Let's Get Tough! (1942) User Reviews

"We wanna knock off about a million Japs!"

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 16 November 2007]

The East Side Kids made a number of movies to inspire patriotism for the war effort during World War II. "Let's Get Tough" gets a bit muddled in the execution as it tries to portray Danny's (Bobby Jordan) older brother as a former GI who's discharged from the service for subversive activity, namely spying for the Japanese and the Nazis. Story continuity didn't seem to rely on much believability with these films, as a newspaper headline and story indicates that Phil Connors (Tom Brown) was a saboteur. Later in the picture it's revealed that he was really infiltrating the secret Black Dragon Society, but it made me wonder how the ruse could have been pulled off for real. I suppose it could have worked, but you would have to have a lot of authorities in on it, and probably a miracle to pull it off.

There's also the question of the East Siders pelting shopkeeper Chino believing him to be Japanese, yet later they apologize to Mrs. Chino in a way that makes it seem that they've known each other a long time. It just seemed to create a kind of disconnect from reality in the story; why would the boys suddenly turn on Chino if they knew him as a regular from the neighborhood?

As a fan of the East Side Kids, I'm curious why Gabriel Dell wound up playing the German Heinbach in the story instead of being part of the gang. This kind of thing happened every now and then, and as a kid watching these movies it drove me crazy. It also bothered me that the core group of East Siders sometimes had different names from picture to picture, but looking back on that time, it doesn't seem like such a big deal now.

But at least the boys wind up heroes for breaking up a Japanese spy ring, even if they weren't old enough to join the military. What a difference a year makes though. In 1943's "Kid Dynamite", Danny, Muggs and Glimpy show up at the end of the picture, each in a uniform from a different branch of the service!

Japs and Germans, Oh My!!

[Spuzzlightyear · 4/10 · 6 September 2005]

Let's Get Tough is one of those movies that people probably regret years later that they made. Full of awful racist Jap talk and jokes, this East End Kids story details how the kids want to join the military to defeat the Japs. Since they're too young, they decide to clean the town out of those dastardly Japs. They find one, throw fruit at it (without anyone doing anything to stop them) and he pulls a short sword out to menace them! The cops say to stop annoying him! He's only Chinese! He's on our side! When the kids go back to apologize, the Chinese man's dead! It's all part of this huge Jap and German Spy ring! The kids see to it that this is stopped At All Costs! I'm sure all of this was fine when it was made (1942) but viewed now, you realize of course, that this is clearly a product of it's time. Full of stereotypes, German and Japanese. Funny how the East End Kids have a black kid in the group, and he's not spared either. Gee whiz.

Let's Get Tough! was an enjoyable East Side Kids flick even with the jingoistic elements

[tavm · 6/10 · 29 June 2015]

Made after Pearl Harbor, the East Side Kids try to join the various military branches but are rejected as too young. So they harass someone who they think is a Jap but are later told he was actually Chinese. That guy later gets killed for real which then leads them to a Jap-Nazi spy ring. I'll stop there and just say that this was very obviously a product of its time and should be taken as such for anyone watching this today. At least the boys apologize when they find out so there's that. There's still some fun scenes like when they go to Huntz Hall's mom's apartment and make a mess of the dinner when they spot a fire on the stove and there's an exciting chase at the end. So on that note, Let's Get Tough! is worth a look for anyone interested in these series entries of the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys.

Fair East Side Kids Material, Of Interest For the Historical Context

[Snow Leopard · 29 December 2005]

For the most part, the material in this East Side Kids feature is, in itself, fair to about average for the series. The main point of interest comes in its depiction of the gang in the days following Pearl Harbor, when the national mood had swung suddenly in favor of war with Japan. Like a good number of other movies in this era, including others in the same series, this one takes many opportunities to promote its version of patriotism.

The story has the gang turned away from the enlistment offices because of their young ages, and proceeding instead to channel their energies into taking on a local group of Axis spies and sympathizers. The stereotyped depictions of the Japanese and German characters may not have elicited any significant degree of objection at the time, but they are very obvious now. Only the generally comic tone of the movie keeps them from becoming a more serious flaw.

In itself, the story and the movie do have their share of good moments, usually when Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Huntz Hall, and the rest are allowed to indulge their free-wheeling style for a bit. There are better features in the series, but this one is all right, and it provides an interesting example of the many kinds of movies, stars, and genres from the early 1940s that showed a strong wartime influence.

