Leo Gorcey was 37 and Huntz Hall was 34 when this movie, in which they play teenagers, was made, but they actually look like they're in their 50s. They look like absolute dogshit.
Slip, Sach and the rest of the Bowery Boys enter a haunted house, where they engage in slapstick with a gorilla, a robot and a vampire
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The debate has raged for decades. Which is the greatest cinematic achievement: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters? While most film scholars make a case, admittedly strong, for the former, I contend that the latter has made a greater impact on both the cinematic and sociological levels. While A&C face some dangers in their film, can these spots of bother match what the boys encounter in BBMM? Who among us has not shivered at the thought of facing a hungry tree monster? And why are the boys risking their lives—and by implication the survival of civilization itself—to find a playing field for the children in their neighborhood. Does anything A&C ever do have such socioeconomic ramifications, much less display such humanitarianism?The film’s Freudian implications are too numerous to articulate. Let’s just mention that when Laura Mason’s Francine Gravesend observes of Slip and Sach, “They’re virile, red-blooded boys,” an erotic element missing from the A&C films is introduced. See my article “Sex Beyond the Sweet Shop” for a more detailed analysis.Finally, as Col. Sir Sacheverell St. John Swithin-Smythe (MA, OBE, SOB) summarizes so succinctly in his scintillating study Slip, Sach, and Semiotics (East Grinsted: Cat Lovers’ Press, 1984), “It’s a pip.”Watched on TCM. First seen in theater in Lanett, AL. Also seen in my dreams.
The 34th entry in the interminable Bowery Boy series features a number of elements which would ordinarily float my horror/comedy boat: • A proto-Addams family unit called The Gravesends, featuring two mad scientists, a sexy female vampire, a cadaverous butler, and Grandma Walton • Shrunken heads • Paul Wexler, who played a murderous Jivaro tribesman with his lips sown gruesomely together in a film about shrunken heads (The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake), tackling the Lurch role • A primary mad scientist (John Dehner) who clearly served as the role model for MST3K's Dr. Clayton Forrester • A giant man-eating plant (Tabanga!) • A cheap-ass robot made out of dryer hoses and cardboard boxes • A guy in a gorilla suit who's disappointingly not Ray "Crash" Corrigan • Huntz Hall doing his finest impersonation of Cheap Trick's guitarist, Rick Nielsen • Leo Gorcey uttering a non-stop stream of malapropisms • My main man Ed Bernds in the director's chairAt a runtime barely over an hour, you'd think an entertainment juggernaut that impressive couldn't possibly wear out it's welcome.But you'd be very, very wrong.
Common questions
What is The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters about?+
Slip, Sach and the Bowery Boys accidentally enter a spooky house owned by a family of mad scientists where they encounter a robot, a gorilla, and a vampire.
Who directed The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters?+
The film was directed by Edward Bernds in 1954, a veteran filmmaker known for his work on fast-paced comedy shorts and B-features.
Is The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters part of a series?+
Full schedule on Mood.
