Master Minds

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 sixteenth Bowery Boys movie from Monogram is arguably the best in the series. It's certainly my personal favorite. The plot has Sach getting psychic powers from a toothache (?), which leads to him being kidnapped by a mad scientist who wants his brain to put in a monster named Atlas. Alan Napier is good as the mad scientist. Glenn Strange is fun as the hirsute monster, hidden behind some pretty impressive makeup by the great Jack Pierce. Creepy Skelton Knaggs is also in this as Napier's assistant. The mad scientist plot and the work of Pierce and Strange is probably a large part of why I like this so much, given that I'm a huge fan of Universal's classic horror films. But this one is also pretty funny with some good malapropisms from Leo Gorcey and nice rubberfacing by Huntz Hall. Bernard Gorcey is lots of fun as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. The rest of the gang includes William Benedict, Gabriel Dell, the easy-to-forget-he's-there David Gorcey, and Bennie Bartlett, who would take a break from the series for a couple of years after this. The highlight of the film is when the scientist mind swaps Sach and Atlas, giving Hall a chance to act like a movie monster and Strange the chance to act like a goofball, which I'm sure was fun for him.

No doubt inspired by the success of Abbott&Costello Meet Frankenstein, the folks at Monogram Pictures did a nice reworking of the plot at albeit a lower budget for the Bowery Boys in Master Minds.

Although with the rest of the human race eating too much sugar is a guarantee of diabetes, with Horace DeBussy Jones it gives psychic powers that are positively diabolic. They intrigue Alan Napier who is conducting the usual mad scientist experiments and he manages to electrically transfer Huntz Hall's brain into the body of Frankenstein creature Glenn Strange and vice versa.

If I were unkind I'd say that Universal Pictures and A&C were ripped off by the Bowery Boys. That doesn't mean this particular comedy wasn't good in fact seeing Glenn Strange with Huntz Hall mannerisms imitated and Huntz Hall voice coming from him is positively hilarious. Added to the rest of the Bowery Boy monkeyshines, Master Minds is one of the best of the series.

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!

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.)