The East Side Kids for the Defense

[lugonian · 6/10 · 22 January 2024]

LET'S GET TOUGH (Monogram, 1942), a Banner Production directed by Wallace Fox, becomes the ninth entry to the "East Side Kids" series featuring Leo Gorcey (Muggs Maginnis), Bobby Jordan (Danny), Huntz Hall (Glimpy), David Gorcey (Pee-Wee), Bobby Stone (Skinny) and "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison (Scruno). For this edition, the Danny character not only acquires a new last name, "Collins," but a new brother, now enacted by Tom Brown. Gabriel Dell reverts back to villain role, this time as a German-born Nazi named Fritz Heinbach Jr., stationed in the Bowery section of Manhattan with his father.

With the United States into war, the story opens with the East Side Kids and crowd of spectators watching a parade of soldiers marching down the street. Wanting to do something for their country, they first try to enlist in the Army, Marines and finally the Navy, but are all too young to enlist in active duty. Danny Collins (Bobby Jordan) has a brother, Phil (Tom Brown) in the Navy. When he returns home, it is learned that he has been dishonorably discharged. This news has Officer "Pop" Stevens (Robert Armstrong) forbid his sister, Nora (Florence Rice) from ever seeing him again. Wanting to be good citizens, the East Side Kids take the law into their own hands by stirring trouble among an antique shop managed by a Japanese couple, only to be told by Officer Stevens what they did was a serious mistake on their part. Later its owner, Mr. Keno, is found stabbed by the kids, with Glimpy lifting a note from the body with Japanese writing. Making themselves "Junior G-Men," The East Side Kids do some investigating for themselves, to later discover Danny's brother might have some connection with a spy ring known as the Black Dragon Society. Further complications ensue when Nora mysteriously disappears after entering a Japanese tea shop. Featured in the cast are Sam Bernard (Fritz Heinbach Sr.); Philip Ahn (Joe Matsui); and Pat Costello (Randall, the Navy Recruiter).

More drama than comedy, comedy scenes that put this otherwise straight drama off balance are Glimpy taking violin lessons from his music teacher (Jerry Bergen), and another involving the kids with Glimpy's mother (Patsy Moran). While certain scenes are out of character for the East Side Kids, namely bearing false judgment against those who are or happen to be mistaken for Japanese, the duration of the story, with fine mix of propaganda and mystery, improves during its last half hour. Robert Armstrong, best known as Carl Denham in KING KONG (1933), is an asset here, as are the familiar faces of Tom Brown and Florence Rice in support. Theatrically released at 63 minutes, beware of badly edited jump cut 55 minute edition which makes viewing impossible to comprehend.

Available on both home video and DVD format, cable television broadcasts for LET'S GET TOUGH have been on either Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: May 24, 2004) and MGM Plus. Next in the series: SMART ALECKS (1942). (**)

The East Side Kids vs. The Japs

[Space_Mafune · 4/10 · 13 January 2008]

Propaganda pro-American war effort film that came out in 1942 has the East Side Kids getting tough against any Japanese they spot in their own neighborhood when they learn they're too young to enlist. Ultimately they learn they were mistaken in their mistrust of some individuals but also happen to stumble across a spy ring they then set out to bust. The film is harmless enough in its fashion although some may well take offense given how innocent Asians really did get singled out during the Second World War. Overall though, it's a pretty generic effort and both Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall would have better moments, the best of which tend to come here when they ad-lib.

Badly Dated and Generally Bad World War II Propaganda Flick

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 26 June 2011]

Let's Get Tough has those irrepressible East Side Kids getting involved with hunting down an Axis Spy Ring operating in of all places the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Back in those days the Axis would pop up just about everywhere including in the Ozarks in another fabulous Monogram propaganda effort, Joan Of Ozark.

Tom Brown who is Bobby Jordan's older brother has been dishonorably discharged, but that's all a put up job because he's infiltrated the spy ring. The spy ring is an ecumenical consisting mostly of Japanese headed by Philip Ahn, but also including Gabriel Dell in a German accent that he learned in the Borscht Belt and of course the infiltrator Brown.

The East Side Kids in their burst of Pearl Harbor inspired patriotism first mess up a Chinese owned business and later have to apologize for it especially since some idiot Japanese thought he was one of them and kill him when he doesn't join the spy ring. Sad to say we've had incidents just like that after the Gulf War and the current Afghan and Iraqi Wars. Gangs of kids imbued with patriotism going after Moslem owned businesses and Moslem people. Here these kids are only wrong because they made a mistake. And of course the Orientals not be able to tell one group from another is positively ludicrous.

