Boys Of The City

Boys Of The City
1940 - Monogram
Directed By Joseph H. Lewis

SYNOPSIS

An excruciatingly hot day leads the East Side Kids to open a fire hydrant. Soon after assualting a street vendor and a cop, Muggs (Leo Gorcey,) Danny (Bobby Jordan) and the crew are sent to a judge's home in upstate New York to rehabilitate themselves. But that home is run by a very creepy woman (Minerval Urecal) ane the place may be haunted!



MY THOUGHTS

Despite the obvious shortcomings of the East Side Kids films, they remain entertaining nearly 70 years later.

This is the second film in the series and the first to deal with a haunted house scenario.
(Their third film "That Gang of Mine" is reviewed here)
This film suffers from the same problem as the subsequent one. A so-so script, the barest minimum of shooting time (about 6 days) and a budget that appears to be less than 25 bucks. But despite those hardships, the filmmakers are able to pull it off.

This is due mostly to the Kids performances. Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan continue what they started as Dead End Kids and build upon it. They are sly-er and funnier in their first appearance in the series, than in their previous adventures with the Dead End Kids.
Sammy Morrison also makes his first appearance and has a few good one-liners but not nearly as funny as later ones in the series.
Minerval Ureucal's role is reminiscent of Judith Anderson's in Hitchcock's 'Rebecca' (released the same year) and is just as creepy, though with a more comical bent.

It's great to see the East Side Kids escape the backlots of Monogram/MGM/Warner Bros./Columbia where they usually shot and go on location in the country. It adds a freshness that the series would miss later on.

In one of the funnier scenes the Kids smoke cigars for the first time. Even though the film is black and white, you can basically see them all turning green and ready to vomit from the experience, and many do run for the door.

One of the better lines: while trying to solve the mystery, Muggs asks Danny "What does the Thin Man got that I ain't got?" "Myrna Loy," Danny answers.

"Don't jump to confusions" is the first of dozens of malapropisms uttered in the series and would later be a staple of the Bowery Boys, though Jordan speaks this one instead of Gorcey, who would be king of them later.

The hi-jinks in the 'haunted house' help to make the film one of the East Side Kids' most entertaining films in the whole 22-film series.