Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947) User Reviews (17)

What Bowery Boy refuses a mysterious woman?

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 12 December 2015]

With a plot gimmick borrowed from the Bob Hope classic My Favorite Brunette, the Bowery Boys get launched into the detective business in Hard Boiled Mahoney.

If you remember Alan Ladd has a cameo appearance in the Hope film and Hope is minding the office when he's hired for a case. Here Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are trying to get some money owed to Sach by a detective who is out. A mysterious woman comes in to hire said detective to find her sister and what self respecting Bowery Boy ever could refuse a mysterious woman?

There's a little more plot than usual in this Bowery Boy film and you will enjoy the climax involving the boys in eluding the bad guys taking up the guises of that band of professors from Ball Of Fire and going on an Information Please type show with Byron Foulger as the Clifton Fadiman type host. Even without most of today's audience knowing about Information Please or Clifton Fadiman it can still be enjoyed.

Guaranteed laughs from Hard Boiled Mahoney.

"In order to be a real detective you gotta have a deductible mind. You gotta have the power of treason!"

[utgard14 · 7/10 · 17 December 2015]

The Bowery Boys try their hand at detective work in this breezy sixth entry in the Monogram series. Slip Mahoney is mistaken for a private detective and, naturally, uses it to his advantage to try and earn fifty bucks investigating a missing girl. With help from his friends, of course. It's a good one with hilarious malapropisms from Leo Gorcey, rubberfacing goofiness from Huntz Hall, and wacky support from Bobby Jordan, William Benedict, and David Gorcey. Gabriel Dell is also part of the gang, taking a part in the slapstick more than he has been in the series so far, where he's mostly been playing it straight. Teala Loring and Patti Brill provide the pretty. Brill also has a funny bit at the end. Bernard Gorcey is fun as Louie the Sweet Shop owner. I never get tired of the Bowery Boys, particularly Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall. I'm not sure what some other reviewers were complaining about. I thought this one was very funny with a quick pace and many great lines. Love the trivia contest bit!

"She's lying, she's making up a bunch of lubrications!"

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 13 December 2015]

It was only two pictures earlier that Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) organized the Mahoney Extermonating Company (Slip's spelling, not mine), and already he's expanding his endeavors to form the Mahoney Detecting Corporation. At least in the prior story the Bowery Boys graduated from the College of Insect Extermination, in this one they'll just drive you buggy.

I got the distinct impression while watching this flick that the writers didn't know what it was supposed to be about. There's some kind of business about a letter being held for ransom that comes to naught, and when the Boys showed up as contestants on a quiz show, I began to wonder if I was suddenly watching a different movie than the one that started out. You know the gimmick is being stretched whenever one of these era flicks uses the old lights out trick, and having reached that point, the picture doesn't hesitate to use it.

But you now what the topper for me was? Anyone who's ever seen Leo Gorcey in action well knows his penchant for massacring the English language, which he does here with his usual subtle finesse. So I thought I was hearing things when he asked Selena Webster (Betty Compson) for the definition of the word 'extortion'. This intrigued me because on any other occasion, Slip would have considered all possible meanings and then come up on his own with the correct seclusion.

And some hard-boiled canaries.

[horn-5 · 14 April 2006]

Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall), Bobby (Bobby Jordan), Gabe (Gabriel Dell), Whitey (Billy Benedicy) and Chuck (David Gorcey)---the gang's all here---accidentally enter the detective business with the disappearance of a beautiful girl, Eleanor Williams (Teala Loring), as their first case to solve.

They are retained by Selena (Betty Compson), who says she is the missing girl's sister but, at this stage in her career, Betty Compson characters were sometimes less than truthful. The disappearance is doubly puzzling because Eleanor has just learned that her long-lost husband, Tom Williams (Bob Faust), is returning from South America. Slip and Company trace Eleanor to the apartment of Dr. Rolfe Carter (Pierre Watkin), to whom she first went when Tom was reported missing three years earlier. Slip witnesses the doctor's murder, but does not know who fired the fatal shot.

Slip and his friends learn that Dr. Carter (no relation to the Little Liver Pills guy)was a pseudo-psychic (there are real ones?), who was into blackmailing his clients. He is linked with syndicate-chief Armand (Dan Seymour).