Robert Armstrong as your neighborhood Irish cop and Florence Rice as his daughter who is going out with Brown all add to the general daffiness of this wartime propaganda film that could only have been made during our World War II years.

In addition the film was badly edited so you have to fill in a few blanks for the story to make any sense. I doubt we'll ever see a director's cut of Let's Get Tough.

Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Idiocy.

[mark.waltz · 4/10 · 18 January 2023]

No one ever watched the Dead End Kids/East End Kids /Bowery Boys movie to judge them for their intelligence, and after the first few of their movies after the original "Dead End", they were more future public nuisances than future public enemies. Here, they discovered that the lower east side is filled with Japanese spies, but unlike Bogart and his gang discovering 5th columnists in the art world of classy upper east side auction shops in "All Through the Night" (released just months before this, coming ironically right before Pearl Harbor), they are amateurs at the anti-sabotage game, accusing an innocent Chinese shopkeeper of being a Japanese spy, and only deciding to become involved in patriotic duties after being rejected by the military for being too young and the sudden murder of the shopkeeper who was only protecting his property from a bunch of thugs.

The anti-Japanese sentiment of the time applied to even the innocent American born ones, so this only has them apologizing because the victim was Chinese, with no acknowledgement that not all Japanese were anti-American. Racial cliches abound (even towards East Side Kid Sammy Morrison, the token black, and one of the few genuinely nice ones), although the Japanese characters for the most part are well spoken without the usual fractured English accent. There's the subplot of dishonorable discharged navy recruit Tom Brown (brother of gang member Bobby Jordan) believed to be a traitor, as well as the presence of another former gang member, Gabriel Dell, this time cast as a German spy. Regulars Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall get their share of fractured dialog, so they have a few amusing moments, and "King Kong" veteran Robert Armstrong offers the film's moral as the local neighborhood cop with Florence Rice as his daughter, playing the generic love interest. I wouldn't call this a bad film. It just isn't a great history lesson.

Turning Japanese

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 15 March 2009]

Following the World War II Japanese attack on U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, "The Eastside Kids": Leo Gorcey (as Muggs), Bobby Jordan (as Danny Connors), Huntz Hall (as Glimpy), David Gorcey (as Peewee), Ernest Morrison (as Scruno), and Bobby Stone (as Skinny) want to serve their country. But, both the U.S. Army and Navy reject them as too young. Still wanting to "knock off about a million Japs", the "boys" attack an Asian clerk, who turns out to be Chinese. The unfortunate incident does, however, lead the gang to help uncover some really nasty Japanese and German people.

If "too young" is defined as "under twenty-one", only Mr. Jordan and Mr. Stone would be rejected for military service. But, it's possible recruiters were turned off by the office manners displayed by Mr. Gorcey and Mr. Hall. "Let's Get Tough!" was made during what the script accurately describes as "open season on Japs" - for this and other reasons, it hasn't aged well. It's a wasted effort, but the regulars performs ably, with Tom Brown moving the storyline along, as Jordan's spy brother.

*** Let's Get Tough! (5/29/42) Wallace Fox ~ Leo Gorcey, Bobby Jordan, Tom Brown

The East Side Kids take on the "Japs"

[dougdoepke · 14 February 2021]

How could Tojo and his Pearl Harbor sneaks hope to win a war when we've got Gorcey, Hall, and the East Side Kids on our side. Released just a few months after Dec. 7, '41, the flick's a hurry-up job, but still manages to amuse in typical Kids' fashion. Okay, so whatever you do, don't let Hall teach you the violin- otherwise you may avoid music forever. Also, don't let him fix your burning stove unless he spits on your stew. Plot-wise, our patriotic guys want to join up, and any service branch will do. Trouble is they're too young to be accepted; nevertheless, they show goofy tactics that could soon make guns obsolete.

Story-wise, our red-white-and blue Kids soon tumble into a Japanese scheme to smuggle explosives into the US. Too bad it appears to involve Glimpy's (Hall) brother Phil (Brown). So, Americans, beware, the enemy could be anywhere. After all, it is 1942 and the war's still young.

Hall and the guys are in usual lick-speed form, along with rapid fire pacing. The flick does okay in combining the patriotic subtext with the Kids brand of knock-about humor, not letting either overwhelm the other. All in all, however, you may need a score-card to keep up with all the characters who keep ricocheting in and out. At the same time, note the great Korean-American actor Phillip Ahn (Joe Matsui) who got a ton of war-time work as the all-purpose Japanese enemy. I wonder if those Hollywood roles redounded into his personal life and safety. I hope not.

