Boys of the City (1940)

A Disappointing Continuation

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

En route to a boys camp for the summer, our favorite juvenile delinquents find themselves stranded overnight at a crooked judge's house. There they battle racketeers and the usual old dark house tropes. This is former Dead End Kid (and future leader of the gang) Leo Gorcey's first entry in the East Side Kids series (also the first for his brother David). As such it feels like much more of a proper start to the series than the first film did. Returning from the first one is Dave O'Brien as Knuckles, the reformed gangster acting as the boys' guardian. It's a forgettable movie in every way. At this point Gorcey hadn't yet developed his malapropism-spouting character and he doesn't have Huntz Hall, either, and he was always best with Huntz. Plus the Kids, regardless of which version, did this material better in several other pictures.

The East Side boys like Mugs Malone played by Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan and his pals get to leave the city for a time in the country. They end up at a Gothic, haunted mansion where the housekeeper is my favorite character. She blames somebody for the death of her beloved mistress well the former lady of the house. I love the comment she makes about the cook which is "I liked the cook." The gang try to help a pretty damsel in distress who is caught up with some shady characters including a judge and others. It's the East Side Boys to her rescue and the house in Westchester's Briarcliff Manor. The pretty young lady is an heiress. Anyway, the East Side Boys was to escape during the 1940s time period when the country was coming off of the Great Depression and going into World War II. This film isn't great but it's entertaining even now.

Cheap sets. B-list performers and some typical-for-the-era (but nonetheless annoying) racial stereotypes fail to distinguish this tale of embezzlement and murder set at a creepy country mansion. Leo Gorcey and the gang provide the comic relief, which -- except for the cigar scene -- is not particularly funny. Unless, that is, you get a kick out of things like watching Ernest "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison get pop-eyed over graveyards and spooks, or listening to him extol the virtues of a big slice of watermelon.Though Minerva Urecal did a fairly good job as a sort of cut-rate Mrs. Danvers, I'd only recommend this one to rabid Gorcey fans and B-movie antiquarians.

The beginning of this film is VERY similar to "Spooks Run Wild" (another Bowery Boys film); the boys keep getting into trouble in the city and are sent "into the country". They wind up in a "haunted house", containing secret panels, ghosts & a MURDERER!This film is unique in that it was probably Minerva Urecal's biggest role.....she's wonderfully "creepy" in many of the scenes (and, in the very end of the film, she actually SMILES for the only time on camera!).A seldom-seen film that is unknown, even by many Bowery Boys fans......see it if you have the chance!Norm