The “Poverty Row Picture Show” is an ongoing series exploring the horror films of Monogram Pictures, Republic Pictures, and PRC, known as the “poverty row” movie studios of Hollywood’s Studio Era. Poverty Row movies were marked by limited budgets, outlandish concepts, and questionable performances. While not great, there remains an everlasting charm with enough star wattage – Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, and others – to keep you coming back. As they say, to be in a Poverty Row picture, your career was either moving up or going down!
The second installment of Monogram’s East Side Kids series, and the first of their horror comedies. The gang are arrested for busting a fire hydrant (and physically assaulting a street vendor) and are given a trip to the country as an alternative to jail time. Despite their reluctance, the street urchins opt for the trip. Along the way, their car suffers a flat and they are offered lodging in an old manor by a crooked judge who is hiding out from gangsters bent on bumping him off. The stage is set for subsequent spookiness as the gang bumbles their way through an old fashioned haunted-house-whodunnit.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Screenplay: William Lively
Producers: Sam Katzman
Cinematography: Harvey Gould, Robert E. Cline
Editing: Carl Pierson
Music: Lew Porter (composer)
Select Cast: Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Hal E. Chester, Frankie Burke, Vince Barnett, Inna Gest, Dave O’Brien, Sunshine Sammy Morrison, Minerva Urecal, David Gorcey
Runtime: 68 minutes
Country of Origin: USA
Release: July 15, 1940. Monogram Pictures; Sam Katzman Productions
Despite the film’s limited budget, it is helmed by Joseph H. Lewis in an early gig (Lewis would later make a name for himself in noirs of the time, notably Gun Crazy [1950]). Lewis’s fingerprints are seen in several stylish shots – a camera zooms in on the imposing housemaid; a camera tracks through a wall; and that same housemaid (Monogram staple Minerva Urecal) is at times shot with a jarring upwards angle. But those flourishes are undermined by glaring technical errors, like a studio light switching on a beat after a candle’s been lit!
Technical challenges aside, the ensemble is equally uneven. The East Side Kids (the Monogram incarnation of a gang of boys known as various times as the Dead End Kids, the Tough Little Guys, and the Bowery Boys) comprised of nine tenement-dwelling New York City teenagers. However, the only ones who seemingly matter are the leaders Muggs (Leo Gorcey), Danny (Bobby Jordan), and the only African American of the troupe – Scruno (Ernest Morrison); and Scruno only matters because of his comedic role as the butt of several heinously racist jokes. Regrettably, this is not an overstatement. While the other kids are never mean to Scruno, they have no reservations calling him “boy”. More damningly, the writer (William Lively) serves up two appalling “jokes”, including a scene in which Scruno devours a watermelon with an absurdity better suited to Antebellum minstrel shows than 1940s Hollywood. Therefore, despite some genuine chemistry amongst the cast (Gorcey and Jordan prove their worth as leads actors), the treatment of Scruno is too much to bear.
Unfortunately, that is the lasting impression of Boys of the City (released in the northeast as The Ghost Creeps): a B-movie offering some amusing horror comedy, from a director of later note, but nevertheless unwatchable due to the gleeful portrayal of Black stereotypes, that continue to harm Black Americans in the United States.
As the first film in Camp Kaiju’s “Poverty Row Picture Show”, Boys of the City, offers a richly complicated conversation around moviemaking at this time (considering the good and the bad!). As we continue the series, have we started on an impossibly high note? Will additional East End Kids pictures be just as racist? We will certainly find out as we move through the fascinating quagmire of Poverty Row horror films of the 1940s.
Next time? The Ape, starring Boris Karloff from Monogram!
Don’t miss the next review – enter your email here!
And follow CAMP KAIJU wherever you podcast!
Written by Vincent S. Hannam | Producer, writer, and co-host of Camp Kaiju: Monster Movie Podcast. A life long fan of genre movies, he channels this passion into podcasting and playwriting. His plays Frankenstein and Sharknami: The Musical? have been performed around the country. More info at www.vincenthannam.com
Camp Kaiju 