Angels' Alley (1948)

I love this movie so much

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Sentimentality and social issues take over from the crazy, unbelievable (but fun) predicaments of the earlier films, beginning with the East Side Kids and moving to the Bowery Boys series. Gone are the delightfully silly malapropisms of Slip and Sach, and in are the sentiments of "Boy's Town". It's obvious that the writers decided to be more relevant with this entry, and unfortunately, they failed. Fortunately, they learned their lesson, and returned to the formula in the next entry of the series.While I would have been accepting of a different style, this one is jarring because with few exceptions, it seems like Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey are playing completely different characters. They are involved in helping Gorcey's recently released cousin Frankie Darro keeping on the straight and narrow, and that isn't easy thanks to his taking a job with gangster Nestor Paiva who has a penchant for practical jokes.The intrusion of occasional farce mixes with the crime element and sentimentality (a young neighborhood kid injured and ending up in the hospital simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time) in an odd, uncomfortable way. It's certainly a better acting opportunity for the boys, and Mary Gordon delivers her usual lovable performance as Gorcey's mom. Rosemary La Planche is an interesting femme fatale, but the loss of Louie's sweet shop is sorely missed, as is Bernard Gorcey. Hall gets in some amusing imitations, but this really seems like a parallel universe version of the series.

Slip's cousin Jimmy gets released from prison and quickly turns back to a life of crime. Slip tries to help him out by going undercover in a car-theft ring. It's the ninth Bowery Boys film and the first without Bobby Jordan. Stars Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are both good here, doing as much drama as comedy. Gabriel Dell, William Benedict, and David Gorcey are all fine. Frankie Darro is enjoyable as Jimmy. Early in his career he was great at playing young street toughs, despite not being one of the Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys. Bennie Bartlett appears for the first time in a Bowery Boys movie. He would become a regular member of the gang in the next film. Geneva Gray and former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche provide the pretty. Sadly Bernard Gorcey's Louie is absent from this one. Instead we get an annoying little kid that looks up to Slip. You get the impression they were trying out a new character hoping he would catch on. He has a 'Bobs Watson scene' that has to be seen to be believed. The rest of the cast includes vets like John Eldredge, Nestor Paiva, and Dewey Robinson. There's a little more drama than comedy with this one, which might not please all fans. It reminds me of some of the gang's 1930s Dead End efforts. There is some comedy, though. The scene where Huntz Hall does impressions of Ronald Colman, Jimmy Durante, and James Cagney is a highlight. It's not one of my favorite Bowery Boys movies but it is an interesting one.

I usually use one of Leo Gorcey's fractured lines for my summary quote, but the one by Father O'Hanlon (Nelson Leigh) seemed a whole lot more appropriate for this picture's subject matter. This one seemed a bit of a throwback to an earlier time when the Boys teamed up with Cagney in "Angels With Dirty Faces", or the one that got them started, "Dead End" with Bogart in the lead role. Of course the core group here (Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell) were known as the Dead End Kids back then and their characters had different names. A decade later and they're still trying to tough it out on the streets of the city.More so than most any other of their pictures, this one goes for a bit of melodrama with the inclusion of Slip's (Gorcey) young cousin Boomer (Thomas Menzies). It doesn't start out that way, at the outset it looks like Boomer is an understudy to Slip in his penchant for torturing the English language. But later he's injured in a car accident, and Slip pulls out the emotional stops to comfort the youngster in his hospital bed. It's about the closest to serious drama that you'll find in a Bowery Boys flick.The inclusion of a parish priest was a pretty interesting way to go here. Father O'Hanlon was the pastor of St. Vincent's Parish, and I thought it was pretty cool the way the picture paid tribute to an earlier film from Paramount Pictures. When the priest surprises Slip with his presence, Slip reacts by saying "...I was just going' to church. You're Going My Way?" That was pretty cool and I wondered what Crosby might have thought of it.Coming right out of that scene, you'll catch a goof of sorts if you're paying attention. A few minutes before when Slip talks to Daisy (Rosemary LaPlanche) and Josie (Geneva Gray), behind them on a store front is a sign for the 'Home Appliance Company'. After Slip and Sach give Father O'Hanlon a ride to the St. Vincent Boys Club, right behind them on the sidewalk where they drop him off is the 'Home Appliance Company'! The window of the store was slightly altered, but in 1948 I doubt if there was a company big enough to have locations a couple of blocks apart. Now if it was a Starbucks....So with all of that going on, the thing that really got my attention in this picture was the appearance of Frankie Darro. I don't know why, but I've taken a shine to Darro in these types of early movies. Like Leo Gorcey, he was already thirty years old when this movie was made, and I always thought he would have fit right in with the Dead End/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys groups. If you're of a mind, you should try to catch Darro in "The Mayor of Hell" or "Wild Boys of the Road", both pictures from 1933 when he was still a teenager.Not to get too long winded here, as cousins, Jimmy (Darro) and Slip start out on the wrong foot with each other as the story gets under way, but patch things up when Slip takes the fall for one of Jimmy's failed robberies. Seeing the error of his ways, Jimmy goes straight and helps the Bowery bunch take it to mobster Tony Locarno (Nestor Paiva) and his auto theft ring.Oh yeah, can't let this one go by without mentioning it. If you're a fan of the Bowery Boys you know all about Slip's malapropisms and the way he just tortures his sentences. Well did you ever consider it might have been an inherited trait? There's a scene in which Mom Mahoney (Mary Gordon) is getting ready to serve the boys dinner and suddenly they're all gone. Walking into the dining room she responds by saying "One moment the room is crowded, the next it's full of nobody"! How's that for disturbing your equilibrium?

This is a woefully lackluster attempt to revisit some of the original "Dead End" and "Angels…" themes from the original 1930s film series. The strained, more serious "Angels' Alley" storyline isn't helped by the ill-fitting comic antics of Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) and Huntz Hall (as Sach Jones). William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey) and David Gorcey (as Chuck) make the most of their small roles. Perhaps acting wisely, Bobby Jordan (as Bobby) makes no appearance at all. Unfortunately, Mr. Jordan opted out of the series, which had reached a relative peak with "News Hounds" and "Bowery Buckaroos" (both 1947).The "Sweet Shop" is mentioned, but "The Bowery Boys" are based in the "St. Vincent Boy's Club", Gorcey's home, or the local pool hall. Bernard "Louie" Gorcey does not appear; instead, "Slip" lives at home, with his Irish mother Mary Gordon (as Mamie Mahoney) and moocher cousin Frankie Darro (as Jimmy). Other semi-regular "Bowery Boys" of interest include the bad boy duo Benny "Bennie" Bartlett (as Harry "Jag" Harmon) and Buddy Gorman (as Andrew "Andy" Miller). With the forthcoming "Jinx Money", the Bowery series begins a return to its more successful formula.*** Angels' Alley (3/7/48) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Frankie Darro