The Bowery Boys



The Bowery Boys was a long-running series of films starring Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall along with a company of other actors, with a complex history spanning several different names and studios throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood. As it progressed through its incarnations, the series revolved around a group of first boys and later young men who lived in various poorer neighborhoods of New York City, finally setting on the eponymous Bowery. The films in which they appeared initially varied wildly between gritty urban dramas and light comedies, but by the time they took their final form as the Bowery Boys, they had stabilized into a series of comedies about the gang and the often madcap adventures they found themselves in. Despite the moves from studio to studio and the different names under which the films were released, the core group of actors remained more or less constant.

The Bowery Boys originated as "The Dead End Kids", the central characters of the 1935 play Dead End by Sidney Kingsley. Among the fourteen children hired to play various roles in it were Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan, Bernard Punsly and Gabriel Dell -- the core of the future Bowery Boys. Samuel Goldwyn adapted the play into a film in 1937, and six of the boys from the theatrical cast -- those listed above -- were brought from New York to Hollywood to perform in it. Because the six were holy terrors on the set and caused so much destruction across the studio, Goldwyn passed on making future films with them and sold their contracts to Warner Bros.

Between 1938 and 1939 Warner Bros. made another six feature-length films and one short with the boys, including the classic Angels with Dirty Faces. They tried to rebrand them as the "Crime School Kids", after the first of these films, but the new name never caught on, and they remained known to the public as the Dead End Kids.

In 1938, Universal Pictures made their own ersatz "Dead End Kids" drama, called Little Tough Guy, hiring those members of the group whose contracts had expired (Gorcey and Jordan remained under contract to Warners), along with Gorcey's younger brother David and Hally Chester, both of whom were also in the original theatrical cast of Dead End. Little Tough Guy launched a new series of films (not all of which featured the boys), imaginatively called "Little Tough Guys". When Universal finally acquired the contract of Bobby Jordan from Warners, they revised the series name to "The Dead End Kids and Little Tough Guys". Between 1938 and 1943 Universal made twelve feature films and three 12-chapter serials under both names.

Meanwhile in 1940, independent producer Sam Katzman made his own imitation "Dead End Kids" film, called East Side Kids and staring a different cast which included occasional members of the "Little Tough Guy" series like Hally Chester as well as former "Our Gang" member Donald Haines. Between 1940 and 1945 twenty-two "East Side Kids" films were made by Katzman and distributed by Monogram Pictures, with the cast gaining members of the original Dead End Kids as well as former Little Tough Guys members as their contracts expired at other studios. The series ended when Leo Gorcey quit over a salary dispute.

Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Bobby Jordan's agent Jan Grippo then formed a new production company, "Jan Grippo Productions", which immediately began making and releasing an updated and revised series, dubbed "The Bowery Boys". The first film in the new series, Live Wires was released in 1946, and the series produced forty-eight films over the next twelve years, making it the third longest film series in Hollywood history. If one counts the earlier series as simply previous installments in a larger series, it would be second with eighty-nine full-length films, one short, and three serials. Unfortunately it spent its final two years as a shambling Franchise Zombie after the 1956 departure of Leo Gorcey, who played central character Slip Mahoney, and who was basically the star of the series.

The films gained a new generation of fans when they entered television syndication -- the "East Side Kids" films first in 1950 and the "Bowery Boys" series in 1960.

The Bowery Boys

 * Leo Gorcey as Terrance Aloysius "Slip" Mahoney (1946-1956)
 * Huntz Hall as Horace DeBussy "Sach" Jones (1946-1958)
 * Bobby Jordan as Bobby (1946-1947)
 * William "Billy" Benedict as Whitmore "Whitey" Williams (1946-1951)
 * William Frambes as Homer (1946)
 * David Gorcey as Charles "Chuck" Anderson (1946-1958)
 * Buddy Gorman as Butch/Bud/Copy Boy/Andrew T. Miller/Messenger/Sandy/Page/Paper Boy (1946-1951)
 * Gabriel Dell as Gabe Moreno/Ricky Moreno (1946-1950)
 * Bennie Bartlett as Butch Williams/Harry "Jag" Harmon (1948-1955)
 * Gil Stratton, Jr. as Junior (1952)
 * Jimmy Murphy as Myron (1956-1957)
 * Stanley Clements as Stanislaus "Duke" Coveleskie (1956-1958)
 * Danny Welton as Danny (1956)
 * Eddie LeRoy as Blinky (1957-1958)

