Paris Playboys

Paris Playboys (1954)

** (out of 4)

Weak entry in the series has a few good ideas but the execution is rather poor. In the film Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall) head to Paris after some French scientist mistake Sach for a brilliant professor who has disappeared. Their hopes is that the real professor will see the impersonator, get jealous and come back home but sure enough some bad guys mistake Sach for the real thing. One-Shot Beaudine returned to the director's chair for this thirty-third entry and you can tell due to the slower pacing compared to the previous few films. Once again we're treated to some rather good things but the majority of the film is just deja vu as we've seen this stuff countless times before. It's amazing how little the series has changed even after thirty films as we get the same basic set up and then the familiar conclusion as a group of bad guys get involved and mess everything up. The bad guys here are all poorly written and appear to be rejects from countless other movies that we've all watched. Another problem is that nothing really goes on here until the very end of the film when things finally pick up. When the "professor", also played by Hall, shows up the film goes into overdrive and we actually get several laughs because the professor is an insane jerk who is constantly slapping Gorcey around and even Bernard Gorcey is brought to tears by his meanness. Hall finally got his name above the title and next to Gorcey and it was about time as the series is certainly going into his direction. Hall handles Sach with ease but the really impressive bits come from him playing the professor. The French accent is fun but seeing him playing a passionate lover and tough guy was great fun and he pulled it off nicely. It's just too bad they saved this until the end of the movie. Gorcey goes through the motions but is fine and good old Bernard gets some funny moments as well. In the end, Paris PLAYBOYS is pretty much what you'd expect.