Customer Reviews

East Side Kids - Let's Get Tough!

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This edition of Alpha videos Lets get Tough is an abomination. Save your money until some other company decides to do it right.Unviewable.

After the Dead End Kids and before the Bowery Boys, there were the East Side Kids: Leo "Muggs" Gorcey, Huntz "Glimpy" Hall, and Bobby "Danny" Jordan-along with Ernie "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison as "Scruno," the token black member of the gang-starred in a series of rough-and-tumble action-comedies set in New York's Lower East Side (but actually shot at the lowly Monogram Pictures studio in Hollywood) that combined the dramatics of the Dead End films with the knockabout slapstick of the Bowery epics. These cheaply produced, quickly made films (in which much of the dialogue was improvised) proved popular with moviegoers and were run repeatedly on local TV stations for years.

If nothing else, the East Side Kids movies were a product of their era, which is why, in these Politically Correct times, you're not likely to see LET'S GET TOUGH! (1942) turn up on television anytime soon. In this flag-waving World War II entry, the East Side Kids tangle with a Japanese spy ring that has ties to Nazi infiltrators. As you might expect, the racial epithets fly fast and free, though perhaps no moreso than any other patriotic war-themed production of the '40s.

This Alpha Video edition is typical of many of the East Side Kids movies available on DVD: transferred from a used 16mm print (splices, scratches), with scenes edited out (for TV?). There's no "Digital Restoration" going on here.

The East Side Kids movies are, at best, a pleasant diversion, though they were never as funny as the later Bowery Boys efforts. LET'S GET TOUGH! is not one of the better ESK entries; fans of this team will want to see it, but it's of little interest to anyone else.

While the film used to make this DVD has lines and splices, it is sharp and clear. When you see the story content you will understand why.
Made during WWII, the boys talk about killing Japanese. This film was pulled from Television syndication a while back, so the only original prints around are a bit old.

In comparison, try to find a copy of the 3 STOOGES anti-Japanese film "THE YOKES ON ME". Japanese owned Columbia will not release that through their Sony DVD division.

Take this film in its historic context and watch a rare piece of 1940's B-Hollywood influenced by the war.

The premise here: the East Side Kids vs. Axis spies is pretty cool. I'd have loved to have seen it well executed. Unfortunately that doesn't happen here.

I cut the East Side Kid movies a lot of slack where production values and plot coherence are concerned because I usually find them very entertaining anyway. For me, the best part of these movies is the humorous interaction between the characters and sometimes the goofy, even improbable storylines. This movie though, is not funny, and it's only marginally entertaining at best. Most of the humor either feels forced or plain just doesn't work.

So what's good about this one? I do like that when the boys realized the error of their ways they didn't just apologize but took action to make up for their mistake. In that sense this movie shows some of the heart for which the series is known. Robert Armstrong is good in his tiny role and Florence Rice has a great smile. Overall, while it did have a little heart, it lacked fun and seemed too forced or rushed.

Would you believe it? The East Side Kids (Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, David Gorcey, Bobby Stone) want to join the U.S. Army, but they have to be 21 years of age. (In real life, they all were over 21 except for Bobby Jordan and Bobby Stone who were almost). Not even the whiskers worked. So they went to the U.S. Marines. The muscles didn't work. Too young. So they go to the U.S. Navy. Smoking cigars didn't work. The japenese small business owners don't really care for the East Side Kids because thay are trouble makers. They like to throw eggs at store front businesses. Phil Ahn (Kung Fu tv series 1972-75 as "Master Po") plays the bad guy, Joe. While they go to Miss Keno to apologize to her for the damages they made, they see Joe make an exchange with Miss Keno. Later at the hide-out, Huntz Hall had taken a pen as a "souvenir". The pen won't work, but he finds a mysterious note inside. Leo does a trick he learned from correspondence college. They discover a secret message. They go to Matsui's Tea Shop to interpret the message. mat sui tries tio take it, but Leo says "no stealing". Matsui then releases a small dagger and kills himself. The boys run to Policeman Pop (Robert Armstrong) to tell him. They all go back to Matsui's Tea Shop. The old man is alive, or is he? Policeman Pop is angry at the boys. The boys go back to Matsui's. The old man is gone now. Huntz steals a bag of tea. Outside, the boys discover in the bag, it is not tea, it is not sugar, it's magnesium. Can the boys uncover this spy ring and catch the crook, Joe? Gabriel Dell appears in this one. The next film in the series: SMART ALECKS (1942).

I grew up in the 1940s and remember the Bowrey Boys very well. Nostalgia, nostalgia. Sat through this again and enjoyed the Bowrey Boys much as I did back then. Really enjoyed it.

This is a great little film, but Alpha's print is just miserable to watch. More splices than you can count.

The kids all want to enlist; they're bitten by the war bug. However, they're all too young, so they do their part by harassing a local Asian who owns a store. It turns out, he isn't even Japanese; he's Chinese, and he is murdered in his store. The kids feel so bad, they take it upon themselves to find his killer, and run into an underground ring of Japanese spies.

The picture quality on this film isn't great, and neither is the sound quality. After all, these films were made by a very low level company.

Normally Leo Gorcey stands out, but Huntz Hall really steals the show. His kleptomania and great zingers really liven up the film. He certainly doesn't get the credit he deserves as a comedian.

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