Other recurring players:
 * Bernard Gorcey (Leo's father) as Louie Dumbrowski/Jack Kane (1946-1955)
 * Doris Kemper as Mrs. Kate Kelly (1956)
 * Queenie Smith as Mrs. Kate Kelly (1956-1957)
 * Percy Helton as Mike Clancy (1957)
 * Dick Elliott as Mike Clancy (1957-1958)

Bowery Boys films

 * Live Wires (1946)
 * In Fast (1946)
 * Bowery Bombshell (1946)
 * Spook Busters (1946)
 * Mr. Hex (1946)
 * Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947)
 * News Hounds (1947)
 * Bowery Buckaroos (1947)
 * Angels' Alley (1948)
 * Jinx Money (1948)
 * Smugglers' Cove (1948)
 * Trouble Makers (1948)
 * Fighting Fools (1949)
 * Hold That Baby! (1949)
 * Angels in Disguise (1949)
 * Master Minds (1949)
 * Blonde Dynamite (1950)
 * Lucky Losers (1950)
 * Triple Trouble (1950)
 * Blues Busters (1950)
 * Bowery Battalion (1951)
 * Ghost Chasers (1951)
 * Let's Go Navy! (1951)
 * Crazy Over Horses (1951)
 * Hold That Line (1952)
 * Here Come the Marines (1952)
 * Feudin' Fools (1952)
 * No Holds Barred (1952)
 * Jalopy (1953)
 * Loose in London (1953)
 * Clipped Wings (1953)
 * Private Eyes (1953)
 * Paris Playboys (1954)
 * The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954)
 * Jungle Gents (1954)
 * Bowery to Bagdad (1955)
 * High Society (1955)
 * Spy Chasers (1955)
 * Jail Busters (1955)
 * Dig That Uranium (1956)
 * Crashing Las Vegas (1956)
 * Fighting Trouble (1956)
 * Hot Shots (1956)
 * Hold That Hypnotist (1957)
 * Spook Chasers (1957)
 * Looking for Danger (1957)
 * Up in Smoke (1957)
 * In the Money (1958)


 * 555: The address of Local Hangout Louie's Sweet Shop (Third and Canal in New York City's Bowery neighborhood) doesn't strictly exist -- Third Avenue doesn't stretch below Cooper Square (located a dozen or so blocks north of Canal), where it turns into Bowery (the street).  Bowery and Canal do intersect (today it's a complicated intersection leading to, among other places, the Manhattan Bridge), so it might be argued it's the "spiritual equivalent".


 * Accidental Athlete: Happens to Sach in several of the movies, usually thanks to some Applied Phlebotinum.
 * Achievements in Ignorance: Sach seems so prone to these -- specifically liquids that do the impossible -- that he comes across as some kind of Idiot Savant alchemist:
 * In Hold That Line (1952), Sach mixes a bunch of random chemicals together and creates a Super Serum that makes him an unbeatable football player (while it lasts).
 * In the same film, his attempt to reproduce the serum creates something that instead shrinks the person taking it.
 * And at the end of Hold That Line, Sach creates a serum that lets him fly.
 * Sach accidentally brews a bouillon capable of melting any metal while on KP in Here Come the Marines (1952).
 * In Jalopy (1953) Sach invents a fuel that supercharges the Boys' race car. A second batch only works with the car in reverse -- because he used flat seltzer water instead of fresh.
 * While pretending to be Prof. Maurice Gaston LeBeau, a scientist developing a rocket fuel, in Paris Playboys (1954), Sach creates his own rocket fuel formula that works at least as well as the one the real professor had been developing.
 * All Just a Dream: The ending of 1947's Bowery Buckaroos.  After a whole film of Wild West adventures, Slip hits Sach and wakes him up.
 * The Alleged Car:
 * The Boys' jalopy, which they try to sell in 1946's Bowery Bombshell only to have it literally fall apart when they show it to a potential buyer.
 * It makes another appearance in Jalopy (1953), where the Boys enter a race with it, supercharged by one of Sach's impossible concoctions.
 * In Up in Smoke (1957), Sach tries to sell it again (after Duke has already sold it to a police officer). This time the dealer essentially rips the car to pieces before offering fifty cents for it.
 * Amateur Sleuth: Slip in 1948's Smuggler's Cove.
 * Armed Farces: A common device.  Nearly half a dozen films revolved around Slip, Sach and sometimes the whole gang being drafted, enlisting voluntarily, or being tricked into enlisting into one of the services.
 * Attack Pattern Alpha: Just before a fight, Slip Mahoney would instruct the guys, "Routine five!" or something like that. It actually just amounted to going in and randomly throwing punches.


