classicsoncall Learning that this was the first film in the Bowery Boys series explains a lot. I was mystified for example when Bernard Gorcey appeared on screen as a customer instead of the proprietor of Louie's Sweet Shop. As bookie Jack Kane, he was obviously not as likable as the character he portrayed in later pictures in the series. At the same time, Leo Gorcey's 'Slip' Mahoney also seemed like an unsavory character who couldn't hold a job because of his volatile temper and quick fisted nature. Perhaps the biggest surprise was seeing Huntz Hall as the mature member of the group, to the point of giving Slip some advice on how to hold a job and not be a disappointment to his sister Mary (Pamela Blake), who was more like a mother to him than a sister. Oh well, things would change.Otherwise, the picture does have that Bowery Boys flavor with it's cool New York City street scenes and situations calling for Slip and Sach (Hall) to get out of one scrape after another. As a fan of former pro wrestler Mike Mazurki, I never realized just how big he was until I saw him manhandle Slip from pillar to post the way he did here. I don't know if it was for real or a camera trick, but he lifted Slip and Sach off the floor with one hand in separate scenes; I don't believe I'd like to get in the guy's way for any reason.The one constant that I enjoyed in the film was Slip's malapropisms just about every time he opened his mouth. Seeing him in a tux on the way to the High Hat Club was a trip in itself, about the best he ever looked outside of a military uniform which he wore as an East Side Kid in 1942's "Let's Get Tough" or later on in 1951's "Bowery Batallion".The other cool element in the picture for me was Earle Hodgins as a snake oil salesman, a role he played with some frequency in old time Westerns of the Thirties and Forties. That he showed up in a Bowery Boys flick seemed only natural, leading me to consider that had he been born a little bit later, he might have been right at home as part of the gang.

mark.waltz The first of the long-running "Bowery Boys" series is also probably the weakest in plot, basically the same characters of "The East Side Kids" series with new names and locations. The newly monikered Slip (Leo Gorcey) obviously doesn't want to work, going from flower delivery boy to ink remover pitchman to construction site digger (a job that only lasts two minutes) and finally to process server. He joins pal Sach (Huntz Hall) in that profession, serving everybody from a chorus girl (trying to avoid him while performing) to the gigantic Mike Mazurki. Of course, there's a criminal element here, involved with Slip's sister (Pamela Blake), which provides the only attempt at a linear plot.The slightly more than an hour film is mostly enjoyable because of Slip's "slip of the tongue" malapropisms which are sometimes hysterical, sometimes stupid and sometimes non-sensical. The film provides mostly "moments" rather than the great atmosphere of the aging youth of the lower east side that would prevail for another 11 years in 40 plus movies. While most of the gang appears to be mid-late 20's, "Whitey" Billy Benedict for some reason looks much older. Bernard Gorcey, who always popped up in the oddest places when the series began to travel, doesn't appear as Louie here, looking very different as a bookie. Ironically, Louie's ice cream shop is one of the major settings, but his character is not even mentioned.

ksf-2 Well, this one opens with Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) losing his job as a taxi driver, and coming home to his sister Mary (Pamela Blake) and friends... check out that dolled up, rolled-up 1940s hair-do on Blake! Huntz Hall is "Sach Jones", Slip's sidekick; Acc to IMDb, they would work or appear together 69 times! Keep an eye out for Bernard Gorcey (Leo's real dad) as Jack Kane at the soda fountain. Also keep an eye out for Bill Benedict, the blond-haired tall skinny guy in all those films from the 1940s.. he was called "Whitie" in most of the roles he played. Slip tries various schemes to earn some money, with mixed results along the way... mostly bad. This post- WW II film shows life on the gritty side of town, and the difficulty in getting work, with some humor thrown in along the way. Not bad. A film that's short & sweet, mostly a more mature version of the "Muggs Maloney" characters Gorcey had played in the early 1940s. A bit more slapstick right at the end than I like, but they got some mile-age out of real-life wrestler Mike Mazurki. Also a pleasant number "The Right Kind of Man" sung by Claudia Drake in the nightclub. Phil Karlson directed this 65 minute shortie from Monogram Pictures.

