East Side Kids

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The East Side Kids were a group of actors who made a series of films and serials released by Monogram Pictures from 1940 through 1945. Many of them were originally part of 'The Dead End Kids' and 'The Little Tough Guys', and several of them later became members of The Bowery Boys.

Contents

[edit] History

Main article: Dead End Kids

'The Dead End Kids' originally appeared in the 1935 play, Dead End. When Samuel Goldwyn turned the play into a 1937 film, he recruited the original kids (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, Billy Halop, and Bernard Punsly) from the play to appear in the same roles in the film. This lead to the making of six other films under the moniker, 'The Dead End Kids'. The most successful of these features were Angels With Dirty Faces (1938) with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, and They Made Me A Criminal (1939), starring John Garfield.

[edit] Little Tough Guys

Main article: Little Tough Guys

In 1938, shortly after they made their first film at Warner Brothers, Universal borrowed all of the 'Dead End Kids' except for Bobby Jordan and Leo Gorcey and made twelve films and three 12-chapter serials under the team names of 'The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys' and 'Little Tough Guys'. In addition, Universal contracted Leo's brother David and Hally Chester to become part of the team. When Universal dropped Jordan from his contract, Warner Brothers quickly signed him to join the rest of gang.

Due to the fact that the original 'Dead End Kids' were now working for several studios, these films were made at roughly the same time as the Warner Brothers' 'Dead End Kids' series, and later, Monogram Picture's 'The East Side Kids' series. The final film in this series, Keep 'Em Slugging, was released in 1943.

[edit] The East Side Kids

The East Side Kids began life in 1940 when Sam Katzman made the film East Side Kids using two of the 'Little Tough Guys', Hally Chester and Harris Berger. He added David Durrand, Donald Haines, and Frankie Burke to round out the new team.

Despite its misleading title, East Side Kids does not contain the actors generally associated with 'The East Side Kids' series (Gorcey, Hall, Jordan, et al.). The only related cast members in this film are Dave O'Brien and Hally Chester. However, it is often lumped in with the subsequent series of 21 films, making the total appear to be 22. The first true film in 'The East Side Kids' series is Boys of the City.

When the 'Dead End Kids' series of films ended, Katzman took the opportunity to hire Leo Gorcey and Bobby Jordan and add them to the 'East Side Kids' team. Gorcey's brother David, who made a few appearances in the 'Little Tough Guys' series was also added, as well as 'Sunshine' Sammy Morrison as "Scruno", the only African-American in the group and one of the original members of the Our Gang comedy team.

In the first few films, Dave O'Brien (best known as the crazed dope fiend in the cult classic Reefer Madness) played Jordan's older brother Knuckles Dolan, who always seemed to be getting roped into chaperoning the kids from adventure to adventure. O'Brien appeared in different roles as well—continuity between films was often ignored. As with the 'Little Tough Guys', the membership roster of the team changed from film to film, until Huntz Hall joined in 1941, when the lineup was somewhat stabilized. In total, twenty individuals were a member of the team at one time or another.

Always the outsider, Gabriel Dell drifted in and out of the series as a gang-member, a reporter, or a small-time hoodlum (as in Million Dollar Kid). In Smart Alecks he's an ex-member who left the gang to pursue a life of crime. Stanley Clements also appeared in Smart Alecks as well as 'Neath Brooklyn Bridge and Ghosts on the Loose. After Gorcey left the subsequent "Bowery Boys" series in 1956, Clements was chosen to replace him in the last seven films.

Monogram (which later became Allied Artists) was notorious for its "Poverty Row" productions, and the East Side films were no exception. With a miniscule budget of around $33,000 per feature and a tight shooting schedule of only 5-7 days, the series churned out 3 to 4 movies a year (an astonishing 21 films in less than 6 years). There was no time or money for subtlety, story development, or more than one or two takes per scene. Many of these films, and the later "Bowery Boys" series, were directed by the ultra-frugal William "one-shot" Beaudine.[1]

The stories always centered around the tough, pugnacious "Muggs McGinnis" (Gorcey) or the more innocent, clean-cut "Danny" (Bobby Jordan). Huntz Hall's "Glimpy" began as a minor character who grew in prominence as he was allowed to do more comedy bits over the course of the series. The loose format proved flexible enough to shift back and forth between urban drama (That Gang of Mine), murder mystery (Boys of The City), boxing melodrama (Bowery Blitzkrieg), and horror-comedy (Spooks Run Wild), with the kids confronting various stock villains: gangsters, smugglers, spies, and crooked gamblers, along the way.

