Blonde Dynamite

By1950 the Bowery Boys were already among moviedom's oldest "teens," but incredibily the series lasted for another 6 years and more than 20 movies, with the scripts getting increasingly sillier and the plots more far fetched. This is a pretty good entry in the series, and at times feels like it could've been almost a conventional B crime picture, instead of a Bowery Boys vehicle. In part that may be due to the prescence of leggy Adele Jergens, one of the great B movie bad girls. She's actually playing the title character, the only time in the series I can remember that happening.

Adele seemed to be one of those actresses who just wanted to keep working. "Blonde Dynamite" is one of her 10 movie credits on IMDB for 1950, including another Bowery Boys feature and the classic film noir "Side Street." (In 1949 she was in another B noir classic, "Armored Car Robbery.") She was also a comic foil (and the requisite eye candy) for Abbot and Costello in two of their films. Later in her career she was in a couple of super low budget teen crime exploitation movies, but she was always a solid pro who gave it her all. She's probably the biggest "name" of the many alluring females who populated the Bowery Boys movies, vamping Slip and/or Satch for devious purposes.

The idea of the boys as high class "escorts" is a hoot and well played for laughs. Though of course their ability to turn Louie's Sweet Shop into their escort agency office and then back again overnight takes a huge suspension of belief, typical of these plots. It should be noted that the plot device of digging from a office or store into an adjacent bank vault has been used in several films with the first one I'm aware of being "A Slight Case of Larceny" with Edward G. Robinson.

The rating of 7 stars is in the context of the Bowery Boys series. Sometimes you just have to grade on a curve.

10 Stars. For good reason.

Adele Jergens, who appeared in two other Bowery Boys films, was a natural fit for these guys; she had the looks and the attitude. Jergens was a very good actress and does her thing here as one of the "blondes" in cahoots with some goons who want to rob a bank.

Writer Charles Marion, one of the primary writers of Bowery Boys scripts, next to Tim Ryan, may have "borrowed" the storyline from the Edward G. Robinson flick LARCENY, INC (1942). The gang's Park Avenue Escort Bureau!!! -- is next door to a nice little bank that should be robbed. The robbers, lead by smooth Harry Lewis (as Champ), trick Sach (while Slip is away with the gals) into doing some underground uranium digging --right into the bank!

This one is hilarious and Leo Gorcey is fun to watch getting BURNED UP by Sach's wild antics. Best of all is Louie (Bernard Gorcey) who goes nuts when he discovers what the boys did to his sweet shop while he was away at Coney island with his wife.

Top Bowery Boys, real goofy stuff, and look at the Bowery Boys' elite line of escort clothes. Note, Lewis later gave up acting to concentrate full time on his Hamburger Hamlet restaurant chain in Los Angeles, which he opened about the time this film was made. Years later he sold out for nearly 30 million $$$.

According to production notes this film took the longest to produce, nearly two weeks time to film, perhaps due to the insanity? Campy all the way. Warner Brothers dvd box set. Get this one for your collection. 6 to 8 episodes per box.

BLONDE DYNAMITE (1950) ***/****

"I'll sue them for some salt and batteries".

The Bowery Boys' later films worked best when they were well written with something of a plot, and BLONDE DYNAMITE is one of these cases. It's quite good for one of their films from this period.

Slip Mahoney gets a brainstorm to send Louie Dumbrowski off on a vacation to Coney Island so he and the rest of the gang can transform Louie's sweet shop into an escort service. It isn't long before the boys get tangled up with unscrupulous crooks again in the bargain, but the laughs are pretty steady and the story stays tight.

"A brilliant seduction".

Slip (Leo Gorcey) has a scheme. He wants to start his own escort service. However, no one will loan him the money and an opportunity arises when Louie goes on vacation....as he'll use the malt shop for his business. At the same time, a gang of thugs with their blonde bombshell (Adele Jergens) are going to rob a bank...and plan on tunneling in from the malt shop...much like the plot of "Larceny, Inc.". Will these knuckieheads figure out what is going on or will the robbery come off without a hitch?

This film is pretty much what you'd expect from a Bowery Boys movie...broad acting and not a lot of sophistication. This isn't so much a complaint....more like what you should expect. A few scenes are WAY overdone--such as the painful balcony scene. And yet, despite all its shortcomings, the film is reasonably entertaining because it never takes itself seriously. Overall, not one of the group's best--more just a very typical entry--with Sach being stupid and Slip being a mouthy know-it-all...as usual.

By the way, it's rather funny when throughout the film you hear people refer to the gang as 'kids'...considering they're mostly in their 30s!

Male Escorts Wanted. That's the sign outside D'Amour Escort Bureau. Slip and Sach walk in and get promptly thrown out. Slip decides to start his own escort service with all the guys. No bank is willing to finance them. Meanwhile, respectable bank delivery boy Gabe Moreno gets enticed by blonde bombshell Joan Marshall. He loses $5k of the bank's money to Joan and her gangster friends. They blackmail him into a scheme to steal from the bank by digging through the Sweet Shop.

This is a fun Bowery Boys film. The story makes sense. There actually is a story. The characters are who they are. Sach is hilariously dumb. It's a fun duo with Slip. It all works. It's good whether you're a fan or not.