The latter, and his henchies, knowing that Slip has information regarding Carter's murder, set out to kill the boys.

Patti Brill, as Slip's girl friend, doesn't hurt this one any, either. Monogram was very good at rounding up lovely little de-icers to populate their films.

Bowery Boys

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 30 September 2023]

Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) is unhappily unemployed. His friend Sach (Huntz Hall) shows up after working as a private eye. Sach hasn't been paid after getting fired. Slip takes him back to the office but nobody's there. A woman comes in looking for help and assumes Slip to be the private eye. She's looking for her missing sister Eleanor Williams and sends the boys to spiritualist Dr. Carter.

The Bowery Boys are doing stupid Bowery Boys stuff. It has all the moronic Bowery Boys comedy especially Sach. Fans will like it. Most other people will probably tolerate it. Some in the high brow crowd will look down on it. It's a Bowery Boys movie.

Sounds more like "Baloney" to me

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 11 April 2010]

***SPOILERS*** Slip and his Bowery Boys get themselves involved with this fortune teller ring when his friend Sach ends up getting fired from his job as as an assistant private investigator by his boss, who skipped town, Greg Grogan. Showing up at Grogan's office to get Sach his back pay Slip finds the door opened and Gorgan gone. Within minutes Selena Webster shows up with a $50.00 retainer to find her missing sister Eleanor not knowing that both Slip & Sach are just visitors not the persons who run the detective agency.

Taking on the case and the $50.00 Slip and the boys start to follow Dr. Rolfe Carter a psychic whom Selena suspects in her sisters disappearance. Trailing Dr.Carter to his home away from home at the Wentworth Arms Apartments Slip ends up finding Dr. Cater shot dead and him, after being knocked out cold by the killer, the prime suspect in Dr. Carter's murder! Slip also finds Selena's lost sister Eleanor in the building who claims that she's not related at all to her! In fact she doesn't even have a sister!

In trying to get to the bottom of this mystery Slip & Co. on a tip from gangster Lenny the Meatball end up tracking down master fortune teller Dr. Armard the master mind of the fortune teller ring who's been using his talents of telling fortunes to dig up very sensitive information from his clients, whom both Selena & Eleanor are, in order to blackmail them. In fact it was Eleanor's husband Tom who Dr. Armand and his hoods kidnapped when he was about to expose his fortune telling blackmail racket to the police!

The usual slap sticks you've learned to expect from Slip & Sach and the Bowery Boys who end up trapping Dr. Amand and his hoodlums at Louie's Sweet Shop with the help of Louie's waitress, and Slip's girlfriend, Alice who together with the police comes to their rescue. Before that Slip and the boys in trying to escape from the Dr. Armand's Mob busted into the Prof. Quizard Radio Quiz show by impersonating the members, after knocking the out and tying them up, of the biggest brain trust that the world, or Prof. Quizad, could assemble! Slip and the boys proved to be anything but a bunch of academic geniuses by not being able to come up with the answer to who the Washington Monument was named after? George Washington you dummies!

a typical bowery boys adventure

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 10 August 2020]

Relatively early in the Bowery Boys series of films. Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, and Leo's dad and brother of course, all meet up with trouble, with the usual mis-haps and word play. when a lady thinks her kid sister has been kidnapped, Slip and the guys decide to go into the detecting business. and naturally, they get caught up in a moidah. Fun Bonus: Dan Seymour as the evil Doctor Armand. you'll recognize his sultry, french accent from To Have and Have Not and Key Largo! scene stealer. and billy benedict was always the skinny sidekick in the 1930s and 1940s. he worked with Gorcey 34 times. this one is pretty good. the usual fare of bowery boys. getting in and out of trouble. Directed by Bill Beaudine, who had directed a TON of the bowery boys films.

Detective Story Send-up

[redryan64 · 7/10 · 25 January 2016]

FOLLOWING THE TRADITION and almost obligatory foraying into the realm of the Detective Story, THE BOWERY BOYS made their contribution to the comic parody of the genre. To be sure, this sort of a send-up had been done before. Its history dates back to the days of the Silents with the likes of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy. It continued with the advent of the "Talkies" with people like both the Brothers Ritz & Marx, the Stooges, Red Skelton and even Bob Hope.

