THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS (1954)
Article #776 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-30-2003
Posting Date: 9-27-2003
Directed by Edward Bernds
Featuring the Bowery Boys, the Monsters

The Bowery Boys visit an old mansion to try to get permission to use a vacant lot as a baseball field; there they meet the monsters.

Just how good can a movie be that is called THE BOWERY BOYS MEET THE MONSTERS? On any normal scale this is a ludicrous question; however, on a Bowery Boys scale, it fares much better. In fact, I would have to rate it as the best of the Bowery Boys movies I’ve seen for this series so far, which places it above BOWERY TO BAGDAD, HOLD THAT HYPNOTIST and SPOOKS RUN WILD. The latter is the only one that gave it a run for its money, but despite the presence of Bela Lugosi in that one, it always comes across to me as somewhat embarrassed. This one has John Dehner, Ellen Corby (yes, Grandma Walton) and Paul Wexler, who had a face even longer than John Carradine’s. Leo Gorcey’s malaprops steal the show, and they’re practically nonstop; he and Huntz Hall encounter a mad scientist intent on putting Hall’s brain inside a gorilla, another scientist intent on using Gorcey’s head to replace the one on his robot, a vampiress with a taste for Hall’s blood, and an old lady intent on finding some food for her man-eating plant, and a potion that turns various people into Hyde-like monsters. It’s all pretty dumb, but done with a certain energy that keeps things from slowing down. Pretty good for a Bowery Boys movie.