'Ghosts On The Loose' (1943)

William Boudine was once an a-list director, but as time and movies went by he became known as One take, good enough, next scene

This is a darn silly one, but I rather enjoy it. I always like the gag about the the wedding wreath.

Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall were a big part of my childhood drive-in theater movie going. The Dead End Kids, from the initial 1937 film called “Dead End” (duh) , made a series of seven “A” pictures for Warner. Perhaps the best remembered are #3 Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), which featured an iconic performance by James Cagney and #4, the loose “Les Misérables” adaptation, They Made Me a Criminal (1939). Their last for Warner was The Dead End Kids On Dress Parade (1939).

In 1940, producer Sam Katzman (he of the “Katzman Quickie”), always ready to exploit a trend, put together a Dead End style series. He brought in Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan from the original Dead End movie for Boys of the City (1940), the first of a picture series for Monogram – re-branded “The East Side Kids.” Leo Gorcey played “Muggs McGinnis,” Bobby Jordan was "Danny." They were soon joined by Huntz Hall as "Glimpy."

In 1945, Gorcey quit the series, formed his own production company and with Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Billy Benedict and brother David Gorcey (and occasionally Gabe Dell), they again rebranded themselves, this time as The Bowery Boys.

I hadn't seen an East Side Kids film for decades when I sat down to watch GOTL. In my memory, East Side Kids were more serious - had more melodrama - than the later Bowery Boys. Yet, GOTL was pure Bowery Boys all the way through. Except for the fact that Gorcey and Hall were named Muggs and Glimpy instead of Slip and Sach (Sach's full name was Horace Debussy Jones), no one would be able to tell the difference. Glimpy’s sister, Betty, is getting married and Glimpy is to be Best Man. Betty is played by the totally unknown starlet Ava Gardner (if the IMDb is correct, this was her first movie in which she got an on-screen credit). The happy couple have bought a house in the country sight-unseen but the house next door is reputed to be haunted and some people are trying to discourage the newlyweds from locating there. Turns out there are no ghosts but Nazi spies printing up subversive literature. The Kids, of course, bumble right into the middle of it all. Bela Lugosi plays the Nazi villain without a single trace of humor - probably hammered during the whole shoot. He is given very limited screen time. It just shows how far he had fallen by that time (although he still appeared in one great film after that - The Body Snatcher (1945), directed by Robert Wise). This can probably only be recommended to East Side Kids/Bowery Boys completests, but there are still plenty out there who are tickled by the Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall antics. I’m one of them.

I have always been a huge fan of the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys. I think they are a remarkable Hollywood story. I think their early drama were powerful and very well acted and had a unique mix of drama and comic relief. I also think some of their comedy from later years is truly classic and belongs along side Abbott and Costello and the 3 Stooges.

Leo Gorcey's mangling of the English language alone was a side-splitting work of art.

I was lucky enough to be able to watch their movies over and over every Sunday while growing up on one of the local New York stations. It is too bad that today so many people have never even heard of them.