Blues Busters

Sach is in the hospital. The gang fears that he's on death's door. It turns out to be a simple tonsillectomy and Sach's voice is changed into something beautiful. Louie is besides himself over the hospital bill. Slip comes up with an idea to make the money back.

This movie needs a Susan Boyle moment. I mean that it needs to do the standard competition prize story. It starts with a great premise. It just goes down a less compelling road. It doesn't have a ticking clock or the tension from a competition. This is still fun with Sach getting a big head and a small brain. This is generally fine.

The Bowery Boys invade the world of music and nightclubs when after a tonsillectomy which the hapless Bernard Gorcey paid for leaves Huntz Hall with a radio crooner's voice. Naturally Leo Gorcey and the rest of the boys want to capitalize on this if for no other reasons than to pay poor Bernard Gorcey back. They don't want to lose the ambiance of Louis Dumbrowski's Bowery Sweet Shop as a hangout.

But the elder Gorcey gets in far deeper as song plugger Gabriel Dell and Leo get the Sweet Shop owner to turn his place into a nightclub as a showcase for Hall. That doesn't please Craig Stevens who owns a nightclub across the street with his featured singer Adele Jergens, they don't like the competition. That sets up the crazy antics of this Bowery Boys feature.

A few years earlier Eddie Bracken did a comedy at Paramount where he played his usual schnook character who is discovered to have a velvety singing voice. A guy named Crosby was also under contract to Paramount and they dubbed Bing's singing voice to Bracken's songs.

Monogram couldn't afford Bing Crosby so they grabbed a singer named John Lorenz to dub Huntz Hall. I'm sure Mr. Lorenz was like thousands of others who couldn't get a break because he sounded like Bing Crosby. Still he's effective in Blues Busters.

To waste a Crosby voice on Huntz Hall, the shame of it.

Huntz gets a rare chance to show his serious side, and the result is an absorbing study into how much latent talent there always was within the Bowery Boys troupe.

Bernard and Leo Gorcey along with Huntz make a great comic film trio indeed. But in 'Blues Busters', Huntz becomes a teen singing idol following a tonsillectomy which changes his voice to a rich baritone a la Bing Crosby. (There's flawless dubbing to the real voice of John Lorenz.) Louie's Sweet Shoppe is transformed into a nightclub, as Louis Dumbrowsky and the Boys attempt to capitalize on Sach's newly-developed gift of song.

The great title tune "Bluebirds Keep Singing in the Rain" and other ditties make 'Blues Busters' a rare and offbeat must-see entry in the Bowery Boys saga, and will be a reminder of the great old moviegoing days when you left the theatre humming.

Highly recommended to all.

The archetypal Bowery Boys movie, which shows Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey at their best.

Sach, in one of those Bowery Boy incidents, accidentally ends up singing strikingly like Bing Crosby. All the boys capitalize on his success and everything is honky dory until Sach decides he has forgotten where he came from and starts acting like a diva.

This series, although labelled "B," which it was, has a lot of humor, strong characterizations and is simply a lot of un. You will notice that it is a family affair, with Butch (or is it Chuck) played by David Gorcey and, of course, Louie Dumbrowski is Leo "Slip Mahoney" Gorcey's Dad, Bernard.

THe earlier series, the "Dead End Kids," was also very good, although those films have not aged as well given production techniques. That series, though starred Billy Halop and Bobby Jordan, in addition to Gorcey, Hall, and Gabe Dell. Jordan did appear in some Bowery Boy movies.

When the story begins, Sach is in the hospital for an operation and has convinced everyone he's on death's door. The truth is it's just a tonsillectomy and soon he's discharged. But there's an unexpected side effect....Sach now is able to croon like Tony Martin and Bing Crosby!! I've had several operations and unfortunately never had that happen with me! But as you probably guessed, instead of just bringing Sach fame and fortune, it also brings problems. Are Sach and the gang up for all this?!

In many of the Bowery Boys' films, Sach develops some sort of amazing power--such as the ability to accurately predict outcomes in gambling and amazing intellect. Here, he's got a great singing voice. Overall, a cute installment of the series and like the rest, it's light and entertaining...but hardly life changing!