JohnHowardReid Beautifully photographed by Marcel Le Picard, but otherwise this one comes across as a very routine Bowery Boys entry. As usual, at this stage of the series, we are treated to a massive amount of weak jokes and lots of other time-wasting dialogue. Leo Gorcey is forced to carry much of the film, and he does this duty very poorly by making his tepid material even more wearisome by his deliberately heavy-handed approach. Fortunately, the other players are a bit more skillful. In fact, it's real nice – if a little disheartening – to see people we really like such as Ted de Corsia and Allen Jenkins reduced to accepting roles in a "B" picture like this one. Unfortunately, William Beaudine's direction doesn't help much. He tends to make tepid material even more wearisome by his generally heavy-handed approach.

utgard14 The twenty-fourth Bowery Boys movie has the boys going to collect a debt for Louie and instead getting a race horse, which leads to them getting mixed up with gangsters. They were always mixed up with gangsters, it seems. A funny entry in the series with an increased amount of screen time for the always entertaining Bernard Gorcey as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. His scenes are among the movie's highlights. Leo Gorcey's malapropisms and Huntz Hall's rubberfaced idiocy provide the usual laughs. David Gorcey (now going by David Condon) hangs around in the background rarely speaking. Bennie Bartlett returns to playing Butch after a two-year absence. This is the last Bowery Boys film for William "Whitey" Benedict, who had been with the boys since the Little Tough Guys and East Side Kids days. Allen Jenkins is fun in a supporting role, his second consecutive Bowery Boys film (playing a different character than last time). Lovely Gloria Saunders plays the obligatory pretty girl (every movie in the series seemed to have one). Ted de Corsia is good as the main heavy. The plot is familiar but it doesn't hurt the picture much. The things that work well here (Slip, Sach, Louie) are what I enjoy most about the series.

classicsoncall Before the Bowery Boys came on the scene they were known as the East Side Kids. The East Siders had a horse racing story of their own in "That Gang of Mine" from 1940, which I recommend for it's respectful handling of a black/white racial issue that's presented in the story. Leo Gorcey was known as Muggs Maloney in that one, and the picture ends with a racing photo finish like this one with some neat twists along the way.With this story you'll have to pay attention or you'll get dizzy with a horse switcheroo the Boys try to pull off against a gang run by a hoodlum known as Duke (Ted de Corsia). Duke's top henchman is Weepin' Willie, portrayed by veteran character actor Allen Jenkins. I almost feel sorry for Jenkins appearing in these later Bowery Boy flicks after supporting caliber actors like Jimmy Cagney in the Thirties. He also played a hapless seaman in the Bowery film "Let's Go Navy!".The story starts out with ice cream shop owner Louie Dumbrowsky (Bernard Gorcey) failing to collect on a two year old debt owed by Sunnybrook Riding and Hunting Club owner Flynn (Tim Ryan). Say, is it my imagination or is the layout of Louie's Sweet Shop different from picture to picture. I've wondered about this a while, I don't think Louie could afford a remodel between movies. Anyway, Flynn has an attractive daughter Terry (Gloria Saunders) who along with her father confound the Boys with a 'My Girl' gimmick before they figure out that they're referring to a horse. It reminded me of something Abbott and Costello would try to pull off.By the time we get to the horse race that caps the story, I'm pretty sure everyone involved must have been pretty confused because even though My Girl is introduced over the loudspeaker as ridden by Horace Debussy Jones (Huntz Hall), the bad guys still think their horse in the race is the real deal. My Girl wins it by a nose, but wouldn't it have been cool if the film makers had found a way to make it look like Sach's nose?

Michael_Elliott Crazy Over Horses (1951)** (out of 4)Rather bland entry in the series has the Louie being owed money by an old friend so he sends the boys out to collect but instead of cash they come back with a horse. It turns out this is a very special horse as gangsters plan on replacing it with a lookalike so that they can have the odds go up on a bad horse and then they'll race the quick one. Number twenty-four (if you're still counting) isn't all that memorable as we get a rather familiar story of the boys getting involved with a crooked scam and nothing here is one bit original or and we've seen it countless times before. The entire movie just had a very lazy feel to it as if everyone involved knew they weren't doing anything overly special and they just mailed everything in. The only sequence that comes off mildly entertaining is one where the boys charge into Louie's restaurant thinking that he has turned the horse into hamburger and what happens to the customer inside the store is pretty funny. Outside of that this is pretty weak all around. The most surprising thing is that the cast pretty much just sleepwalks through things. Leo Gorcey is once again back as Slip but he appears to be bored and many of his mixed up words simply aren't funny or too cleaver here. Huntz Hall continues to grow dumber and dumber but the screenplay really doesn't do him any favors. There's one interesting scene where Gorcey pretty much sends him packing but nothing ever really comes of it. The horse racing scenes are all boring as the supporting cast doesn't help much either and that includes Allen Jenkins in his supporting role. Heck, even Bernard Gorcey comes off rather tame this time out.