 * The Bait:
 * In 1951's Bowery Battalion, the military allows Louie to re-enlist so they can use him as bait for spies who would want the secret of the (non-functional) Death Ray he invented in World War I.
 * Lt. Dave Moreno, being held for treason in Clipped Wings (1953), is actually bait for enemy agents.
 * Bank Robbery:
 * One takes place in Broadway Bombshell (1946).
 * Another is planned in 1948's Trouble Makers (and Sach, mistaken for an old associate of the robber's, gets briefly recruited as the getaway driver).
 * 1950's Blonde Dynamite revolves around a plot by gangsters to get the combination to a bank vault by blackmailing.
 * A gang of bank robbers use Sach's recently-inherited farm as a hideout in 1952's Feudin' Fools.
 * Baseball: Trying to get permission for the local kids to use a vacant lot for their baseball games ends up with the Boys enountering a family of lunatics in The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954).
 * Bedlam House: Slip and Sach sneak into a sanatorium to rescue a woman committed by her aunts as part of a scheme to steal an inheritance in Hold That Baby! (1949).
 * Benevolent Genie: The Boys find one in a magic lamp in Bowery to Bagdad (1955), who takes a liking to them.  He's not above being a Literal Genie when it amuses him and doing so doesn't actually harm them.
 * The Bet: A wager between the members of a local university's trust that anyone can succeed if given the chance sets in motion the events of Hold That Line (1952).
 * Big Game: The football game which is the climax of 1952's Hold That Line.
 * Billed Above the Title: From the very first film, "Leo Gorcey and the Bowery Boys" appeared above the title on posters and Lobby Cards.  ("Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys" after Leo Gorcey left the series in 1956.)
 * Blackmail:
 * Incriminating letters are used by a Fortune Teller to blackmail a pair of women in 1947's Hard Boiled Mahoney.
 * Gangsters blackmail Gabe in 1950's Blonde Dynamite by threatening to frame him for Stealing From the Till at his bank job.
 * Bookie: A phony bookie joint which is actually a front for some con men plays a major part in 1957's Up in Smoke.
 * The Boxing Episode:
 * 1946's Mr. Hex culminates with a boxing match between Sach, who has been hypnotized into thinking he is an unbeatable fighter and a professional boxer.
 * Fighting Fools (1949) revolves around a boxing arena where the Boys have jobs, and the death of the arena's "home town" champion in a fight.
 * Braids, Beads, and Buckskins: The Indians in 1947's Bowery Buckaroos. Justified in that.
 * The Bus Came Back: Twice an actor left the series and then came back to replace his own replacement, both of them in the chain of actors who took over from Bobby Jordan:
 * In 1948 Bennie Bartlett replaced Jordan for eight movies and two years, was replaced in 1950 by Buddy Gorman who did seven films before Bartlett returned and replaced him in 1951 for another seventeen films before leaving the series again in 1956.
 * Barlett's 1956 replacement Jimmy Murphy only did one film before Danny Welton replaced him, then returned and replaced Welton after another film, all in 1956.


