Gorcey, Dell, Jordan, Punsley, Halop, Hall
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After their success in the Broadway play of the same name, The Dead End Kids sprang upon an unsuspecting movie-going public in Samuel Goldwyn's 1937 film Dead End, a crime drama featuring Humphrey Bogart.
The success of this film led Warner Brothers to sign the Kids and feature them in six films which starred such screen luminaries as Ronald Reagan, Pat O'Brien, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield and Claude Raines. The films were the typical Warner fare of serious social/crime dramas with the Kids heavily involved in the plot and also lending some comedy relief. The quality of the films declined until Warner's threw in the towel and the Kids were reborn as the East Side Kids at the king of the poverty row studios, Monogram. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Billy Halop and Bernard Punsley played the Kids. Despite the fact that they played the same basic roles in every picture, their characters were given different names in many of the films, although Billy Halop was always the leader and featured "Kid" in these movies. Generally, these films are the best made of any of the four series. Dead End and Angels With Dirty Faces are considered classics of the genre. They Made Me A Criminal is notable for it's strong performance by future superstar, John Garfield. (Garfield would team up with Halop & Jordan in Warner's 1939 Dust Be My Destiny.) The last two Warner's films are pretty bad though.
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Dead End - August 1937 - United Artists | The story of one day in a slum area of New York. Noted gangster Baby Face Martin, who grew up in the neighborhood, decides to come home to visit his mother and the girl he left behind when he was sentenced to reform school. While he is there he hooks up with Dave Connell, a former friend who is now a struggling architect. At first Connell is a little disturbed that "Marty" is back in the neighborhood, but he goes along with him. When Marty sees his mother, she rejects him because of what he has become. He later sees his girl Francie, who is now a prostitute in the throes of syphilis. All this turns drives Marty to the edge, which leads to the plot to kidnap the nephew of a prominent judge. When Dave finds out about this, he decides to take matters in his own hands and try to stop Martin's plot. Crime School - May 1938 - Warner Brothers Angels With Dirty Faces - November 1938 - Warner Brothers They Made Me A Criminal - January 1939 - Warner Brothers Hell's Kitchen - July 1939 - Warner Brothers The Angels Wash Their Faces - August 1939 - Warner Brothers On Dress Parade - November 1939 - Warner Brothers | ||||
At the same time that Warner's was cranking out the Dead End Kids series and Monogram doing the same with the East Side Kids, Universal Studios signed four of the Kids (Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell and Bernard Punsley) and released a series of mostly bad (OK OK just plain awful!) "B" movies and three 12-part serials. Leo Gorcey's brother, David, was featured in several of these unmemorable films.
| Generally, the boys retained the same names throughout the series (except the serials). Billy Halop was first Johnny, then Jimmy before becoming Tommy for the duration. Huntz Hall played Pig, Bernard Punsley played Ape, Gabriel Dell played String. Not all the characters appeared in all the pictures. Dead End Kid Bobby Jordan played Rap in 2 of the films and became Tommy(!) in the last entry in the series. The first film, Little Tough Guy, bad as it may be, is the best of the lot. It's a social/crime drama in the Warner Brothers style. After this the quality of the films falls right off the chart. I can recommend this series only to die-hard fans of the Boys. Note: In the three films after Little Tough Guy the kids were billed as "Little Tough Guys" and did not feature any of the Dead End Kids. After the Dead Enders re-joined, the kids were billed as "Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys".
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Little Tough Guy - July 1938 | The son of a man sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit vows to become a criminal himself. He starts his own street gang, and their crime spree is financed by a mysterious young man--who turns out to be the son of the District Attorney who sent the boy's father to the electric chair.
Little Tough Guys in Society - November 1938
Newsboys' Home - December 1938
Code of the Streets - April 1939
Call A Messenger - November 1939
You're Not So Tough - July 1940
Junior G-Men - August 1940
Give Us Wings - December 1940
Hit The Road - June 1941
Sea Raiders - August 1941
Mob Town - October 1941
Junior G-Men Of The Air - June 1942
Tough As They Come - June 1942
Mug Town - January 1943
Keep 'Em Slugging - August 1943 | ||||
Hall, Robert Armstrong, David & Leo Gorcey, Jordan, Stone, Morrison
This series of films by Monogram featured the boys first in crime melodramas with comedic overtones then in comedies with some serious (usually criminal) overtones.
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The plots almost always cast the Boys as lower class street urchins in conflict with the criminal element that surrounded them. Occasionally the criminal element was replaced by Nazi or Japanese fifth columnists. Billy Halop was gone by this time and Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan took over as leaders and featured "Kids". As the series progressed, the comedy duo of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall became the focus of the films.
