Os Anjos e os Monstros

Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters, The (1954)

*** (out of 4)

Fast-paced and fun entry in the series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) traveling to a creepy mansion so that they can ask the owners if the Bowery kids can use their lot to play ball. Soon the duo are being held captive by the mad scientists who want to use their brains in some crazy experiments. After several so-so entries, it's good to see the series back with a winner as this one perfectly mixes the laughs with the various horror elements. This is clearly influenced by the Abbott and Costello flicks but that's not a bad thing especially when you get such a winning film. I really loved the fact that Bernds was back behind the camera as he kept the action coming very fast and helped keep everything moving. The laughs are plenty as we get countless good jokes including one that must have been seen by Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder as it would later be used in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. At one point the creepy butler tells Sach and Slip to "walk this way" which they do by mocking the way he's walking. Other funny jokes include the various horror elements including a sexy vampire, a living tree who eats humans, a killer gorilla and a robot who keeps losing its head. All of these elements are perfectly blended into the story and we also get a kind old lady who wants to feed the fat Slip to her tree. Both Gorcey and Hall are on the top of their game and deliver fine performances. The comedy here is pretty wide ranged as we get a lot of physical stuff but also a lot of one liners and both of them deliver just fine. Bernard Gorcey has a couple funny bits including a very good incident with the gorilla. Some might be disappointed that the "monsters" aren't Dracula, Frankenstein or the Mummy but it really doesn't matter because of how well everything works here. A lot of the jokes fall on their face but that's only because so many are flying around that your bound not to have them all work. Fans of the series will certainly find this to be a winner but I think even those who can't stand them will find this one entertaining.

If you don't enjoy this Bowery Boys flick, forget the others! THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS is one of their best, and quite possibly THE best. Slip and Sach leave Manhattan for Long Island to ask the owners of a barren lot in their neighborhood if they might help turn it into a baseball field where Bowery kids can play. What the boys discover when they meet the eccentric owners at their eerie manor is that they're a couple of looney bird mad scientists, who quickly plan to use Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall as brain donors for their latest experiments.

This is not exactly ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, but it was doubtless influenced by that team's "meet the monsters" series of movies. The Bowery Boys wind up confronting a creepy butler who transforms into a Jekyll/Hyde monster, a quirky robot, a savage gorilla, a sexy vampiress and a creaky old lady with a man-eating plant for a pet. Fans of The Three Stooges may recognize actual sequences "borrowed" from some of their shorts, as this was scripted by Stooge writers Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman (and Bernds directed). As a result, the pacing is quick and the jokes are quite good. Highly recommended as one of your first Bowery Boys experiences, or if you're a fan of monster movies of the period.

*** out of ****

A baseball smashes the front window at Louie's Sweet Shop. It's the neighborhood kids. The adults decide to call up the Gravesend residence for permission to let the kids play baseball in their lot. Slip and Sach travel up to the mansion but they don't realize that the family is disturbed and the house is full of monsters.

This is trying to be Abbott and Costello. I don't hate it but I prefer to have Abbott and Costello. Costello is a comedic genius. These guys are a step below. This is still good clean fun if not necessarily original.

The slapstick is so overdone in this Bowery Boys tribute to fright flicks that there's something happening at slam bang speed in almost every frame of THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS.

The non-stop shenanigans gets the usual boost from LEO GORCEY and HUNTZ HALL, busy slapping each other around in the tradition of The Three Stooges as they encounter some spirited spooks in the care of Dr. Gravesend (JOHN DEHNER).

ELLEN CORBY (the grandma from The Daltons) is on hand as a feather-brained Mrs. Gravesend devoted to her man-eating plant with designs on getting its tree-like limbs around Huntz Hall or Leo Gorcey.

It's a broad farce, played for laughs by the entire cast, including JOHN DEHNER and LLOYD CORRIGAN as his fellow scientist, but all of the gags are recycled from either Abbot and Costello movies or The Three Stooges. The only new twist is that the monsters aren't the creatures you might expect them to be--and for that, you have to see the film.

Recommended mainly for those Bowery Boys fans who can't get enough of their silly hijinks.

After a baseball breaks the window of "Louie's Sweet Shop", problem-solving leader Leo Gorcey (as Terrence "Slip" Mahoney) decides he his fellow "Bowery Boys" - accomplice Huntz Hall (as Horace "Sach" Jones), brother David "Condon" Gorcey (as Chuck), and Benny "Bennie" Bartlett (as Butch) - should get the kids playing in the Bowery off the streets and onto a safe vacant lot. Telephoning the lot-owning "Gravesend Family" at home, Mr. Gorcey wrangles an invitation to their mansion.

Mad scientist John Dehner (as Derek Gravesend) tells brother Lloyd Corrigan (as Anton) that Gorcey must be dim-witted, due to his mangling of the English language. The pair decide "Bowery Boys" would be perfect for head and brain transplanting experiments involving both a robot and a gorilla. Family matriarch Ellen Corby (as Amelia) would rather feed them to her man-eating tree. And, sexy vampire Laura Mason (as Francine) is looking forward to the arrival of new blood at the old house.

As a film series, "The Bowery Boys" looked like it was (generally) in an insurmountable rut, after a string of unsatisfactory films (see especially those from 1952). The quality was never all that dependable, but the movies did successfully entertain a targeted audience. While seeming to be finished, the series became sporadically good again, before the crashing in 1956.

"The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" was one of the a high points; it was followed by the bad "Jungle Gents" (1954), then the good "Bowery to Bagdad" (1955). The title "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" suggests some inspiration from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948), but this situation is more clearly swiped from Charles Addams' witty "The Addams Family" (begun as a comic strip in 1938), which spawned the memorable 1960s television series and imitations like this film.

****** The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (6/6/54) Edward Bernds ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey, Paul Wexler