|
Post by mtw12055 on Mar 25, 2011 16:36:19 GMT -5
There's a possibility that tommorow's showing of "Spook Chasers" will be shown in its original widescreen format. I hope this is true. The Bowery Boys would probably look great in widescreen!
|
|
|
Post by rascaLee on Mar 27, 2011 20:04:43 GMT -5
I watched "Sppok Chasers". Noticed Stanley Clements started using malaprops in this one. Add to that Mike Clancy as the "new Louie" and Eddie Leroy's Blinky as the "new Whitey".
Also this week on TCM I saw "A Slight Case of Murder" which featured Bobby Jordan in a great role. Also cleary seen for a couple seconds among the boys in the reform school was Sidney Kibrick, making this his second "Dead End Kids" related film (the first being "Dead End").
|
|
|
Post by rascaLee on Apr 2, 2011 10:43:46 GMT -5
Watched "Looking for Danger". First thing I noticed is they brought back the Gorcey-era caricature of Sach in the opening credits. This was a weird one as far as continuity goes, having newcomers Duke, Myron, Blinky, and Mike serving in WWII with Sach and Chuck. Of course, the continuity was always quite loose in the Bowery Boys series, and even more so in the East Side Kids series, when WWII occured.
I think this was the first post-Gorcey film to use the "routine" code, and unlike the previous film, Duke had no malaprops. So far, I thought this was the weakest of the Stanley Clements films. At the end, when all the guys were bored listening to Duke's story, I agreed with them.
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 2, 2011 13:04:31 GMT -5
Dick Elliott (whom you may remember as Mayor Pike on the "Andy Griffith Show") took over for the role of Mike, beginning with this film. "Looking for Danger" is a bit of an odd film, but the cast seems pretty comfortable by this point. This was originally supposed to have been the last film in the series, but two more were made because Huntz Hall still had two more films on his contracts for Allied Artists. Next week's film, "Up in Smoke" (not to be confused with the Cheech and Chong film), is one that I haven't seen in awhile, but I don't recall being too thrilled by it. The last film, "In the Money", was a pretty good entry.
In the 1960's, Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall reunited to do a series of films together, but they only did two. The first one, "Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar" (1965) has them in comic relief roles. The film is mostly a showcase for popular country/western music stars of the time, but the few bits Leo and Huntz do are decent. Though it seems somewhat obvious that (at least in their first scene) a script wasn't used. For some reason, Leo insists on shouting most of his dialogue throughout, while Huntz can't seem to stop saying the word "peasant". Possibly the real bonus is the fact that this film has Leo and Huntz in color. Pamela Hayes and the great Arnold Stang are also good in this one.
The next film, "The Phynx" (1970) was also in color. Leo and Huntz show up towards the end of the film, along with several other B-movie celebrities. The film itself was rather stupid, with the ending involving the celebrities being one of the few highlights. This would be Leo Gorcey's last film. He passed away before its release.
There were also plans for an animated Bowery Boys series.
|
|
|
Post by rascaLee on Apr 3, 2011 15:21:37 GMT -5
Thier scene from "Steel Guitar" is on You Tube:
|
|
|
Post by ymymeatemup on Apr 3, 2011 21:43:16 GMT -5
I rented "Million Dollar Kid" the other day, and found that I didn't know each member of the 'gang.' I'm familiar with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict and Buddy Gorman. I'm also assuming that Al Stone is the guy that keep calling 'Herbie,' since that's how he's credited. I'm also assuming that Dave Durand is the guy that's once addressed as 'Danny' (as per the credits) and also called 'Dave' a couple of times by Gorcey. That leaves two more members, Jimmy Strand, and presumably the uncredited Bobby Stone. Can anybody tell me which is which?
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 4, 2011 8:51:27 GMT -5
I rented "Million Dollar Kid" the other day, and found that I didn't know each member of the 'gang.' I'm familiar with Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict and Buddy Gorman. I'm also assuming that Al Stone is the guy that keep calling 'Herbie,' since that's how he's credited. I'm also assuming that Dave Durand is the guy that's once addressed as 'Danny' (as per the credits) and also called 'Dave' a couple of times by Gorcey. That leaves two more members, Jimmy Strand, and presumably the uncredited Bobby Stone. Can anybody tell me which is which? Bobby Stone is the guy with the sailor hat, addressed as 'Rocky'. Jimmy Strand is the 'other guy', addressed as 'Slug' Both are addressed by Gorcey when he's introducing the gang to the rich daughter. Johnny Duncan (the rich kid in this film) also did a few other ESK films. For anybody who has seen "Million Dollar Kid" (or any of the latter day ESK films), did you ever notice that Buddy Gorman and Jimmy Strand are always in the background doing something. They were pretty good with facial reactions. And did anybody catch Lou Costello's brother Pat as Gabe Dell's sidekick?
|
|
|
Post by ymymeatemup on Apr 4, 2011 19:58:01 GMT -5
Were Bobby and Al Stone related?
