Master Minds

I have to chime in with the other two users in singling out Glenn Strange's performance as the high point of this movie. Sure there are lots of the usual Bowery Boys hi-jinks to keep their fans amused, but it's when the hulking Strange shows up in full monster make-up doing a dead-on Huntz Hall impression that this movie really takes off. Who knew the one time Frankenstein monster had this kind of comedy talent in him? Probably my favorite of the series for just that reason.

(I need three more lines to get this posted, which is really a shame because it would be nice to be able to compliment an actor's performance without having to resort to padding --- although since I'm not padding this with "junk words" I hope it will be considered a valid submission. If not, forgive me. I did my best. I myself think brevity is an asset and would like to see it encouraged.)

During the course of many Bowery Boys films, Sach is endowed with amazing super-powers again and again. In one, he can predict numbers on the Roulette wheel, in another he has super-intelligence and here, in "Master Minds", he's endowed with the ability to predict the future! Yet, inexplicably, by the end of each movie these abilities disappear and are never spoken of again!

When the film begins, Sach goes into a weird trance and predicts the future. When Slip realizes that he's right, he does what any friend would do...put Sach into a sideshow where 'Ali Ben Sachmo' (Sach) can tell futures and make him lots of money. However, a nutty scientist (Alan Napier) is working on a Dr. Moreau-like method of making animals look human...but he wants to give his newest creation a brilliant mind...and assumes incorrectly that Sach is such a genius! Soon, he manages to put Sach's mind into the gorilla-like man (Glenn Strange) and vice-versa.

Like the Bowery Boys films of the 1940s, this one is a lot of fun. Unfortunately, just a year or two later, the team's films would become more stale--more repetitive and less funny. Considering they made so many movies (48--not counting the ones made as the East Side Kids and Dead End Kids), this isn't surprising! Worth seeing and considerably better than later offerings. Stupid but fun!

You wouldn't know by its title, but this Bowery Boys comedy is of interest to old horror film fans like me, with a "mad doctor" plot and a cast featuring various monster movie personalities. Here we have the dimwitted Sach (Huntz Hall) amazingly endowed with special powers each time he aggravates a nagging toothache by chomping on candy. He gains the uncanny ability to accurately predict future happenings a la Nostradamus, and is quickly exploited as a sideshow attraction by his greedy partner Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey). Meanwhile, an eccentric scientist (Alan Napier) decides that Sach's mind is the perfect one to transfer to his growling man/ape Atlas (Glenn Strange), and sets out to kidnap Sach.

The main attraction here is getting to watch the usually limited Glenn Strange (who played Frankenstein's stumbling Monster in some of Universal's classics like the previous year's ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN) do some of his most notable work. Strange is a marvel to behold when he switches minds with the prissy and childlike Sach, impersonating Huntz Hall's effeminate mannerisms and miming to his voice-overs. Among the familiar cast are Jane Adams and Skelton Knaggs (both also appeared with Glenn Strange in Universal's "House Of Dracula"), who play assistants to the doctor. Alan Napier is not quite right for this type of "mad doctor" part ... too bad they couldn't have gotten Bela Lugosi or John Carradine. The funniest part of the movie is an early scene where Sach is on stage predicting unpleasant outcomes for a few frazzled audience members, but the second half could have been tighter. The brain-swapping shenanigans are cute enough, but are all over the place. Still, a standout entry in the '40s Bowery Boys series. **1/2 out of ****

The 16th Bowery Boys entry from Monogram, 1949's "Master Minds" served up some rare mad scientist shenanigans during a lean period for horror films, set in the haunted Forsythe mansion that locals tend to avoid. Huntz Hall's Sach once again finds himself gaining an unexpected ability, not a crooner's voice as in "Blues Busters" but a fortune teller predicting the future after reading about Nostradamus, caused by a candy-induced toothache (betting on horses would come later). Leo Gorcey's Slip trots out sideshow star 'Ali Ben Sachmo, Bowery Prophet' for a typical get rich quick scheme, allowing Alan Napier as Dr. Druzik to utilize this supposed seer as the perfect subject for mind transference with his savage creation Atlas, played to the hilt by Glenn Strange (much neater than a messy brain transplant). Strange absolutely nails his impersonation of Huntz Hall and his effeminate mannerisms, under a hirsute Jack Pierce makeup that harkens back to the glory days of Universal's "House of Dracula," even adding several more cast members as lab assistants, Skelton Knaggs and pretty Jane Adams, no longer burdened by a hump. One would have wished that after several costarring roles opposite good friend Boris Karloff ("Isle of the Dead," "Lured," "The Strange Door") that Alan Napier might have learned something from the master, playing his one and only mad doctor with a permanent smirk, a bemused performance that can only be described as ordinary, similar to John Dehner's later turn in "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" (surely, Bela Lugosi must have been available!). Strange was in the midst of several Abbott and Costello vehicles ("The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap," "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein," "Comin Round the Mountain") but would not play another monster in a Hollywood feature, both Gabriel Dell and Billy Benedict departing the Bowery Boys series within two years.

I usually watch the Dead End kids out of nostalgia. I must have seen many of their films in first run showings as a kid, since I still think "Whitey" whenever I see Billy Benedict in any movie. This movie has to be one of my "guilty pleasures" since it's pretty silly stuff, yet I couldn't help laughing throughout. The plot has Glenn Strange and Huntz Hall exchanging brain contents because of experiments conducted by mad scientist Alan Napier. Hall's voice is used whenever Strange talks, but Strange's movements and mannerisms are his, and they are perfect imitations of Hall's. If you have watched a few of the Bowery Boys series and get to know Hall's antics, you will enjoy this movie. There are other pleasures, the best of which is Leo Gorcey's fracturing of the English language, but the reason to see this movie is Glenn Strange.