Brian Camp The East Side Kids, knockoffs of the Dead End Kids, appeared in 21 films at Monogram Pictures from 1940-45. They became the Bowery Boys in a new series, also at Monogram, starting with LIVE WIRES (1946) and destined to last until 1958. Of the six actors who made up the original Dead End Kids, only Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Bobby Jordan appear in LIVE WIRES. (Jordan left the Bowery series in 1947 after eight films. Gabe Dell, another former Dead End/East Side Kid, joined the Bowery Boys for the fourth film in the series, but stayed only through the end of 1950.) The East Side Kids films tended to have a gritty, urban feel to them, with dramatic plots, bursts of violence, and characters who looked, sounded and behaved like they hung out on the street 24 hours a day, amidst settings built to replicate familiar slum spaces like cramped tenement apartments, basement clubhouses, alleys, storefronts, warehouses, soda counters, cheap dives, bookie joints, etc. The Bowery Boys films tended to specialize in lowbrow comedy and slapstick hijinks, often sending the Boys on not-so-exotic adventures far from the Bowery.LIVE WIRES has some comedy and familiar schtick, including Gorcey's patented mangling of big words ("why, they'll put me up on a pedestrian") and lots of slapping each other with hats, but it's much more interested in a routine crime tale that gets unnecessarily convoluted as more characters pile on. Slip Mahoney (Gorcey) has trouble holding a job and is seen failing at one thing after another (including a long, tiresome routine involving the sidewalk peddling of a phony stain remover) until he joins Sach (Hall) as a "skip tracer," basically repo men assigned to track down deadbeats and repossess merchandise that hasn't been fully paid for. It's an unlikely profession for these two and not something we'll ever see them do again. Slip does, however, prove quite efficient and, in one clever scene, manages to trick an unlucky nightclub chanteuse out of her coveted convertible. Eventually, the boys are recruited to track down and serve summonses to the ringleaders of a citywide car theft ring. This leads to a comical encounter in the film's final 15 minutes with a childlike but physically aggressive mountain-sized gangster who effortlessly (and "playfully") bounces the hapless Slip off the walls of a well-appointed lounge with a fully-stocked bar. (The gangster is played by third-billed Mike Mazurki as a take-off on Moose Malloy, the not-so-gentle giant he played in the Philip Marlowe film noir classic, MURDER, MY SWEET, 1944, a connection referenced in the ads for LIVE WIRES.) Too much of the film takes place in spacious offices, apartments, stores and a fancy club. You'd think the film actually had a budget. There's very little East Side or Bowery flavor on view. When addresses are given, they're not recognizable Manhattan addresses. (I'm sorry, but there are no "Walnut and 3rd" or "4th and Main" in Manhattan.) Slip's sister Mary (Pamela Blake), who plays the mother figure in his life, has far more screen time than any of the other Bowery Boys, aside from Sach. There's a Louie's Ice Cream Parlor, but no Louie Dumbrowsky. The actor who later played Louie, Bernard Gorcey (Leo's dad), shows up at the parlor here, but as a bookie named Jack Kane. Of the five Bowery Boys, in addition to Slip, Sach and Bobby (Jordan), there are Whitey (Billy Benedict, also a regular in the East Side Kids) and the wildly unfamiliar Homer (played by William Frambes in his only Bowery Boys movie), a farm boy who seems to have wandered off the set of one of Universal's Ma and Pa Kettle films.LIVE WIRES was the fifth film directed by Phil Karlson, who is better known for his violent, hard-hitting crime thrillers from the 1950s (KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL, 99 RIVER STREET, FIVE AGAINST THE HOUSE, THE PHENIX CITY STORY, THE BROTHERS RICO) and '70s (WALKING TALL, FRAMED). He keeps things moving when he can and throws in a couple of action scenes, including a brawl started by Slip at a nightclub, but the script gives him little opportunity to craft anything particularly memorable out of this. Later films in the series would perfect the formula by placing Gorcey and Hall in center stage as a comedy team and putting them in all manner of slapstick situations and crimefighting shenanigans, sometimes keeping them at home in the Bowery and sometimes sending them off to such not-so-very-convincing locations as Paris, London, Bagdad, Las Vegas, the Wild West, the Ozarks, and assorted military bases.