Dave O'Brien (featured in dozens of "B" movies & shorts and star of Reefer Madness) appears in several films. Other actors cast as East Side Kids include Bennie Bartlett, Harris Berger, Frankie Burke, Hally Chester, Stanley Clements, Johnny Duncan, Dave Durand, Eugen Francis, Buddy Gorman, Mende Koenig and Jimmy Strand The production values of many of these films are low, even by Monogram standards, although they seemed to get better as the series progressed. A couple of the early films are so bad as to be virtually unwatchable, even by die-hard fans.
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East Side Kids - February 1940The kids try to find the real culprit when the brother of one of the boys is framed for murder. None of the original "Dead End Kids" appear in this film and it is not considered canonical by many fans. Boys Of The City - July 1940 That Gang Of Mine - September 1940 Pride Of The Bowery - January 1941 Flying Wild - March 1941 Bowery Blitzkrieg - September 1941 Spooks Run Wild - October 1941 Mr. Wise Guy - February 1942 Let's Get Tough - May 1942 Smart Alecks - August 1942 'Neath Brooklyn Bridge - November 1942 Kid Dynamite - February 1943 Mr. Muggs Steps Out - October 1943 Ghosts On The Loose - July 1943 Clancy Street Boys - April 1943 Million Dollar Kid - February 1944 Follow The Leader - June 1944 Block Busters - July 1944 Bowery Champs - November 1944 Docks Of New York - February 1945 Mr. Muggs Rides Again - July 1945 Come Out Fighting - September 1945 | ||||
Huntz Hall, Billy Benedict, Leo Gorcey, David Gorcey, Bobby Jordan
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This series of comedies found the Boys in a variety of situations, always with the underrated (and critically unappreciated) comedy duo of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall as the focus. The earlier films (1946-1950) had an overtone of gangster melodrama, while the later films were pure slapstick.
Leo Gorcey began to drink heavily after the death of his father, Bernard Gorcey, in late 1955. In fact, he appears to be intoxicated in his final film, Crashing Las Vegas. The producers of the series replaced Gorcey with former East Side Kid, Stanley Clements, for the last seven films. The chemistry that worked so well between Gorcey and Hall never materialized with Clements and this, along with the fact that the "Boys" were now well into their 30's and the lack of demand for programmer type films such as these due to TV, proved to be the death knell of the series. Making steady appearances in this series were:
The production values of these films are far higher than any of the Little Tough Guys and East Side Kids. Most fans agree that the Bowery Boys series is the best of these three.
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Live Wires - January 1946 64 minutes | Slip and Sach are process servers and meet up with the giant gangster Patsy Clark. Bernard Gorcey appears briefly as a small time bookie. In Fast Company - June 1946 65 minutes Bowery Bombshell - July 20 1946 65 minutes Spook Busters - Aug. 1946 68 minutes Mr. Hex - November 1946 63 minutes Hard Boiled Mahoney - April 1947 63 minutes News Hounds - Aug. 1947 68 minutes Bowery Buckaroos - November 1947 66 minutes Angels' Alley - March 1948 67 minutes Jinx Money - June 1948 68 minutes Smugglers' Cove - October 1948 66 minutes Trouble Makers - December 1948 69 minutes Fighting Fools - April 1949 69 minutes Hold That Baby! - June 1949 64 minutes Angels In Disguise - September 1949 63 minutes Master Minds - November 1949 64 minutes Blonde Dynamite - February 1950 66 minutes Lucky Losers - May 14 1950 69 minutes Triple Trouble - Aug. 1950 66 minutes Blues Busters - October 1950 67 minutes Bowery Battalion - January 1951 69 minutes Ghost Chasers - April 1951 69 minutes Let's Go Navy! - July 1951 68 minutes Crazy Over Horses - November 1951 65 minutes Hold That Line - March 1952 - 64 minutes Here Comes The Marines - June 1952 66 minutes Feudin' Fools - September 1952 63 minutes No Holds Barred - November 1952 65 minutes Jalopy - February 1953 62 minutes Loose In London - May 1953 62 minutes Clipped Wings - Aug. 1953 65 minutes Private Eyes - December 1953 64 minutes Paris Playboys - March 1954 65 minutes The Bowery Boys Meet The Monsters - June 1954 65 minutes Jungle Gents - September 1954 64 minutes Bowery To Bagdad - January 1955 64 minutes High Society - April 1955 61 minutes Spy Chasers - July 1955 61 minutes Jail Busters - September 1955 61 minutes Dig That Uranium - January 1956 62 minutes Crashing Las Vegas - April 1956 62 minutes Fighting Trouble - September 1956 61 minutes Hot Shots - December 1956 61 minutes Hold That Hypnotist - February 1957 61 minutes Spook Chasers - June 1957 62 minutes Looking For Danger - October 1957 62 minutes Up In Smoke - December 1957 - 61 minutes In The Money - February 1958 - 61 minutes | ||||
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