Rather a curious entry in the series, this one is well-produced, and provides the boys, particularly charismatic Gorcey, with witty lines and snappy comebacks, but has a plot with gaping continuity holes and some very odd characters indeed. In fact, the peculiar casting of Billy Gilbert as a comic crook tends to throw the plot off balance. Other oddities: Douglas Fowley, normally the most sadistic of villains, as the clean-cut hero; "Big Boy" Williams, the perennial over-enthusiastic comic sidekick, here much more subdued as a gangster; Gabriel Dell, cast not as a fellow Kid, but as an enemy; Warren Hymer, a sort of slightly less stupid straight man for Gilbert; silent star Jack Mulhall as the incredibly lax, soft-hearted reformatory warden; Mickey Rooney's pal, Sid Miller, in a typical role on the sidelines in which he looks out of place; and Dick Ryan, an unknown actor to me, but giving (next to Leo Gorcey's), the film's most impressive performance as a heartily sadistic guard. The scene in which he lays into Leo with his shoe, slapping him across the face, knocking him senseless and puncturing his neck, is the searing stuff of Hell's Kitchen, a noirish re-visit that doesn't seem so incongruous here because of this movie's generally downbeat air.
Review of Mr. Wise Guy
Mr. Wise Guy
(1942)
Recommended -- But Not to People Who Like the Series!
22 July 2008
Warning: Spoilers