Some movies hang around my neck like onuses (or like really heavy necklaces), for one reason or another being hateful, time-consuming beasts to write up. The only reason it doesn’t reflect on my posting schedule is because of a mighty buffer. That Gang of Mine is one of those damnable movies, odd considering it is both the best East Side Kids movie to date, and the best, most competent film I’ve yet seen from Monogram. Learning from the problems of East Side Kids (incomprehensible plagiarism) and Boys of the City (just plain racist), That Gang of Mine has basically no issues. It is instead thoroughly boring, mediocre, and unremarkable.
Personal ennui aside, That Gang of Mine is a notable new moment in the development of the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, Bowery Boys troupe (the DEKLTGESKBB troupe). While we’ve seen individual boys be the dramatic focus before, it’s always been the lead boy. But here, second-in-command Muggs Maloney (Leo Gorcey) takes on the dramatic arc. It is another way in which ‘40s B-franchises reflect television – one-off “episodes” for the lesser characters. At this rate we can expect later entries to highlight other performers.
Muggs’ big coming out storyline also allows a new one-time milieu for the series – horse racing. Basically, Muggs is obsessed with becoming a jockey, thinking this the surest route to wealth and women. Don’t ask me! Maybe it’s the 1940 white guy equivalent of a basketball obsession. Interrupting the other East Side Kids’ gooftastic painting shenanigans, Muggs rides a bench “like” a horse, which really looks more like something a sorority girl would do. It don’t look right!
Knuckles Dolan (Dave O’Brien, reoccurring non-DEKLTGESKBB) grows naturally sickened by this sight, and banishes the lads off to a horse stable. (He doesn’t know of Muggs’ mania.) Over at the Acme Stables (oh yes), Muggs continues to ride further inanimate objects as though they are horses: a hay bale, a wall, a horse…A horse?! Yeah, he randomly falls onto a horse, as it was off screen and therefore impossible to detect. The horse rampages, and throws semi-jockey Muggs.
Enter the horse’s owner, Ben (Clarence Muse, the first black actor to headline a Hollywood movie, 1936’s The Broken Earth). A wise and respectful man, Ben is a remarkable reversal of the regular 1940s racism. Hell, consider the effect he has on lone black East Side Kid Scruspo…er, Sprungo…Skrundy…Sproingo-Boingo…er, Scranton…No, no, Scruno. Yeah, that’s it! (What an odd name.) Any rate, the character played by Ernie “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison, the big, watermelon-obsessed problem of Boys of the City. Now, that’s not to say neither Ben nor Scruno shed their ethnic personas, or even a connection back to the slavery era (Ben’s past on the plantations of Kentucky), but here it seems realistic, even-handed, and not merely predicated upon earning a white audience’s sick guffaws. Some might still call it “racist,” with Scruno’s spirited dancing to a spiritual, etc., but by 1940 terms this is astoundingly progressive.
Ben talks about his beloved horse, Bluenight, whom he believes could be the country’s greatest racehorse – if given a chance. Why, that is precisely the coincidental call-to-action Muggs’ plot needs! If only they had the $100 to get Bluenight in a race (and get Muggs’ inept hulk upon her back)…
Rather than work for it (these are the East Side Kids, you know), newly-codified troupe member Algie Wilkes (Eugene Frances) opts to ask his millionaire father for the funds. (On top of being another unique new persona for the group, Algie’s wealth I imagine shall be the impetus for more plots than would otherwise be available.) And because Mr. Wilkes himself is an inveterate gambling addict, he is all too pleased to back a good thing like that nag.
Now training down at the tracks for the big race, Muggs sucks. He cannot ride for squat, not surprising considering he is both the fattest and most cowardly of all the East Side Kids. Really, it’s as though he talked a big game of becoming a jockey, without ever having done any, you know, research. …I’ve known guys like this, determined to start an “Internet company,” but with 0 understanding of what one is. And because amidst the comedy and hijinks, there must be a dramatic arc for Muggs, here it is – He starts to doubt his, uh, jockularity.
The day of the race comes, as Knuckles hears the cooing siren call of legalized gambling. His girlfriend Louise forbids it, and – Hey! Boys of the City showed Knuckles hooking up with a gal named Louise, and movies like this never maintain continuity with their Bond girls! (Never mind it’s a different actress today, I assume it’s the same “character.” Continuity, man!)
Anyway, Bluenight’s heat starts, Muggs dwarfing all the other Lilliputian jockeys. Muggs freaks over Bluenight’s velocity, totally misunderstanding the concept of horse racing, and forces the horse to slow down. Not only does Bluenight lose, but she loses by several lengths. Now that is an unexpected plot development, except 35 minutes in is too soon for a happy ending. But it’s good for Muggs’ story. And Bluenight still impressed the right people, as Mr. Wilkes is convinced, with the right rider, that horse could be a champ.
Negotiations take place between Wilkes and Ben, this offer being Ben’s final chance at glory in this life. A compromise is made, and a professional trainer brought in, even while Muggs remains the jerky jockey. So Muggs trains and trains, with an attitude more befitting a mule than a horse. At least Bluenight’s worth is proved further, as she breaks the course record – with a different rider…
Now, we’re already nearing the very end of this movie, partly because it is short (as are all of Monogram’s cost-cutting “motion pictures”), and partly because of my stated apathy towards it. Really, it’s wholly competent, dramatically comprehensible, but that’s it. Even Ben is notable, the best thing about it, but by dint of avoiding offensiveness, not for adding anything substantial.
Anyway, there turn out at the end to be bad guys, and – [sigh] – they burn down this stable. Their reasoning is clear enough, an effort to do in Bluenight, but it is as uninspiring as anything. As it goes, Muggs saves both Ben and the horse. Ben is crippled, and may even die if his horse doesn’t win tomorrow. This is a rather oddball assertion on some anonymous East Side Kid’s part. And now, Muggs’ decision…He could race, pursue his idiotic dream, or force another jockey to take his place, as we all know he will.
So that other jockey races Bluenight, Bluenight wins, and the movie literally ends 2 seconds later.
Well…that monkey is off my back. I can only hope the following East Side Kids films get either better or worse – something I can respond to. Otherwise…
Related posts:
• No. 1 East Side Kids (1940)
• No. 2 Boys of the City (1940)
• No. 4 Pride of the Bowery (1940)
• No. 5 Flying Wild (1941)
• No. 6 Bowery Blitzkrieg (1941)
• No. 7 Spooks Run Wild (1941)
• No. 8 Mr. Wise Guy (1942)
• No. 9 Let's Get Tough! (1942)
• No. 10 Smart Alecks (1942)
• No. 11 'Neath Brooklyn Bridge (1942)
• No. 12 Kid Dynamite (1942)
• No. 13 Clancy Street Boys (1943)
• No. 14 Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
• No. 16 Million Dollar Kid (1944)
No comments:
Post a Comment