When Sach eats too much sugar, he goes into a trance whereby he's able to predict the future. Slip tries to make some money off of Sach by using him as a fortune teller in a carnival, until a mad scientist kidnaps Sach to use him in an intelligence-switching experiment with a monster.
USA
USA
Decades before John Travolta and Nicolas Cage impersonated each other in Face/Off, this movie hosted a similar meeting-of-the-minds between Glenn Strange (cinema's second-best Frankenstein monster) and Huntz Hall (cinema's second-best Bowery Boy). Huntz gets a toothache that gives him the power to predict the future. A mad scientist (Alan Napier, the 1966 Alfred the Butler) plots to fuse his mind with that of a hulking monster. The big draw here is seeing hulking Glenn Strange affect the mannerisms of Huntz Hall, which is more than enough for me.
Director Jean Yarbrough was an old hand at silly comedy (he was one of Abbott & Costello's house directors) and low-budget horror (The Devil Bat, She-Wolf of London, et al.), and you can find The Yarbrough Touch™ in all the scenes where the boys run around the spooky basement of a spooky house with everyone lit ominously from below.
Probably the best of the Bowery Boys encounters with horror. Unlike their two movies with Lugosi, which are the standard haunted house shenanigans, this has a mad scientist and a genuine monster, some sort of ape man. This seems to trying to ride the coattails of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and they got Glenn Strange to play the ape man. Alan Napier’s mad scientist is interesting in that he’s played straight as a genuine threat, and we have Val Lewton regular Skelton Knaggs as one of his assistants. How funny you find it will depend on how you like old style humor, but I do so I did. Also has one of the most unique monster fights in history: a short man disguised as a haunted knight suit and Huntz Hall with the mind of the ape man.
Here the Bowery Boys go supernatural with Huntz Hall being able to tell the future when high on sugar. The problem is that a mad scientist wants his brain for his hairy Frankenstein monster called Atlas. In the transformation you have Huntz act as a monster and Atlas the monster (aka Glenn Strange) act like Huntz. So if you ever wanted to see a group of dimwits play around with Dr. Frankenstein scientific equipment, you'll love this.
a fun time had by all! didn't know who the bowery boys were but it seems they're very cool dudes. loved atlas the monster, sad that he isn't an iconic movie monster™!
(this was a movie for a "halloween night" but it's only like 50% halloween)
If you feel that the Three Stooges might have been too edgy, The Bowery Boys deliver another watered down horror/comedy.
In this one, Sach becomes a psychic seeing into the future when he eats sugar that harms his aching tooth. Because of this talent, he's kidnapped and has his brain transferred/swapped with a hairy monster. And it's up to the gang of over actors to rescue their friends.
While I enjoyed Leo Gorcey's delivery throughout the film, I couldn't grasp the characters of the other Bowery Boys. In one scene, the boys turn on all the mad scientists equipment setting off a chain of sparks to shoot out everywhere, while one works on trying to press buttons to stop the…
Incredible premise, I'd say it's sufficiently exploited throughout an hour of comedy of misunderstandings with experiments, monsters and candy. I regret not having saved it for Halloween.
Even Im not a big fan of overanalyzing, I think the story of human exploitation is in almost every frame, isn't it?
Although the really important thing is that it's silly funny.
One of the best Bowery Boys features appears to be a takeoff on ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN and co-stars that movie’s monster, Glenn Strange. MASTER MINDS has a very funny script by series regulars Charles Marion and Bert Lawrence and gets all the Boys involved, not just Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey. Perhaps most important to MASTER MINDS is its supporting cast of genre actors who play the fantastic elements straight, which grounds the slapstick and allows director Jean Yarbrough (THE BRUTE MAN) to create real stakes for the heroes.
Sach (Hall) develops a toothache, which allows him to predict the future (just go with it). Slip (Gorcey) and Gabe (Gabriel Dell), always quick with the get-rich schemes, put…
Silly but charming Abbot and Costello-style monster comedy about a guy who becomes clairvoyant when he's having a toothache, and the mad scientist who tries to swap his brain with that of his experimental caveman guy (?). It's so funny and weird to me in the year 2021 that there used to be this stereotype of scientists as these power-hungry monomaniacs who needed constant monitoring to ensure they didn't try to take over the world! It seems like there was a period of time where this was one of only three or four horror plots we got to see: it was basically mad scientists, haunted houses, or explorations of the unknown for at LEAST a decade. Anyway this is amusing if you don't think too hard about it!
The premise is more interesting than your typical Bowery Boys picture, but Master Minds is still limited by the one-dimensional characters and an overall lack of artistry. That's not surprising when you consider that Monogram cranked out 3 or 4 of these films a year for nearly two decades. This one was obviously inspired by the success of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, which also featured Glenn Strange as the monster. There are a handful of clever jokes (eg, some of Huntz Hall's prognostications) and plenty of Leo Gorcey's signature malapropisms, but the laughs are few and far between.
The 16th film in the Bowery Boys series sees Huntz Hall as Sach gaining the ability to see into the future whenever his tooth aches which Leo Gorcey as Slip exploits for monetary gain.
A mad scientist mistakenly believes Sach is a genius and wants his brain for his half ape/half human monster played by frequent Frankenstein's monster actor Glenn Strange.
This is one of the best in the series I've watched so far. Seeing Glenn Strange imitate Hall's mannerisms with a dubbed Hall voice was quite hilarious and allowed him to show off some rarely seen comedic chops.
This was also early enough that it still featured standout Bowery Boys cast members such as my favourite William Benedict, Gabriel Dell and Bernard Gorcey. A must watch for fans of the team and series.
Certainly one of the more watchable Bowery Boys films, though part of that is an actually somewhat interesting idea (the ESP for Sach) actually having some of the more solid jokes I've seen in this franchise, and part of that is how much screen times goes to a mad doctor being played by Alan Napier (better known as Alfred to Adam West's Batman) and with a monster played by Glenn Strange, who took over as the creature in the Frankenstein films eventually. Here it's particularly interesting as he needs to play both a monster and Sach in the monster's body, and Strange does a great job in that much broader role.
Far more watchable than many of their entries.
Watched for the Comedy Challenge 2019
Week 11 - Bowery Boys
More low-key, and almost a little more mean-spirited than other of the comedies, there's not as much comic dialogue between Gorcey and Huntz as I'm used to. What is wonderful, though, is seeing Glenn Strange aping Huntz's mannerisms, and Huntz himself snarling and grimacing to beat the band. Napier does a good job as the mad scientist, although he's too genial to come across as very sinister. Gorcey, Sr, gets quite a bit of screentime, too, which is nice.
