PARIS PLAYBOYS (1954)
Article 2003 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 9-8-2006
Posting Date: 2-5-2007
Directed by William Beaudine
Featuring Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey

When a French scientist working on a secret rocket fuel vanishes, Sach , who looks just like the missing scientist, is hired to impersonate him in order to flush out either the scientist or those who want to kill him. Slip and Louie accompany Sach to Paris to help. Hilarity ensues.

At one point early in the movie, Slip tells a group of people who are convinced that Sach is really the rocket scientist that Sach has never been out of the United States. However, the Bowery Boys visited London only the year before in LOOSE IN LONDON. In short, I think I found a continuity error in the series. However, it could be argued that Slip’s memory is faulty; after all, he’s not really the sharpest needle in the etui, and for those who don’t know that word means, than I can only say that my years of solving crossword puzzles has put me in good stead in helping me dredge up vaguely French-sounding words out of the world of crosswordese. But I digress. And, at any rate, the concept of hunting up continuity errors in the Bowery Boys movies strikes me as more than a little silly itself.

Nonetheless, this one is a lot of fun. It’s also somewhat more in the vein of the Three Stooges than some of their other movies, but seeing as the script was co-written by Edward Bernds (who honed his craft with Three Stooges shorts), that should be no surprise. As usual, I like Leo and Bernard doing their usual schtick, but Hall does a good comic acting job in a dual role, and he actually manages a rather difficult feat in that, despite the fact that Sach adopts a French accent when he impersonates the scientist, he remains a distinct character from the real scientist (also played by Hall) shows up. The fantastic content doesn’t pop up until the end of the movie, but since the nature of that content is made clear from the outset (the rocket fuel), it should be no surprise that some of it actually gets invented at some point. All in all, this is a fun entry in the series.