IN TAKING THIS foray into these heretofore uncharted waters for the Bowery Boys series, all stops were pulled out. The story had the office of the gumshoe that would have doubled for that of either Sam Spade or Phillip Marlowe. A weeping and partially veiled, weepy female victim brings a sad story which is obviously not wholly the truth.

THE NOTION OF having Leo Gorcey's "Slip" Mahoney becoming the tough was not such a stretch. Anyone who's seen Leo's dramatic abilities as "Spit" in the film version of DEAD END certainly would not have been surprised. He possessed an intensity that was both totally believable and natural.

HOWEVER, WE DIGRESS, as we are supposed to be putting the comic aspects of the movie under a sort of microscope, OF COURSE, WE have rounding out the action sleuth spoofing from the boys (Bobby Jordan, Gabriel Dell, David Gorcey). Proper and atmospheric characters provided by the likes of Pierre Watkin, Dan Seymour, Byron Folger and Noble Johnson provide the necessary mysterious and menacing characters befitting a Dashell Hammitt or Raymond Chandler story.

OH, DEAR ME! How could we forget the 'subtle' performance of Huntz Hall, comic relief supreme. In this outing he sports a calabash pipe and a deerstalker hat. Now, Schultz, who do you suppose that he was lampooning here? No Schultz, Basil Rathbone is incorrect!

Gumshoe Gorcey

[wes-connors · 4/10 · 17 April 2010]

At the "Elite Detective Agency" hoping to collect some much needed funds, "The Bowery Boys" leader Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) and "sidekick for years" Huntz Hall (as Sach) are mistaken for agency detectives. Mr. Gorcey accepts a $50 retainer from Betty Compson (as Selena Webster) to help find her attractive younger "sister." Bobby Jordan (as Bobby), Gabriel Dell (as Gabe), William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), and David Gorcey (as Chuck) are deputized as Gorcey's private dicks. After a few pratfalls, the gang locates Teala Loring (as Eleanor Williams), but she says she's not Ms. Compson's sister.

This series entry is so loosely plotted, you tend to forget what is going on, exactly. The cast is obviously not being used well. Character actor and frequent TV guest star Byron Foulger (as Professor Quizard) enlivens a segment. Points of interest... prematurely nearing the end of her career, Betty Compson was a major film star for a decade, beginning with "The Miracle Man" (1919). Hall says "Sach" was named after the character's "Aunt Satchel". And, irregular regular Dell uncharacteristically appears as a nearsighted addition to the increasingly wallpaper-like, underused supporting "Bowery Boys".

**** Hard Boiled Mahoney (4/26/47) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Betty Compson, Teala Loring

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947) **

[JoeKarlosi · 5/10 · 4 August 2004]

"In order to be a detective ya gotta have a deductible mind. Ya gotta have the power of treason."

Not one of the more agreeable Bowery Boys movies for me. The plot is bungled as Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) takes it upon himself to become a self-made private eye attempting to find a missing woman. Not much humor to howl about in the mix. Interesting note: Gabriel Dell, who as far as I've known up till this viewing had usually played the straight man against all the insanity, actually dons a pair of geeky glasses as one of the zanies in the group this time around. He looks completely forced and out of his element.

Never seen a Bowery Boy movie? Start with this one.

[Sycotron · 10/10 · 4 April 1999]

This one moves along nicely and features a well thought out script. Everybody seems to have a reason for doing what they do and are not just put there at the convenience of the story. The scene at the radio show is a highlight of why these boys are so fondly remembered.

Testing the water & not sure about the Bowery Boys

[gullwing592003 · 1/10 · 21 October 2012]

I've always been a big fan of Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall in the Dead End Kids & East Side Kids series since 1976. Along with leader Billy Halop (initially in the Dead End Kids series ) these movies were intense social commentaries laced with comedy but with serious & realistic themes that usually delivered a message that's still relevant & has stood the test of time & has endured through the ages.

