Movie Review: Boys of the City (1940) directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Summer, 1940. New York City is in the middle of a scorching heatwave. “Knuckles” Dolan (Dave O’Brien) is worried about his kid brother Danny Dolan (Bobby Jordan) and his gang of underprivileged youths. It’s been too hot for them to exercise and blow off steam in the gym, so they might be getting in trouble. Sure enough, the boys, including especially tough-acting Muggs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey), black kid Scruno (Ernest Morrison) and token well-off boy Algy Wilkes (Eugene Francis), take it into their heads to tamper with a fire hydrant to get a cool water experience for a few minutes. They don’t mean any harm, but damage a grocer’s pushcart and get into a loud altercation which lands the boys down at the police station.
Algy’s father talks the police chief into not pressing charges on the promise that he’ll send the boys out of town for a few days to his country house where they can camp. Knuckles will go along as the chaperone. The young city rascals are not so sure about being out in the “wilderness” but between that and jail, they acquiesce.
Meanwhile, Judge Malcolm Parker (Forrest Taylor) has been indicted for taking bribes, and is due to testify in a few days. The gangsters he’s been accepting money from would really rather he didn’t and have already tried to kill him once. The crooked judge decides to decamp to his country manor for a little while, taking along his secretary Giles (Dennis Moore), bodyguard Simp (Vince Barnett) and lovely young ward Louise Mason (Inna Gest).
The judge’s roadster has a minor collision with the station wagon carrying the boys, damaging both vehicles. About half a mile later, the roadster conks out from a faulty fuel line and the engine is destroyed by a time bomb. (A small one, but if the car had been moving at the time…) The judge’s party is forced to hitch a ride with the station wagon, which itself gives up the ghost just as it reaches the judge’s manor.
The manor turns out to be a spooky old place that was originally in Judge Parker’s wife’s family for generations–most of them being buried in the adjacent graveyard, including the wife herself, lost Leonore. Currently it’s inhabited only by creepy-acting housekeeper Agnes (Minerva Urecal) and a silent cook (Jerry Mandy). Initially the judge is going to send the boys the additional 25 miles to their destination on foot, but quickly reconsiders. A lot more people in the house will confuse and possibly frighten off any mob hitmen.
It’s not going to be that simple. Agnes blames the judge for Leonora’s death of loneliness (she intimates Judge Parker was “cruel” and that he likes “younger women.”) Judge Parker has been slowly embezzling Louise’s fortune, and if the judge were out of the way, then Giles will be her guardian and have access to that money. Also, Parker was the judge who sentenced Knuckles to death for a crime he did not commit (Knuckles was saved at the last moment and pardoned.) The judge doesn’t recognize Knuckles at first, but it sure is an interesting coincidence. Oh, and there’s a mysterious man (Stephen Chase) lurking about who may have something to do with events.
This movie was a sequel to East Side Kids (1940) and made the East Side Kids (later the Bowery Boys) into a series. Most of the continuing characters were recast, and it would be a couple more reshuffles before the classic Bowery Boys lineup was established.
The thriller plotline and comedic antics are rather clumsily meshed together, and the boys’ characters are still rough sketches of who they would become in later movies. This is especially painful with Scruno, who is written down to negative stereotypes of black people being cowardly, superstitious, servile and loving that watermelon. Oy.
The best acting job is put in by Ms. Urecal as the spooky, vengeful housekeeper, but Taylor and Moore do a good job of being slimy bastards who no longer trust each other or anyone else.
Content note: Murder (shown in shadow), a little non-lethal gunplay, a couple of people are knocked out by blows to the head. The boys steal the judge’s cigars and smoke them–only Muggs doesn’t get sick from this. Racist depiction of the black kid, some period sexist language.
This movie is in the public domain, unlike some others from the same series, so is easy to find. It’s just a hair over an hour long, so an okay choice for a double feature.