 * The Casino: Multiple gambling establishments appear in the films:
 * An illegal casino is key to the plot in Trouble Makers (1948)
 * Another illegal gambling house plays a role in the plot of Here Come the Marines (1952).
 * The Boys win a trip to Las Vegas in 1955's Crashing Las Vegas and use Sach's ability to predict numbers to win big at a casino -- at least until some gangsters notice.
 * Classical Movie Vampire: Francine Gravesend in The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954)
 * Clear My Name: The Boys undertake a Zany Scheme to clear themselves or a friend of a criminal charge in a half-dozen or so films, including Bowery Bombshell (1946), Bowery Buckaroos (1947), Triple Trouble (1950), Clipped Wings (1953) and In the Money (1958).
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Sach could at times slip into this trope.
 * Comedy of Errors: A common framework for films in the series.
 * Con Crew:
 * Stuyvesant and Clarissa Jones, who are cheating a young man out of his inheritance in 1955's High Society.
 * Tony and Al, fake Bookies, in Up in Smoke (1957).
 * Conscription: Sach is drafted into the Marines in 1952's Here Come the Marines. Averted with the other Boys, who enlist to be with him.
 * Convenient Enemy Base: Sach and Slip manage to parachute right on top of the enemy spies' hideout in Clipped Wings (1953).
 * Cowboy: Louie's Backstory in 1947's Bowery Buckaroos.  Twenty years before the events of the film (i.e., 1927) he was a cowhand in Hangman's Hollow, a suspiciously anachronistic Old West town.
 * Cowboy Episode: Bowery Buckaroos (1947).
 * Courtroom Drama: News Hounds (1947) climaxes in a trial over a libel suit brought against one of the Boys by the film's villains.


 * The Danza: Several instances:
 * Bobby Jordan as Bobby.
 * Gabriel Dell as Gabe Moreno (when he wasn't playing Ricky Moreno).
 * Danny Welton as Danny.
 * Deal with the Devil: Up in Smoke (1957):  Looking for a way to make back money raised for a polio victim and lost to a pair of con men, Sach makes a deal with a literal devil for all the winning horses for a week.
 * Death Ray: The Hydrogen Ray from 1951's Bowery Battalion was apparently supposed to be one when it was developed during World War I, but it never actually worked.  Probably because Louie invented it.
 * Delayed Explosion: Of the gag variety.  A dud bomb is slipped into Sach's bed during the events of 1952's Here Come the Marines.  A captain who arrives with the MPs chastises him for not knowing it was a dud, then throws it out the window, where it promptly explodes.
 * Delinquents: The characters in the earlier films, such as the "East Side Kids" series, were far more likely to be delinquents than in the later films. This was in part because the actors outgrew "juvenile delinquent" characterizations, but also as the tone shifted from drama to comedy, the characters were softened and implications of criminality generally removed, or at least reduced.
 * Delusions of Eloquence: Gorcey's Slip Mahoney character was all about this trope.
 * Demoted to Extra: By 1947, it was obvious that the script writers had begun moving away from writing for the ensemble and instead were focusing almost exclusively on Gorcey and Hall. The other Boys became Generic Guys, a development that prompted more than a few of them to quit the series over the years.
 * Don't Split Us Up: Non-sibling variations in a military context appear in several films:
 * The Boys (other than Slip) enlist en masse when Sach mistakes an air raid drill for the real thing in Bowery Battalion (1951). When Slip goes to stop them, he gets tricked into enlisting himself, and somehow they all manage to stay together.
 * Once again the entire gang is tricked into enlisting in 1951's Let's Go Navy! and are deployed together.
 * When Sach is drafted into the Marines in 1952's Here Come the Marines, the rest of the boys enlist to be with him.
 * Played with in Clipped Wings (1953). The Boys' friend Dave is being held for treason by the Air Force, and when Slip and Sach go to USAF headquarters to help him, they accidentally enlist.  Further, Sach gets assigned to a WAF barracks.
 * Door Step Baby: In Hold That Baby! (1949) a woman leaves her baby in a basket of laundry in the laundry service the Boys are running out of a back room of Louie's.


