utgard14
The Bowery Boys try their hand at detective work in this breezy sixth entry in the Monogram series. Slip Mahoney is mistaken for a private detective and, naturally, uses it to his advantage to try and earn fifty bucks investigating a missing girl. With help from his friends, of course. It's a good one with hilarious malapropisms from Leo Gorcey, rubberfacing goofiness from Huntz Hall, and wacky support from Bobby Jordan, William Benedict, and David Gorcey. Gabriel Dell is also part of the gang, taking a part in the slapstick more than he has been in the series so far, where he's mostly been playing it straight. Teala Loring and Patti Brill provide the pretty. Brill also has a funny bit at the end. Bernard Gorcey is fun as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. I never get tired of the Bowery Boys, particularly Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. I'm not sure what some other reviewers were complaining about. I thought this one was very funny with a quick pace and many great lines. Love the trivia contest bit!
bkoganbing
With a plot gimmick borrowed from the Bob Hope classic My Favorite Brunette, the Bowery Boys get launched into the detective business in Hard Boiled Mahoney. If you remember Alan Ladd has a cameo appearance in the Hope film and Hope is minding the office when he's hired for a case. Here Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are trying to get some money owed to Sach by a detective who is out. A mysterious woman comes in to hire said detective to find her sister and what self respecting Bowery Boy ever could refuse a mysterious woman?There's a little more plot than usual in this Bowery Boy film and you will enjoy the climax involving the boys in eluding the bad guys taking up the guises of that band of professors from Ball Of Fire and going on an Information Please type show with Byron Foulger as the Clifton Fadiman type host. Even without most of today's audience knowing about Information Please or Clifton Fadiman it can still be enjoyed.Guaranteed laughs from Hard Boiled Mahoney.
gullwing592003
I've always been a big fan of Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall in the Dead End Kids & East Side Kids series since 1976. Along with leader Billy Halop (initially in the Dead End Kids series ) these movies were intense social commentaries laced with comedy but with serious & realistic themes that usually delivered a message that's still relevant & has stood the test of time & has endured through the ages.The gang were tough juvenile delinquents & street fighting mug's constantly getting into trouble with the law & in & out of reform schools in classic films like "Dead End", "Crime School", "Angels With Dirty Faces", "They Made Me A Criminal" & "Hell's Kitchen" from 1937 to 1939 before the group subdivided & splintered off into the Little Tough Guys for Universal & the East Side Kids for Monogram. There was usually a major star in the Samuel Goldwyn & Warner Bros films like Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney & John Garfield. Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall were natural & convincing as nasty violent arrogant tough guys with a sense of humor in the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids films.2 days ago was the first time I watched a few Bowery Boys flicks & judging from what I saw I haven't been missing much with such titles as "Blues Busters", "Crashing Las Vegas", "Ghost Chasers" & "Feuding Fools" & maybe I haven't seen enough of this ludicrous series but from what I have seen I'm not too impressed & it just looks like garbage to me & I can't understand why Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall would degenerate to this kind of silly nincompoop nonsense & Tom Foolery. I think they deserved much better than this & I thought what a waste of their talents.The Bowery Boys essentially resemble & look like cheap imitations of Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, 3 Stooges & Jackie Gleason. They were no longer kids by this point & it was all too obvious that Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall had shed their tough image & had sold out & were just cashing in & jumping on the "slapstick comedy" bandwagon. It looks forced & contrived seeing Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall trying too hard to be what they're not. They didn't start out this way & I think they could've chosen a better direction than this. Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall were more convincing & real as tough guys serious but funny. The Bowery Boys series is not worth buying for my money I like their earlier series & tough image better.
sol1218
***SPOILERS*** Slip and his Bowery Boys get themselves involved with this fortune teller ring when his friend Sach ends up getting fired from his job as as an assistant private investigator by his boss, who skipped town, Greg Grogan. Showing up at Grogan's office to get Sach his back pay Slip finds the door opened and Gorgan gone. Within minutes Selena Webster shows up with a $50.00 retainer to find her missing sister Eleanor not knowing that both Slip & Sach are just visitors not the persons who run the detective agency.Taking on the case and the $50.00 Slip and the boys start to follow Dr. Rolfe Carter a psychic whom Selena suspects in her sisters disappearance. Trailing Dr.Carter to his home away from home at the Wentworth Arms Apartments Slip ends up finding Dr. Cater shot dead and him, after being knocked out cold by the killer, the prime suspect in Dr. Carter's murder! Slip also finds Selena's lost sister Eleanor in the building who claims that she's not related at all to her! In fact she doesn't even have a sister!In trying to get to the bottom of this mystery Slip & Co. on a tip from gangster Lenny the Meatball end up tracking down master fortune teller Dr. Armard the master mind of the fortune teller ring who's been using his talents of telling fortunes to dig up very sensitive information from his clients, whom both Selena & Eleanor are, in order to blackmail them. In fact it was Eleanor's husband Tom who Dr. Armand and his hoods kidnapped when he was about to expose his fortune telling blackmail racket to the police!The usual slap sticks you've learned to expect from Slip & Sach and the Bowery Boys who end up trapping Dr. Amand and his hoodlums at Louie's Sweet Shop with the help of Louie's waitress, and Slip's girlfriend, Alice who together with the police comes to their rescue. Before that Slip and the boys in trying to escape from the Dr. Armand's Mob busted into the Prof. Quizard Radio Quiz show by impersonating the members, after knocking the out and tying them up, of the biggest brain trust that the world, or Prof. Quizad, could assemble! Slip and the boys proved to be anything but a bunch of academic geniuses by not being able to come up with the answer to who the Washington Monument was named after? George Washington you dummies!