Angels' Alley

source: Angels' Alley

Moviecut—Angels' Alley

Angels' Alley

A comedy with the Bowery Boys that had too much emotion for the normal goofiness.

Slip gets stood up on a date. His cousin Jimmy moves in with the family after getting out of prison. Gangster Tony Locarno is recruiting young hoodlums and working the system. Slip, Sach, and their friend Father O'Hanlon oppose him. Jimmy falls in with Locarno and Slip intends to stop him. The Bowery Boys are trying to be more serious and more sincere. It's not their strong suit. It's a melodrama and a tearjerker in between Sach doing his comedic bits. Maybe they were looking for a change of pace. It's a curveball and almost gets me out. It has its merit, and the boys can try. It's not their standard fare.

As if the world did not have enough troubles, the English language was sent back a few generations as Leo Gorcey acquired an understudy in diction and grammar in Angels' Alley. Other than that, this film takes a more serious tone than most of the Bowery Boys features. Young Thomas Menzies has adopted Gorcey as a hero and has taken to wearing the creased old fedora like him and using the big words without quite knowing the meaning. It's the best thing about Angels' Alley. Another actor who played troubled city kids, Frankie Darro, plays Leo Gorcey's cousin just released from prison. Immediately he gets tied up with the local gangster Nestor Paiva. It's up to the Bowery Boys to get the whole situation straightened. This film did miss Bernard Gorcey as Louie Dombrowski, proprietor of Louie's sweetshop and hangout for Leo, Huntz Hall and the rest. Nice film, but not in the usual Bowery Boys spirit.