Bowery Buckaroos
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
Louie is singing the song "Louie the Lout" about his days in the old west to the boys in the Sweet Shop. All of a sudden a man arrives on horseback and Louie hides from him in the back of the store. The man identifies himself as a sheriff of Hangman's Hollow, a town out west where Louie is wanted for a murder that took place 20 years before. The boys tell the sheriff they never heard of Louie and he leaves. Louie comes out of hiding and tells them the story of when he was a younger man and lived in Hangman's Hollow he and his partner, Pete Briggs, discovered gold. He then tells them that Pete was murdered by Blackjack McCoy and he was framed for the murder and fled to the city. He then shows them a map of where the gold is hidden...tattooed on his back.
The boys decide to go out west to clear Louie's name and help him give Pete's share to his daughter. They make a copy of the map on Sach's back and head west. They are ambushed by some Indians and Sach unwittingly shows the map to one of them. Indian Joe then heads back to town and alerts Blackjack that the boys are in town to clear Louie's name and claim the gold. Meanwhile, Gabe, who Slip sent ahead, has gotten into Blackjack's good graces with his card tricks and assists Slip and the boys.
Eventually the boys capture Blackjack and have him confess the murder to the sheriff, and just as everyone is about to collect the gold and live happily ever after, Slip hits Sach on the head waking him up. We learn that it was all Sach's dream.

Review: "Brains happens to be somethin' I am dissipated with.".
The eighth Bowery Boys film from Monogram has Louie the Sweet Shop owner wanted for murder from his days living out west.
Louie explains to the Bowery Boys how he was framed, which leads Slip and the others to decide to head out west to clear Louie's name.
There's cowboys and Indians and a treasure map in this one, as well as a twist ending that will either make you laugh or have you throwing something at the screen.Fun work from Bernard Gorcey as Louie in the beginning of the movie, including singing an adorable song called "Louie the Lout." The guest stars include Iron Eyes Cody, Russell Simpson, Minerva Urecal, and Julie Gibson.
The Boys themselves (Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, William Benedict, David Gorcey) are all good.
This is the last Bowery Boys film for Bobby Jordan, who had been with the team since their Dead End beginnings.
He grew tired of being a background player while Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall got the lion's share of the funny material (and profits).
After this he did mostly TV work for the rest of his career before dying of cirrhosis at the age of 42.
A sad end for an underrated talent.
Ironically, it was Jordan introducing the boys to Jan Grippo that got the Bowery Boys series started.
Grippo would act as producer on the first 23 Bowery Boys films.
Anyway, as Slip Mahoney would say, "trivial trigonometries aside" this is a fun entry in the series with the Boys doing their shtick in a different setting than New York..
The Bowery Boys Go West.
While Huntz Hall (as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones) reads "Hair Trigger Western Yarns", sweet shop proprietor Bernard Gorcey (as Louie) sings "Louie, the Lout" to Bobby Jordan (as Bobby), William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), and David Gorcey (as Chuck).
Wrapped up in his western pulp stories, Mr. Hall daydreams about the days of "Cowboys & Indians", and "Louie" hints about a western past...
Suddenly, a sheriff enters the scene, on horseback; he claims "Louie, the Lout' is a WANTED outlaw.
Then, Bowery leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) arrives to find (his real-life father) the elder Gorcey hiding from the sheriff.
Gorcey takes "The Bowery Boys" out west, to solve the case of the falsely accused "Louie".The New York City group meet up with Cowboys and Native American Indians, in an old-fashioned western setting.
Bowery chum Gabriel Dell (as Gabe) arrives in the town ("Hangman's Hollow"), undercover as "The Klondike Kid", to help the "Bowery Buckaroos" clear "Louie" and locate a gold mine.
This is one of the cleverest movies in the "Bowery Boys" series.
Gorcey delivers some of his best "malaprops" (a nude baby picture is "Exhibition A"); and the rest of the cast is uniformly smooth.
The story is very nicely plotted, with Mr. Hall figuring prominently.
"Marshall" Minerva Urecal and "Indian" Iron Eyes Cody are terrific.
