In the Money

Sach is delivering lunch to a travel agency. Instead, he gets a job to travel to London. He is to be the bodyguard to Gloria, a dog. In reality, the people hiring him are diamond smugglers using the dog as a mule.

This is the last of the Bowery Boys. So long. Farewell. It's Sach and a few others. The others aren't as funny. Sometimes, they do the jokes wrong. The obvious screwball comedy move is the dog getting away from Sach. He could spend the whole movie chasing after the dog. It would allow for more physical comedy. I can see why the series ended. Sach is the only good one left. This feels tired.

The last block of the Bowery in the Bowery Boys series was reached with In The Money. With Huntz Hall having completed his contractual obligation, the series was canceled. Quite frankly it was never the same after Leo Gorcey quit and Bernard Gorcey died.

Still this was a better film than most of the ones with Stanley Clements trying to take Leo Gorcey's place. In The Money finds poor Sach being hired by Leonard Penn for a rather exorbitant salary to escort a dog on an ocean liner to the United Kingdom. Only Huntz Hall would be dumb enough to think that getting a few thousand dollars for this task that something more than fear of dog-nappers was up.

Clements and the rest figure that much out and stow away on the ocean liner with what I will say is a rather clever gimmick. Scotland Yard Inspector Paul Cavanaugh is also eying Penn and his companions John Dodsworth and Patricia Donahue. But the crooks just tell Sach that Cavanaugh is one of those dog-nappers to be avoided. And the poor dummy believes them.

One thing that was a regular item running through the Bowery Boys series is Huntz Hall always getting vamped by a beautiful bad girl. The last of them and one of the best is Patricia Donahue, mainly because she doesn't at first come on sultry. But for such dumbbell Huntz Hall did all right in the screen babe department.

In The Money also illustrates another favorite premise of mine that plot situations can be both dramatic and comedic. If the bad guys were smuggling narcotics instead of jewels, Huntz Hall would have been a drug mule. The same situation could become quite deadly then.

Anyway In The Money was hardly the worst of the series and not the worst of the post Gorcey films.

The Bowery Boys limp across the finish line with "In the Money", their final movie. It's a completely laughless affair. The jokes are cornier than usual. Huntz Hall is not as annoying as he often can be but that doesn't mean he's funny in this movie. Hall cannot carry a Bowery Boys movie on his own. He needs the company of Leo Gorcey and Bernard Gorcey. On his own, Hall is in trouble. The production quality of "In the Money" is also lacking. It has the look of a low budget movie of its era. The supporting cast is functional but there aren't any standouts. Patricia Donahue is the best of the bunch, especially the brief moment when she gets wet. "In the Money" is one of the Bowery Boys weakest efforts.

The final Bowery Boys film is typical of the series after Leo Gorcey left. Plenty of Sach initiated slapstick. Only Chuck and Blinky provide support in this one.

The plot involves Sach being hired by three jewel thieves to smuggle stolen diamonds on a ship form New York to England. The diamonds are concealed under the fur of a beautiful poodle named Gloria. Sach is hired to be the bodyguard of this valuable canine. There is an inspector from Scotland Yard on board looking for the diamonds.

Lovely Patricia Donahue plays one of the jewel thieves. She really brightens things up.

The series really suffered after Bernard Gorcey died in a car accident and Leo Gorcey left the series. Stanley Clements played Duke, not as a new Slip, but as a combination of the Slip and Gabe Moreno characters. Stanley and Huntz Hall never could duplicate the chemistry between Leo and Huntz.

This last Bowery Boys movie is worth watching, for Patricia Donahue if nothing else. But it is typical BB fare and you like the series, you will like this one, too. I am watching it right now on TCM Saturday morning movies.

In the Money (1958)

** (out of 4)

This film marked the forty-eighth and final film in the Bowery Boys series and the quality of the movie was a tad higher than it had any right to be. In the film Sach (Huntz Hall) is paid big cash to take a poodle on a ship and over to England. Something seems fishy so Duke (Stanley Clements) and the gang go on board with him and soon realize that the idiot is being used by some crooked diamond smugglers. It's rather amazing that any series could last for forty-eight movies so on one hand you really do have to tip your hat but then again it's not like they had enough decent stories to carry so many films. With that said, this final entry is not unlike most others as we have the dimwitted Sach getting involved with crooks and we know that in the end he'll find his way out and everyone will live happily ever after. In terms of laughs this film doesn't offer too many but what keeps it from being boring is the fact that the cast are in high gear and really deliver nice performances. I do wonder what was going on with Hall who knew this was going to be the final film in the series. He had pretty much been playing this character from the mid 30s on so perhaps his emotions just got the best of him and he decided to go all out. To be fair, there were only a few films where he was lacking in terms of energy. I thought he managed to do a fine job with the part here, although he did seem to tone down some of the characters dumber characteristics. Thankfully the performance is full of energy and this here really helps keep the film moving because there aren't many laughs in its 61-minute running time. Clements and the boys don't get much to do, although their bit pretending to be English stowaways was pretty good. Once again Bill Elliott appears briefly as the shop owner, although he's not given much to do either. For the most part the story itself is pretty far-fetched and lame but this could be said about countless films in the series. Needless to say, if you're not a fan of the movies then you're probably going to be hitting the stop button early on but fans should be mildly entertained and it's somewhat refreshing when you watch these in order that you've finally arrived at the end. There's no question that the series was on its final legs but at the same time it's rather hard saying goodbye to the boys.