The contemporaneous events of World War II had an impact on the series as well as the cast. In 1943 Bela Lugosi (who was in Spooks Run Wild) returned as a Nazi saboteur in the incongruously-titled Ghosts on the Loose; a German-Japanese spy ring was thwarted in the blatantly patriotic Let's Get Tough! from 1942 (with Gabriel Dell, of all people, as a Nazi spy). At the end of the film the boys enlist and show off their uniforms. In Follow The Leader (1944), Muggs and Glimpy appear in uniform as they are on leave from the Army. Offscreen between 1942 and 1944 cast members Benedict, Morrison, Jordan, Dell, and David Gorcey left the series after being drafted. A few days after receiving his induction notice, Leo Gorcey suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident and spent almost a year in recovery. His injuries led to a 4-F classification rendering him unfit for military service.

Starting with Clancy Street Boys in 1943, Bernard Gorcey (Leo's father) did various bit-parts playing different characters in a total of seven films. In Million Dollar Kid he and Leo exchanged banter borrowed from an Abbott and Costello routine. He turned up again as a bookmaker in the first Bowery Boys movie, Live Wires (1946), before being permanently installed as "Louie", owner of the gang's hangout, Louie's Sweet Shop, and quasi father-figure for the boys.

Given the low budget, simplistic stories, and crude, assembly-line production of the series, its enduring popularity relies on the cast's rambunctious energy, breezy banter (often ad-libbed and containing inside jokes), fast-paced action, and Leo Gorcey's trademark malapropisms ("This calls for drastic measurements").

[edit] Trivia

  • Gorcey married two of his East Side Kids co-stars: Kay Marvis (1939) and Amelita Ward (1949).
  • A young Ava Gardner appears in Ghosts On The Loose.
  • Two flubs from Ghosts On The Loose: In the opening scene, Muggs drops pages of sheet-music on the floor and walks away; an instant later the papers magically reappear in his hand. Bela Lugosi shouts a four-letter expletive during a sneeze-take. Intended as a throwaway gag, no one noticed and it remained in the film.
  • Actor/comedian Morey Amsterdam, best known as "Buddy Sorrell" on The Dick Van Dyke Show, contributed to the scripts for Kid Dynamite and Bowery Champs.

[edit] The Bowery Boys

Main article: The Bowery Boys

In 1946, with only Mongoram making films using any of the original 'Dead End Kids', Leo Gorcey along with his agent, Jan Grippo, and Hall revamped 'The East Side Kids' and rechristened them as 'The Bowery Boys'. These films followed a more established formula than the prior incarnations of the team. Gorcey left after the forty-first film and was replaced by Stanley Clements for the remaining films. In all, a total of forty-eight films were made under this team moniker, with the final film, In the Money, being released in 1958.[2]

[edit] Filmography

Title Year Director Screenplay Story
East Side Kids 1940 Robert F. Hill William Lively William Lively
Boys of the City 1940 Joseph H. Lewis William Lively William Lively
That Gang of Mine 1940 Joseph H. Lewis William Lively Alan Whitman
Pride of the Bowery 1940 Joseph H. Lewis George H. Plympton
William Lively (adaptation)		 Steven Clensos
Flying Wild 1941 William West Al Martin Al Martin
Bowery Blitzkreig 1941 Wallace Fox Sam Robins Brendan Wood
Donn Mullahy
Spooks Run Wild 1941 Phil Rosen Carl Foreman
Charles R. Marion		 Carl Foreman
Charles R. Marion
Mr. Wise Guy 1942 William Nigh Sam Robins
Harvey Gates
Jack Henley		 Martin Mooney
Let's Get Tough! 1942 Wallace Fox Harvey Gates Harvey Gates
Smart Alecks 1942 Wallace Fox
'Neath Brooklyn Bridge 1942 Wallace Fox Harvey Gates Harvey Gates
Kid Dynamite 1943 Wallace Fox Gerald Schnitzer
Morey Amsterdam (dialogue)		 Paul Ernst
Clancy Street Boys 1943 William Beaudine Harvey Gates Harvey Gates
Ghosts on the Loose 1943 William Beaudine Kenneth Higgins Kenneth Higgins
Mr. Muggs Steps Out 1943 William Beaudine William Beaudine
Beryl Sachs		 William Beaudine
Beryl Sachs
Million Dollar Kid 1944 Wallace Fox Frank H. Young Frank H. Young
Follow the Leader 1944 William Beaudine William Beaudine
Beryl Sachs		 Ande Lamb
Block Busters 1944 Wallace Fox Houston Branch Houston Branch
Bowery Champs 1944 William Beaudine Morey Amsterdam
Earle Snell		 Earle Snell
Docks of New York 1945 Wallace Fox Harvey Gates Harvey Gates
Mr. Muggs Rides Again 1945 Wallace Fox Harvey Gates Harvey Gates
Come Out Fighting 1945 William Beaudine Earle Snell Earle Snell

[edit] References

  1. ^ Filmfax, no. 23, Nov. 1990)
  2. ^ Hayes, David and Brent Walker (1984). The Films of The Bowery Boys. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press.

[edit] External links



Preceded by
Little Tough Guys
1938-1943		 'East Side Kids' series
1940-1945		 Succeeded by
The Bowery Boys
1946-1958
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