1949 Directed by Reginald Le Borg
The boys are working at the local boxing arena where their friend, Jimmy Higgins, is boxing. During a crooked match Jimmy is killed. The boys seek out his older brother, Johnny, a former boxer who gave up the sport rather than go crooked, and help train him to get back in the ring. They try to get him a shot at the title, and when they do the same crooked gangsters that were behind Jimmy's death try to get Johnny to take a dive.
USA
USA
In the East Coast branches of my family tree, fathers are always called Pop. This year, one of the gifts that I bought my Pop for Father's Day was The Bowery Boys: Volume One, a twelve-DVD set of the group's productions for Monogram Pictures. I knew he would enjoy that, given that he was born in 1935 and raised on the Lower East Side, so he's always the ideal audience for any chapter of this long-running series. For my part, I'm easily swayed by these films too, although my interest generally depends on the supporting roles. Here, Fighting Fools succeeds to a large degree by featuring two of my most beloved character actors, Frankie Darro and Lyle Talbot.
Talbot plays…
When I die, please do not have Slip Mahoney be the one to deliver the sad news to my doting mother.
As serious you can take a boxing tragedy with the Bowery Boys involved. Super entertaining, even if I wouldn't want these boys bringing a message of death. Frankie Darro was put to good use here. His career had been on a terrible down-slide since the war, bit he looked as washed-up as he needed for a boxing comeback. And it must have been wonderful for Leo Gorcey to work with his father so much with with this long-lasting film series. Bernard Gorcey was such a character, and watching Leo and Bernard have a "serious" conversation, two peas in a pod, can't help bring a smile.
Interesting that there is a fairly serious narrative about boxing beneath this Bowery Boys comedy, with good support from Frankie Darro and Lyle Talbot. One of the better films of the series.
Fighting Fools startled me at first, as it opens with a boxer being killed in the ring, and Slip and Sach then having to inform the late boxer's mother! (Gorcey and Hall acquit themselves well in this dark scene, it should be noted.) This setup is much more serious than any other Bowery Boys entry I've watched to date, and I wondered if perhaps the producers weren't testing a new approach.
Never fear. Once the scenario is established, it's back to familiar territory, as Slip signs on as manager for the deceased boxer's brother. Hijinks ensue as gangsters are battled (the Boys battled mobsters so many times, J. Edgar Hoover should have hired them).
Entertaining all the way through, and one of the series' best.
The tonal mismatches here really didn't do this any favors, as this basically starts with someone being killed and then the try to hand that story off to the Bowery Boys, and it feels like the whole middle chunk is just filling time until this reaches the end and tries to get gritty again with the underbelly of boxing. It doesn't work for me.
The Bowery Boys get jobs as vendors in the arena where their buddy Jimmy Higgins (Robert Wolcott) is boxing against Joey Prince (Bill Cartledge). Jimmy is killed in the ring, so to raise money for his destitute mother (Dorothy Vaughan), Slip (Leo Gorcey) organizes a comeback for his ex-fighter brother Johnny (Frankie Darro). As mandated in every boxing picture of the 1940s, the mob interferes in the form of crooked gambler Blinky Harris (Lyle Talbot) and his boys.
As was increasingly the case in this Monogram series, FIGHTING FOOLS mixes B-grade melodrama with the slapstick to give the story more heft. Darro carries the main character arc, ranging from tragic drunk to triumphant champion. Talbot, soon to be cinema’s first…
A standard boxing drama with the Bowery Boys inserted into it. Not a very good boxing movie, and not a very funny Bowery Boys movie.
Decent entry in the Bowery Boys series has former boxer Johnny Higgins (Frankie Darro) trying to make a comeback after his kid brother was killed in the ring. Along with the help of Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall), Higgins tries to shine the spotlight on a criminal (Lyle Talbot) who is fixing matches.
The thirteenth film in the series isn't a great one but it's mildly entertaining and features some nice drama and a couple good laughs. Once again I think the film benefits greatly from director Le Borg as he makes for a lot better pacing and gives the film an overall better look. This is still a low-budget movie but Le Borg at least makes it…