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 4, 2011 20:11:45 GMT -5
Were Bobby and Al Stone related? I always wondered about this too. From every source I was able to find on the Bowery Boys, there never seems to be any indication that they were related. Here's an article on Bobby: www.desmoinesregister.com/article/99999999/FAMOUSIOWANS/606180367/Stone-BobbyBobby was apparently good freinds with both Gabe Dell and Ernie Morrison offscreen. From looking at some of the ESK films and looking at the unscripted material that the 'other boys' do in the background, I noticed that Bobby and Ernie seemed to work pretty well together. Al Stone seems to have disappeared. I think he was on "Toast of the Town" once. Nobody seems to have found any information beyond that. It's too bad. He did a good job in keeping up with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall (which I doubt is an easy thing to accomplish). And also of interest, an interview with East Side Kid Eugene Francis. He mentions some of the gang, including Ernie Morrison and Donald Haines. Apparently, he was pretty good friends with Donald. www.filmsofthegoldenage.com/articles/2007/07/17/current_issue/francis.txt
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 9, 2011 13:10:57 GMT -5
I caught "Up in Smoke" today and I have to admit it's much better than I remembered. The plot seems it bit jumbled, but comedy wise it was a pretty decent film.
|
|
|
Post by rascaLee on Apr 10, 2011 11:07:31 GMT -5
I agree. I thought it was good. Next week is the last one, then I guess we'll have to wait another 10 years before TCM airs the Bowery Boys again.
I wish the East Side Kids films would air more often, even though I have several of them on DVD.
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 10, 2011 16:58:28 GMT -5
About 15 East Side Kids films fell into Public Domain and our easily available (though finding good prints of the films is the real challenge). The remaining seven films are still under copyright, but I'm not sure who owns them. From what I've heard, Warner Brothers doesn't own the copyright films, which would explain why (at least to my knowledge) they've never been shown on TCM. I found a place that has all 22 ESK films on DVD, as well as several Little Tough Guys films. If anybody is interested, I can send a link to the website.
|
|
|
Post by rascaLee on Apr 16, 2011 10:49:00 GMT -5
Watched "In The Money" today. I enjoyed it. This was the 2nd film where Duke used malaprops, although only in the one scene at Clancy's Cafe. I noticed Huntz Hall had a lot of scenes without the other Bowery Boys. I wonder if this film doubled as a test for a possibe Huntz Hall solo series?
I have a nice 10 disc box set of the East Side Kids from Alpha Video/Oldies.com. The good news is when I bought it a few years ago, it only cost $14 (I see now the price has doubled). The bad news is the DVDs were made from VHS masters (you occasionally see tape creases), and they only put 1 film per disc (since the films were only about an hour long, they easily could have put 2 films on each disc, maybe squeezed a 3rd film on a couple discs, then the entire East Side Kids series would have been on this set).
I also have about 4 or 5 individual East Side Kids movies (not included on the box set) on DVD from the same company, and "Little Tough Guy" and the three serials. I'd like to get some of the other Universal films on DVD, especially the ones they made with Shemp Howard, which I only have on VHS taped off cable TV back in the 80s.
Perhaps the great lost film I'd love to see is "Junior Army", the only film the Kids made at Columbia, and usually isn't even reviewed in the Dead End Kids books that have been published.
|
|
|
Post by mtw12055 on Apr 16, 2011 11:09:22 GMT -5
"In the Money" is very enjoyable end to the series. Though I noticed that Huntz Hall (while still ad-libbing a great deal) seems to be tiring of it. Some of the publicity photos for this film show Huntz doing a great Keaton impersonation, which just goes to show how tired he was.
The last two BBs movies were made solely because he had two more films left on his contract for Allied Artists. That might explain why Huntz has more solo scenes.
|
|
|
Post by dadat231 on Aug 6, 2011 20:25:18 GMT -5
Just now found this thread. Pretty interesting ideas here too. I am a huge Dead End Kids fan. I'll just throw in a bunch of stuff trying to cover the entire thread: Rascal Sidney Kibrick was in the initial Dead End Kid film, as noted, but he was also in the very last film Keep 'em Slugging. No lines and not much screen time, but he's there in a clubhouse scene.
Sherwood 'Spud' Bailey was with the Kids in Call a Messenger.
Minor Rascal George Billings was in Little Tough Guy.
Frankie Darro showed up in the Kids serial Junior G-Men of the Air.
My thougts on Billy Halop joining the BB after Gorcey left are he would hae never considered it. He tried in vain to escape the DEK tag. Also, I think he would have had to take a back seat to Huntz and don't think he would have gone for that.
I doubt if Bobby Jordan would have been considered. He was a heavy drinker at the time and his youthful look, he was only 33 in 1956, was rapidly slipping away.
I think David Gorcey was a pretty good actor give the chance. Look for him in the Wallace Beery film Sergeant Madden. But I guess he was content to sitin the background.
And, I would agree that Alfalfa would have been a good addition to the gang. I'd never thought of him either.
|
|