 * Evil Chancellor: Colonel Baxis in Spy Chasers (1955).
 * The Exile: King Rako of Truania in Spy Chasers (1955), who has been deposed from his throne.  Unlike the usual exile per the trope definition, he is only a criminal or shamed in the eyes of the new regime.


 * Face of the Band: From the very first film in the series, the billing read "Leo Gorcey and the Bowery Boys". When Gorcey quit the series in 1956, it became "Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys".  In none of the group's previous incarnations was any specific performer considered its "star".
 * False-Flag Operation: The uncle/manager of a child star kidnaps the boy and demands a ransom as part of a plan to cover up his embezzlement of the boy's earnings in Hot Shots (1956).
 * The Family for the Whole Family: The Boys frequently run up against generic "gangsters" or "mobsters" responsible for various plots like fixing horse races, robbing banks, stealing cars, smuggling, jewel thievery or the like.
 * Farce: When the films aren't Slapstick, they're farce.
 * Feuding Families: In 1952's Feudin' Fools, Sach inherits a farm only to discover his family and a neighboring family have a long-standing feud. He hides his family connection and befriends the neighbors, only to mention his connection to the Joneses at the end of the movie and restarting the shooting.
 * Film Noir: Parodied in 1947's Hard Boiled Mahoney and in 1953's Private Eyes.
 * Fixing the Game: One of the many kinds of illegal schemes the Boys run up against in various films:
 * A nightclub owner hires a Super Ringer -- a professional boxer -- to fight all comers (including Sach) in an amateur boxing contest with a prize of $2500 (approximately US$40,000 in 2022 dollars) in 1946's Mr. Hex.
 * Slip and Sach investigate a plot to fix sporting events in News Hounds (1947)
 * A manager arranges for his own boxer to be killed in the ring when the boxer refuses to go along with a plan to fix his fight with the reigning champion at the start of Fighting Fools (1949). The Boys' attempts to thwart and reveal his continuing efforts to fix fights drive the film's plot.
 * Gangsters trying to fix a horse race drive the plot of 1951's Crazy Over Horses.
 * In 1952's Hold That Line, a gangster kidnaps Sach (who, amped up on a Super Serum, has become the star player on a college football team) in order to make a killing on the Big Game.
 * Inverted in Up in Smoke (1957) where the Boys attempt to change the outcome of a race to save Sach, who has made a Deal with the Devil for the winning horses for a week.
 * Flight: At the end of 1952's Hold That Line, Sach creates a serum that lets him fly, to compliment the Super Serum he created early in the film.
 * Follow the Leader: Essentially how the group kept moving from studio to studio and series to series -- different studios kept making their own copycat versions of the original "Dead End Kids" films and their subsequent imitators, hiring their casts away from each other as their contracts expired, until Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and Jan Grippo formed their own production company.
 * The Fool: Sach's character at least part of the time.
 * Fortune Teller: A fortune teller blackmails a pair of women in 1947's Hard Boiled Mahoney.
 * Frame-Up:
 * Louie was framed for murder twenty years before the start of 1947's Bowery Buckaroos and has been on the run since.
 * Gangsters threaten to frame bank messenger Gabe for Stealing From the Till in Blonde Dynamite (1950) if he doesn't get them the combination to the bank's vault.
 * Franchise Zombie: In 1956, Gorcey quit the series after the death of his father.  Republic replaced him with Stanley Clements, and made seven more lackluster films before giving up two years later.
 * Friend on the Force: Gabe in Trouble Makers (1948) and Angels in Disguise (1949).


