screenplay really doesn't do him any favors. There's one interesting scene where Gorcey pretty much sends him packing but nothing ever really comes of it. The horse racing scenes are all boring as the supporting cast doesn't help much either and that includes Allen Jenkins in his supporting role. Heck, even Bernard Gorcey comes off rather tame this time out.