Regulars Bernard Gorcey and Gabriel Dell have good roles, too.And, this is the last appearance of Bobby Jordan, who was in the originally named "Dead End" (1937) group.
In the early 1940s, Mr. Jordan was featured much more prominently in these films - the stories were often about his character - but, as the comic antics of Gorcey and Hall took center stage, Jordan was derailed by both "Uncle Sam" and injury.
In "Bowery Buckaroos", Jordan leads the secondary "Bowery Boys" in making the most out of their supporting roles.
It's a shame the producers couldn't work Jordan into more stories, perhaps in spin-offs with Mr. Benedict's "Whitey" character (they have some good "bits" herein).
In future films, Jordan will be missed.******* Bowery Buckaroos (10/8/47) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan.
Clearing Louie The Lout.
The Bowery Boys go west in this film to clear the good name of their patron Louis Dombrowski owner of Louie's Sweet Shop where the kids hangout mainly because most of the time they have no gainful employment.Bernard Gorcey who played Louie in the series tells the kids he's got a past life out west when he was prospecting and his partner killed and Louie framed for the murder.
The past comes home when rustic western sheriff Russell Simpson comes east after searching twenty years for this varmint.Of course it's up to Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the rest of the gang to clear the elder Gorcey of this blot upon his name and restore the gold mine that Louie and his partner found to his daughter, Julie Gibson.The Bowery Boys are in their usual fish out of water element where Gorcey fractures the language trying to sound smart and Hall just plays it as dumb as he is.
Still fortune does smile upon them as they scrape through for yet another film in the series.
This one's pretty funny in spots.
Check out their third degree torture of head villain Norman Willis with an angry Brahma Bull..
Bowery Boys #8.
Bowery Buckaroos (1947) ** (out of 4) Eighth film in the Bowery Boys series has the boys heading out West where they must try and prove that Louie (Bernard Gorcey) was framed twenty-years earlier when some said he shot a man in the back.
Once out West the boys must pretend (once again) to be someone they're not and get to the truth.
Considering most comic duos or groups traveled out West at some point in their careers it should come as no shock that the Bowery Boys would eventually find themselves out there.
For the most part this is yet another harmless entry in the series and there are some nice laughs but in the end there's no question that there's no enough to carry the short 66-minutes.
I thought the film got off to a very good start with Bernard Gorcey really getting many laughs as he gets a tad bit more to do here than in some of the previous movies.
Him telling about the "map" on his back was very funny as was his opening song.
Speaking of songs, we get a later scene with the boys driving out West that is very funny as well.
Once we get to the West things start off pretty good with a spoof of Indian attacks but after this things slow down rather quickly.
I think the biggest problem is that the majority of the jokes simply aren't funny and instead of spoofing the genre the film just gives us one cliché after another.
I think had the film kept the spoofing up then it could have gotten a lot more laughs than what's actually here.
Leo and Huntz are their typical selves but we get some nice supporting performances by Minerva Urecal, Russell Simpson and Julie Gibson.
This here also marked the last entry for Bobby Jordan, which was a shame considering how good he was but it's understandable that he left considering how he wasn't given much to do..
Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, Bowery Boys........
..........GET YOUR BREEDER'S Guide right here!
IT IS PERHAPS one of the greatest of contradictions in Film History that a very serious and socially conscious a Stage Play and resulting adaptation to the movie version of DEAD END should have sired, not a greater understanding of juvenile delinquency, but rather years and tears of comedy.
It doesn't matter what the name of the group (although the earlier movies were a little more serious than farcical), there was always a great resemblance to the rest of the other series films.
SO IT WAS that The Dead End Kids begot The Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids Followed and the terminus of the family tree was the now grown-up, not kids or teens, but young men known as the Bowery Boys.
These have proved to be particularly durable and popular over the years.