The gang were tough juvenile delinquents & street fighting mug's constantly getting into trouble with the law & in & out of reform schools in classic films like "Dead End", "Crime School", "Angels With Dirty Faces", "They Made Me A Criminal" & "Hell's Kitchen" from 1937 to 1939 before the group subdivided & splintered off into the Little Tough Guys for Universal & the East Side Kids for Monogram. There was usually a major star in the Samuel Goldwyn & Warner Bros films like Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney & John Garfield. Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall were natural & convincing as nasty violent arrogant tough guys with a sense of humor in the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids films.

2 days ago was the first time I watched a few Bowery Boys flicks & judging from what I saw I haven't been missing much with such titles as "Blues Busters", "Crashing Las Vegas", "Ghost Chasers" & "Feuding Fools" & maybe I haven't seen enough of this ludicrous series but from what I have seen I'm not too impressed & it just looks like garbage to me & I can't understand why Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall would degenerate to this kind of silly nincompoop nonsense & Tom Foolery. I think they deserved much better than this & I thought what a waste of their talents.

The Bowery Boys essentially resemble & look like cheap imitations of Abbott & Costello, Laurel & Hardy, 3 Stooges & Jackie Gleason. They were no longer kids by this point & it was all too obvious that Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall had shed their tough image & had sold out & were just cashing in & jumping on the "slapstick comedy" bandwagon. It looks forced & contrived seeing Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall trying too hard to be what they're not. They didn't start out this way & I think they could've chosen a better direction than this. Leo Gorcey & Huntz Hall were more convincing & real as tough guys serious but funny. The Bowery Boys series is not worth buying for my money I like their earlier series & tough image better.

Sach and the Chief -- At it again!

[lzf0 · 10 April 2010]

Even though the story of this film is serious, we are witnessing the evolution of the Bowery Boys. Gorcey and Hall are becoming comic actors. After their debut in "Dead End", the kids appeared at Warners in serious crime melodramas. By the end of their Warners' tenure, they became respectable. The early Monogram East Side Kids films and the Universal Dead End Kids films had them in teary melodramas, where they were supposed to provide comic relief.

By the time they became the Bowery Boys, the comedy was beginning to overshadow the melodrama. "Hard Boiled Mahoney" is still an over-plotted crime melodrama, but the comedy of Gorcey and Hall was beginning to take center stage. Hall now refers to Gorcey as "Chief" more often than not, and Gorcey hits Hall with his hat constantly. The story still centers as Gorcey, as most of the previous efforts had, but Hall is almost his equal. Unfortunately, the other boys suffer because of this. Jordan was terrific as the leading man in the early East Side films, but he has been relegated to background boy. What a shame! Billy Benedict had some good moments in the past and will have some good moments in future films, but he is definitely subordinate to Leo and Huntz. David Gorcey was always a background boy. Surprisingly, Gabe Dell is just one of the gang in this picture. He had had that role in the Warners and Universal series, but even in the early Monogram films he had varied roles. After this point, Dell would play the mature member of the gang, sometimes on the right side of the law and sometimes on the wrong side of the law. The character he plays here is reminiscent of the one he played in the East Side film "Come Out Fighting". He is a bi-speckled stooge.

This is not a bad Bowery Boys film, but Ed Bernds was really needed to later turn Gorcey and Hall into comedy stars.

Shirley, they can't be serious!

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 29 November 2015]

Yes, the Bowery Boys crack down on the malapropisms here in one of their more plot driven entries. Lacking in the comedy that made the 11 year series more tolerable, this one is more of a fast-talking mystery. Yet, there are some amusing moments, but it appears that the writers diluted the delightfully dumb wise- cracks and raised the bar on action. The comic highlight occurs when the gang pretend to be highly regarded college professors.

The basic premise has the idle gang following in Huntz Hall's footsteps by getting involved in his newly formed detective agency. Of course, Leo Gorcey ends up taking over and turns the case of searching for a missing beauty upside down. Those expecting a riotous collection of fractured English will be disappointed. This is closer to what they did as the East Side Kids rather than the well loved comedies that concluded their careers. Betty Compson, an early talkies star, is featured in a major part as the salty client who hires them.

