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East Side Kids: Clancy Street Boys

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If you grew up watching the East Side Kids/Bowery Boys, you'll love this film. Muggs and the gang are always at their hysterical best. It's just as much fun to watch them now at age 51 than when I was 10. This is a keeper!

The East Side Kids series took a definite turn for the better when director William Beaudine joined it in 1943. CLANCY STREET BOYS is Beaudine's first, and also the first East Side escapade to be played strictly for laughs. To impress his father's old friend from Texas, Leo Gorcey has to pass off his rowdy pals as his siblings (including Huntz Hall in lipstick as sister "Annabelle," and African-American Ernie Morrison as a stepbrother!). Noah Beery and Lita Ward (the future Mrs. Gorcey) are enjoyable as Gorcey's fresh-from-Texas visitors, and Rick Vallin is personable as the heavy. (Vallin became one of producer Sam Katzman's favorite actors.) This was filmed on Katzman's usual how-low-can-we-go budget, which results in frequent ad libs and a relaxed atmosphere. An hour of fun for comedy fans, and series fans will really enjoy it. The print was frequently cut and recut by TV stations, so there are splices at scene changes. Except for a few momentary digital glitches, the image is surprisingly sharp and clear.

During the course of the second manifestation for Leo Gorcey's mini-mob players, the East Side Kids, who followed the Dead End Kids, while preceding the Bowery Boys, producer Sam Katzman hired veteran director William Beaudine for the East Side series due to his established success at leading movie youngsters and this quite effective Monogram release is the initial effort with Beaudine at the helm. The mother of young Muggs McGinnis (Gorcey) shares with him a letter received from his late father's close friend, "Uncle" Pete, a wealthy Texan, in which he Pete tells of an impending visit by him and his daughter Judy to the McGinnis home in New York where the rancher expects to meet for the first time the five brothers and the sister Annabelle of Muggs, non-existent siblings invented by the widow McGinnis in order to receive Pete's financial support over many years. Muggs conscripts his East Side roustabout cohorts as his family, with Glimpy (Huntz Hall) dressed as Annabelle, and when Uncle Pete and Judy arrive in New York, confused jollity ensues, until a local thug plots to expose the impersonation as a means of obtaining some of Pete's wealth for himself. The film, produced with a virtually non-existent budget, has a virtually non-existent script, as well, with ad libbing contributed by most of the cast, notably Gorcey with his rather fascinating employment of malapropisms, all of which is very compatible to Beaudine's loose-reined directoral mode. His relaxed methods must also take responsibility for some ragged performing, and there is need for more efficient editing, but this comedic affair eschews the wonted wartime jingoism that marks the series, and Hall is enormously and unexpectedly hilarious in his gender bending role, joining the other members of the cast in patent enjoyment of playing in this entry. The DVD version offers no special features.

Clancy Street Boys

The film shows the title and credits on a wash line. Next a view of housing with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background. The boys are looking for Muggs. The Clancy Street gang is in the boys' neighborhood. Officer Flanagan restores order, he too is looking for Muggs. Muggs has turned eighteen. The Clancy Street gang visits. Muggs received a $50 check from his Uncle Pete who believes Muggs is one of seven children. Uncle Pete and his daughter ride their horses down the street. Pete carries arms, daughter Judy is with him. How can they explain the other children? Who took their saddles? Muggs and the boys recover the saddles and take them to Uncle Pete at the hotel. And the jokes of impersonation roll on. "That's a good one!"

Judy and Annabelle go shopping for clothes. Uncle Pete buys clothes. [No rationing?] "Adios, muchachos." Muggs "is a chip off the old blockhead". They visit a night club. They can't serve liquor when minors are present. Does someone plan a scam? George Mooney meets the Monahans and spills the beans. The parents of the other kids meet Mrs. McGinnis to complain. Pete learns the truth and leaves. He doesn't return home. His daughter Judy dresses to leave, a six-gun in her purse. [Five cents for a telephone call.] Danny sends a message. The boys get reinforcements, they overpower the crooks as Officer Flanagan arrives. The last scene finds the boys at a ranch for the last laugh. "I reckon he bust his britches."

This follows the form of the other stories in this series. Those who visit a big city need to beware of the crooks who prey on strangers.

Clancy Street Boys has a tried but true storyline in a b-picture format. Muggs (Leo Gorcey) is having a birthday, and just like every year, his rich uncle (Noah Beery) sends him money through the mail. In the card is an announcemnt; Uncle is coming to New York with his daughter (Amelita Ward) to visit. Muggs' mother (Martha Wentworth) becomes distressed. It seems that her husband has been scamming Muggs' uncle for years, telling him that there are seven children, not one, for the extra birthday cash. In order to protect his father's honor, Muggs rounds up the gang to play the parts, including Glimpy (Huntz Hall) as his little sister Annabelle.

The story is very funny and well done. The gang's slang really makes for some great jokes, and as always Gorcey and Hall shine. Gorcey is able to bring plenty of laughs by being completely serious, and Hall's goofyness is inevitably funny.