There were four Bowery Boys movies released during this Baby Boomer's childhood in the 1950's and we saw many of them at either the Ogden or the Hi-Way theatres here o Chicago's Southside ("the Baddest Part of town") IN THE EARLY 1960's, the series came to television and we recall their being shown every Wednesday afternoon over ABC Channel 7, WBKB (now WLS).AS FOR THIS entry that we are reviewing today, BOWERY BUCKAROOS, we do remember it well from TV and have always considered it to be one of the best of the series; as ell as a favourite.
There are several reasons for such honors.
FIRST OF ALL, it is generally a rule of thumb that earlier entries in a series, be that TV or "B" movies, are usually the better and more meticulously crafted and more expensive looking installments.
This assertion is certainly evident in this 1947 production.
There are larger casts., more and varied sets & locations.FURTHERMORE, WHEN ONE views an earlier edition of the series, you have more of the original "Kids" from DEAD END in the cast.
BOWERY BUCKAROOS has the talents of both Bobby Jordan and Gabriel Dell in addition to the two featured players, Leo Gorcey (Slip) and Huntz Hall (Sach).
David Gorcey and Billy Benedict round out the cast.IN ADDITION TO the above mentioned reasons, this movie adds the elements of a dream sequence as well as a lively spoof of the Western "Cowboy" picture.
Although we really enjoyed most of the entries into this now venerable series and they did run the table in subjects to spoof (Jungle pictures, War pictures, Detective & Cops, Boxing & Wrestling, etc.), they never did it so well and enjoyably.IT WOULD BE a grave injustice to close out our dissertation without mentioning the movie's one very unique bit of musical contribution to the Bowery Boys series.
No Schultz, we're not talking about any of the incidental music (probably stock),nor the series latter day appropriation of "Hail, Hail The Gang's All Here" as its theme.
INSTEAD WE WANTED to draw one's attention to the opening solo performance of "Louie the Lout" as performed by the Sweet Shop proprietor.
Louie Dombrowski It's both entertaining and functional; as it adds to the story, provides us with some exposition and brings one to the threshold of being ready to be entertained.
That's precisely why we watch a Bowery Boys movie to begin with.AND FOR THOSE not already aware, Bernard Gorcey (Louie), veteran actor of the legitimate theater, was the real life father of real life brothers, Leo & David Gorcey; being Slip and Chuck respectively..
"Don't you know I'm in disguise.
I'm in magneto.".
I've been waiting for quite a while to have this flick make the rounds on Turner Classics, at least a couple of years since I bought the original theatrical poster for the film.
It shows Black Jack McCoy facing down Dead-Eye Dan McGurke (Leo Gorcey) and partner Sach (Huntz Hall with his trusty slingshot).
Until seeing the picture, I was at a loss to identify the actor who portrayed outlaw Black Jack McCoy since the actor's name isn't mentioned on the poster.
That's now been cleared up, it was Norman Willis.Well all the premier comedy teams seemed to have a Western adventure, so why not the Bowery Boys.
You had The Marx Brothers in 1940's "Go West", Laurel and Hardy in 1937's "Way Out West", and Abbott and Costello in 1942's "Ride 'em Cowboy".
Heck, even Bob Hope got into the act with a couple of 'Paleface' movies.
The set up here begins with Sach reading a copy of 'Hair Trigger Western Yarns' at Louie's Sweet Shop, or should I say, Louie the Lout's Sweet Shop.
Louie (Bernard Gorcey) proceeds to regale the boys with a story that occurred twenty years earlier in the New Mexico town of Hangman's Hollow where he was framed for the murder of a man named Pete Briggs.
He's even got a map of the Briggs gold mine tattooed on his back!
I got a kick out of the Indian ambush when the Bowery Boys finally arrive out West.
Leading the charge was Iron Eyes Cody as Indian Joe, and Big Chief Hi-Octane portrayed by Yakima Indian Chief Yowlachie.
Now if you're New York born and bred like I was, there's a whimsical take away one has when the Chief introduces the members of his tribe - White Eagle, Little Elk, Big Buffalo, White Rock, Three Feathers, and Big Moose.
You see, White Rock was the name of a regional soda company at the time, and Three Feathers was a locally available whiskey.