Rather typical for the series.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 23 March 2016]

Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey) is mistaken for an honest to goodness private detective and a lady asks him to find her lost sister. The trail leads to a phony psychic and it's soon apparent that this man, Dr. Carter, is a mobster with plenty of henchmen ready to kill Slip and the gang. Not surprisingly, much of the final half of the film involves these nasties chasing the gang. The highlight during this portion was when these six idiots appear on a game show, Dr. Quizard, and are thought to be geniuses in their respective fields. Overall, this film is exactly what you'd expect from a film in the series...corny jokes, Louie loaning the boys money and the gang managing to somehow survive and win the day by the end of the film. Not what anyone would call great entertainment but modestly entertaining. If you love these films, you'll like this one and if you hate them, it won't change your mind.

A BOWERY BOYS FILM NOIR? MUST SEE.

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 26 September 2023]

You had to give the writers an "A" for effort as they obviously followed the trend. Film noirs were hot at the time and why not put the Bowery Boys in their own version of THE BIG SLEEP or something, like that?

HARD BOILED MAHONEY is campy stuff and well done, again thanks to the direction of William Beaudine, the man behind the series. Slip and Sach get caught up with the atypical mystery woman (played by veteran screen actress Betty Compson) who is looking for her missing sister all tied to a blackmailing scheme.

This film is very atmospheric, replete with shadows, sinister types and snappy dialogue. It's also a pretty good semi-drama as Slip is actually being hunted down by some nefarious killers. Of course, the gags run rampant; one of the best has the guys crashing a radio quiz show (to escape the goons with guns) and making a mess of the procedings, answering questions with all kind of goofy answers. Long time character actor Byron Foulger plays the exasperated quiz host.

Best line department. Foulger reads a commercial about cough syrup. "My husband doesn't cough anymore. Why?" To which Sach replies, "He's dead!" The audience applauds!

Old favorite Dan Seymour is perfect as a mystic (complete with turbin) who rivals Leo Gorcey in scene stealing! Seymour plays Armand who is connected to the mystery and makes it tough going for the gang. Slip has a great scene with Armand's secretary who wants CASH up front. "Good thing I didn't want to see him yesterday," he says, "because I don't think I could afford it!"

Interestingly, this film has been hailed by French film cinema buffs, who claim Monogram Pictures was an integral part in the 40s noir cycle.

Accliamed French director Francois Truffaut praised the studio for turning out black and white films that were actually mini classics, this including the CHARLIE CHAN series. One thing for certain, they are still around. There's a definite sentimentality attached to these B films.

Remastered by Warner Brothers and in box sets, containing about 8 films each and special thanks to TCM for rerunning the BOWERY BOYS.

Bowery Boys #6

[Michael_Elliott · 11 April 2010]

Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Weak sixth entry in the Bowery Boys series has Slip (Leo Gorcey) pretending to be a detective and getting hired to locate a missing girl. Soon him and the gang are in over their heads as they must go up against a psychic who holds a lot more secrets than the boys realize. This here is (so far) the weakest of the series as we get very few laughs and enough bad plot for three different movies. There's no question that this here is a take off on the film noir genre that was big at the time but the screenplay is so lazy that we don't get any good jokes aimed at the genre and even the main cast members seem to be overlooked. The biggest problem here is the screenplay because there aren't very many good jokes written. The type of humor they go for here is incredibly lazy and the perfect example of this is a scene where Sach is told to "hold onto your hat" until the boys can meet up with him. The joke? Sach holds onto his hat until they arrive. The film is all over the place and there's way too much attempted plot. There are a few twist and turns but everything is so muddy that you really won't care about the actual mystery going on. The film actually runs out of steam around the thirty-minute mark and it's pretty bad when it's hard to get through 63-minutes. It seems even the actors are bored here as Gorcey doesn't have any energy and even his line-delivery seems to be slow as if he was wishing to be somewhere else. Huntz Hall is also pretty quiet here and the rest of the boys are so far in the background that they might not have even been in the picture (especially the wasted Bobby Jordan). In the end, the lack of laughs really kill this one and the sluggish running time doesn't help matters.