The East Side Kids
In 1940 producer Sam Katzman, noting the financial success of other tough-kid series, made the film East Side Kids using two of Universal's Little Tough Guys, Hally Chester and Harris Berger. He added former Our Gang player Donald Haines, Frankie Burke, radio actor Sam Edwards, and Eddie Brian to round out the new team. This was a one-shot film, designed to cash in on a popular trend. When Dead End Kid Bobby Jordan became available, Katzman signed him for Boys of the City and "The East Side Kids" became a series, released by Monogram Pictures.
Monogram was a "budget" studio, making inexpensive films for double-feature theaters. Sam Katzman's productions were even cheaper. A typical major-studio "B" picture cost $200,000 to $300,000 to make, and was filmed in four weeks. Notorious penny-pincher Katzman spent only $33,000 per feature and made them in only five to seven days. He wasted no time or money on subtlety, story development, or more than two takes per scene.
Leo Gorcey joined the series, as did his brother, David Gorcey of the Little Tough Guys. "Sunshine Sammy" Morrison, the very first child actor in the Our Gang comedies, was cast as "Scruno," the only African-American in the Jordan-Gorcey gang.
In the first few films, Dave O'Brien (familiar from low-budget westerns and serials, and as the accident-prone star of the Pete Smith comedies) played Jordan's older brother Knuckles Dolan, who always seemed to be getting roped into chaperoning the kids from adventure to adventure. O'Brien appeared in different roles as well; the continuity between films was often ignored. As with the Little Tough Guys, the membership of the team changed from film to film, until Huntz Hall joined in 1941, when the lineup was somewhat stabilized. In total, 20 actors were members of the East Side Kids.
Dead End Kid Gabriel Dell drifted in and out of the series as a gang member, a reporter, or a small-time hoodlum (as in Million Dollar Kid). In Smart Alecks he's an ex-member who left the gang to pursue a life of crime. Rising tough-teen actor Stanley Clements also appeared in three films.
The stories always centered on the tough, pugnacious "Muggs McGinnis" (Gorcey) or the more innocent, clean-cut "Danny" (Bobby Jordan). Huntz Hall's "Glimpy" began as a minor character who grew in prominence as he was given a larger comedic role over the course of the series. The loose format proved flexible enough to shift back and forth between urban drama (That Gang of Mine), murder mystery (Boys of the City), boxing melodrama (Bowery Blitzkrieg), and horror-comedy (Spooks Run Wild), with the kids confronting various stock villains: gangsters, smugglers, spies, and crooked gamblers, along the way. The East Side films were problem-teen melodramas until 1943, when director William Beaudine joined the series and emphasized the comedy content. He encouraged the actors to improvise freely, adding to the films' spontaneous charm.
The advent of World War II affected the series as well as the cast. Four of the films involve enemy spies, Nazi intrigue, and American soldiers. Offscreen, between 1942 and 1944, cast members Morrison, Jordan, Dell, David Gorcey, and Billy Benedict left the series after being drafted. Leo Gorcey, a few days after receiving his draft notice, suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident. His injuries led to a 4-F classification, rendering him unfit for military service.
During Bobby Jordan's absence, his role in the series was taken by former child actor David Durand. Durand had been the star of Columbia's series of Glove Slingers campus comedies, and lent the same earnest sincerity to his East Side Kids appearances. (Jordan returned in 1944, in uniform, for a guest appearance in Bowery Champs.)
Starting with Clancy Street Boys in 1943, Bernard Gorcey, father of Leo and David, played various bit parts in seven East Side Kids films.
Given the low budgets, simplistic stories, and crude, assembly-line production of the East Side Kids series, its enduring popularity relies on the cast's rambunctious energy, breezy banter (often ad-libbed and containing inside jokes), fast-paced action, and Leo Gorcey's trademark malapropisms ("This calls for drastic measurements").
By 1945 Leo Gorcey had asserted himself as the top-billed star of the series (now billed as "Leo Gorcey and The East Side Kids"), and insisted that producer Sam Katzman must double Gorcey's $5000 salary. Katzman, always cash-conscious, flatly refused and stopped the series after Come Out Fighting (1945). Undaunted, Gorcey and Bobby Jordan retooled the series as The Bowery Boys. They recruited Huntz Hall, Gabriel Dell, Billy Benedict, and David Gorcey from The East Side Kids.
The Bowery Boys became an exceptionally popular staple of theaters and drive-ins, with the films released quarterly. Forty-eight Bowery Boys features were made; the last one, In the Money , was released in 1958.