I wouldn't have been surprised if they were served up at the Plugged Dollar Saloon!Before it's all over, Dead-Eye Slip makes a yo-yo out of bad guy Black Jack McCoy facing down a Brahma bull, and recovers the gold mine for pretty Katherine Briggs (Julie Gibson).
But wouldn't you know it, and I usually get peeved at these kinds of endings but with the Bowery Boys it doesn't matter - it was all a dream!
Which might explain what I thought I heard Sach say at one point when he was a kidnap victim of the bad guys - captioning on my TV screen had him saying 'Bloody hell' !!!
If he did, that would have been one of the phenomenii of the picture..
The "Buck" stops here.
***SPOILERS*** Slip Sach and the rest of the Bowery Boys, Gabe Bobby Whitey & Chuck, go west to Hangman's Hollow New Mexico in order to clear their good friend sweet shop owner Louie Dombrowski of a murder he supposedly committed some 20 years ago.
It was back then that Louie known as "Louie the Lout" shot and killed his gold prospector partner Pete Briggs and took of with the map to Briggs' gold mine.Louie with his cover blown by Marshall Luke Barlow, who came to New York City to expedite him back to NM, tells Slip & Co. that it was saloon owner Black Jack McCoy who actually killed Briggs and framed him for it.
This had Louie living a double life all these twenty years since the Briggs' murder.
The boys run into a bit of trouble traveling to Hnagman's Hollow by being intercepted by a band of Indians lead by Oxford educated and former world class time opera singer Big Chief high-Octane.
It's Big Chief's partner Indian Joe who's in fact working for Black Jack McCoy who finds out that the Bowery Boys have the map, painted on Sach's back, that reveals where the Brigg gold mine is.
The only trouble is that by kidnapping Sach and dragging him, while tied to a horse s saddle, through a stream the map was completely obliterated making it next to impossible to locate the gold mine!
Unless Louie "the Lout" Dombrowski shows up with the original map that's tattooed on his back!Slip and the boys seem to really enjoy the great outdoors compared to the cramped city life that their used to living in the Bowery and take full advantage of it.
They also get to shoot the Black Jack Saloon up and have it out with Black Jack McCoy and his gang while at the same time locating the late Pete Briggs' daughter Kathy, who happens to be the adopted daughter of Marshall Luke Barlow, in order to get her share, all 100% of it, of her dad's lost gold mine; That's if the Bowery Boys can find it!***SPOILERS*** As for Black Jack McCoy he gets his comeuppances at the end of the film in being used like a yo-yo by Slip & Co. in a bullpen where he finally agrees to cry uncle and spill the beans about the murder of Pete Brigg that he in fact was responsible for.
The by far biggest surprise in the movie is saved for last proving to the audience as well as the Bowery Boys that all this about the great wild west gold mines and Oxford educated Indians was nothing but a pipe, Indian Pipe, dream!.
The Bowery Boys head west...into a time warp..
Slip and Sach grab the gravy train to head west to a not so peaceful studio back-lot where they strive to find treasure found on a map on the back of crotchety and cowardly Louis, aka "the lout", who appears to have a past that only cowhands and card- sharks of an old western town seem to know about.
They also strive to clear his name in a decades old murder.
It's too quiet for native New Yorkers like Slip and Sach to deal with, and they find their dealings with "traditional" native Americans and real live tough guys who don't need to crack wise or talk tough to really be tough.
Minerva Urecal is back, this time playing a tough talking female sheriff named Michael.
The ten years that have passed between their film debut in "Dead End" haven't been kind to their youth, and Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall haven't been lucky enough to remain looking like boys.
Leo Gorcey does get to "show his ineptitude" to Julie Gibson, the daughter of Louie's old partner who has believed him to be guilty of killing her father ever since she grew up.
It's pretty obvious who the real villains are and that Louie, as usual, will show up out of nowhere to save the day, even if it is by accident.
Not really one of the better episodes, but filled with enough idiotic sounding malapropisms to keep you smiling.
Only someone like Slip would be in disguise, telling the gang that he was as in "magnido".