No, the flick's not front-rank Kids. Still, fans of the knock-about shouldn't pass this one up, not only for the usual laughs but for insight into how even Hollywood's goofiest productions were gearing up for The Big One.

(In passing- note how the Japanese are referred to in the movie as "Japs", a now politically incorrect term, but perhaps understandable at the time given the adversarial conditions. Much, I suppose, like "Krauts" for Germans.)

I am NOT a politically correct sort, but I still found this one rather racist and nasty.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 11 November 2012]

This is one of the more wretched East Side Kids films--mostly because it is really mean-spirited and racist. Now some of this isn't surprising--after all, it was meant as a WWII propaganda film and instilling hatred of the Japanese and Germans in the American public was the purpose of this and other Hollywood films of the day. However, this film goes MUCH further--and seems to encourage the persecution of German and Japanese-Americans. Because of this and bad writing, it's a nasty little film.

The movie begins with the Kids wanting to do their part for the war effort. However, they try to enlist but they are repeatedly turned away because they are underage. So, they do the next best thing--they pick out what they THINK is a Japanese-American business and break in and trash the place! Here is the rub--they find out that the guy is really a Chinese-American, so they feel bad about this--as if the film is saying this sort of vigilantism is FINE provided you carefully pick your targets!! Unfortunately, when they are destroying the place, they find the owner's dead body--and this eventually leads them into a Nazi-Japanese spy ring. And, given that this is a bad film, they take on the entire spy ring all by themselves and succeed in keeping America safe.

As I said, the film is amazingly jingoistic. While I am NOT a politically correct sort of person, even I felt offended by the film and it's shabby messages. Pretty bad from start to finish. Oh, and did I mention the fried chicken and watermelon remarks made to their Black friend, Sunshine Sammy?!

Seize those men! Seize them! Not if I sees you first!

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 16 February 2016]

****SPOILERS**** Right up there with the likes of "Hitler Dead or Alive" the East Side Kids "Lets Get Tough" ranks as one of the most off the wall and mind numbing films to come out of Hollywood in support of the boys in uniform as well as the world war in both Europe & Asia. Outgaged over the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor the East Sides kids lead by Muggs Danny & Grumpy, Leo Gorcey Bobby Jordan & Huntz Hall, try to enlist in the US military and are rejected not just because there underage but mentally deficient as well. Taking the war to the street of the Lower East Side of Manhattan they seek out any Japanese or Japs as they call them to make sure that the streets of the city are safe from Japanese ground air & naval attacks.

Not that bright to begin with the boys not quite knowing the difference between a Jap, an enemy of the USA, and Chinese, a friend, they end up attacking with a bombardment of rotten fruits & vegetables a Chinese shop-owner whom they mistake for a Jap who in fact is working for the FBI as an undercover agent. It's later that the shop-owner is found dead, when the boys broke into his store and ransacked it, and their held for questioning by the police! Released because of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights in that the charges against them can't stick the boys decide to do the right thing in fighting the Japs legally. But totally overlook who's behind a major Japanese spy ring in the neighborhood Nazi spy Fritz Heinbach, Gabriel Dell, whom they consider to be a friend of there's as well as the USA. It's Fritz who's working with the dreaded Japanese Black Dragon Society to undermined the US effort in the war by planning to attack, through sabotage, all the major US military & naval facilities all along the East Coast!

***SPOILERS***There's also a side plot to all this with Danny's big brother Phil, Tom Brown, who just graduated from Annapolis getting drummed out of the service for being not just a spy for Tojo or the Japanese, whom they paid $13.75 for being a traitor to his country, but involved in sabotage against his country as well. It's no big surprise that Phil like the late Chanise shop-owner is working undercover for the US Government in the fact that he wasn't just put behind bars for life but executed for committing treason against the USA during wartime! Most of the villains in the movie ended up doing themselves in, via Hari-Kari- making the job much more easier for the boys as well as the police to apprehend them and bring them all to justice. If they, the Japanese spies, just saw how easy their American collaborator Phil got off-Scot-free-they might just have kept themselves from doing themselves in!

A Product of the Time

[qtdfkte · 5/10 · 11 May 2021]

I can't say that I enjoyed this movie. It's anti Japanese propaganda made to look like a comedy. It didn't offend me in any way. It just wasn't funny. It was interesting where it shows how people thought 70 years ago.