 * Game Show Appearance: Sach, using his latest superpower, wins a trip to Las Vegas for the Boys on the game show Live Like a King.
 * Gang of Hats: Averted, even when they all wear Nice Hats.  They're just a bunch of guys, mostly without anything to distinguish them from one another aside from Slip and Sach.
 * Genie in a Bottle: Sach buys a magic lamp with a Benevolent Genie in it, in 1955's Bowery to Bagdad.
 * The Generic Guy: The Bowery Boys consisted of the smart leader (Leo Gorcey), the dumb follower (Huntz Hall) and a bunch of Generic Guys like David Gorcey who were just there to flesh out the gang.
 * Averted in the "Dead End Kids" and "East Side Kids" films. Characters played by members Billy Halop, Bobby Jordan and Gabriel Dell were given equal prominence with those of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall.
 * Genre Shift: The original group started out as part of a gritty drama on both stage and screen, flip-flopped between drama and comedy in their early films, and eventually settled down into Slapstick comedy for the best-known part of their careers.
 * Go Among Mad People: Laura Andrews is committed to a sanatorium by her aunts as part of a plot to deprive her baby of his inheritance in Hold That Baby! (1949).
 * Going by the Matchbook: A matchbook found in their late boss's desk clues Slip in to who might have murdered him and made it look like suicide in 1950's Lucky Losers.
 * Gold Fever:
 * The Boys find uranium ore under Louie's shop in Blonde Dynamite (1950).
 * The Boys buy a uranium mine out west and promptly head out to it to get rich in Dig That Uranium (1955).


 * Haunted House: Mike buys a former gangster's home in the mountains that is supposedly haunted in Spook Chasers (1957).
 * Head Transplantation:
 * In 1946's Spook Busters, a Mad Scientist wants to transplant (part of) Sach's brain into a gorilla.
 * Another wants to do the same thing only into a Frankenstein's Monster-style creature in 1949's Master Minds -- and succeeds. (It gets reversed.)
 * There are two mad scientists into this in 1954's The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters -- brothers, one of whom wants a brain for his gorila, the other of whom wants one for his robot.
 * Heel Face Turn: Gabe in 1947's News Hounds -- who was working for the bad guys throughout the film -- has a change of heart and saves the day.
 * Here We Go Again: In Let's Go Navy! (1951) the Boys enlist in the navy to track down a pair of robbers dressed as sailors.  When after finally catching them they go to the navy office to receive their commendations, they accidentally re-enlist.
 * Hollywood Acid: Sach accidentally brews a bouillon capable of melting any metal while on KP in Here Come the Marines (1952).
 * Horse Racing:
 * Central to Crazy Over Horses (1951), which climaxes with a horse race between the Boys' horse and one owned by gangsters.
 * In Up in Smoke (1957), Sach makes a literal Deal with the Devil to get the winning horses for a week.
 * Host Club: Slip and Sach run a male escort service out of Louie's shop while he's on vacation in 1950's Blonde Dynamite.
 * Hypno Fool: Occasionally pops up as part of a plot, starting with 1946's Mr. Hex.


 * I Have Your Wife: Gangsters or spies kidnapping a loved one in order to force someone to commit a crime for them shows up in several films.
 * Idol Singer: Probably the closest appropriate trope to describe the sudden fame Sach experiences when a tonsillectomy turns him into an amazing singer in 1950's Blues Busters.
 * Impersonation Gambit:
 * Slip pretends to be the notorious gangster Midge Casalotti in order to clear Sach's name in Bowery Bombshell (1946).
 * In 1954's Paris Playboys Sach pretends to be the missing Prof. Maurice Gaston LeBeau as part of a Zany Scheme to drive the real professor out of hiding.
 * The Infiltration: The Boys -- usually just Slip and Sach -- frequently go undercover in a criminal organization to expose or hamper them, such as in Angels in Disguise (1949) and Lucky Losers (1950).
 * In 1951's Let's Go Navy! they enlist in the navy to track down two men dressed as sailors who robbed them.
 * In Jail Busters (1955) Slip and the boys go undercover in the state prison.
 * In 1956's Fighting Trouble, Sach and Duke pose as gangsters to get a photo of gangster Frankie Arbo.
 * Injun Country: Appears in 1947's Bowery Buckaroos.  Justified in that.
 * Intimidating Revenue Service: An IRS agent turns up at the end of 1948's Jinx Money to claim remaining money from the Boys' windfall as taxes owed, leaving them as impoverished as they were at the beginning of the film.
 * Intrepid Reporter:
 * Both Slip and Sach in 1947's News Hounds.
 * Gabe in Jinx Money (1948).
 * Chuck in Jail Busters (1955). When he is injured while on an undercover investigation in the state prison, Slip, Sach and Butch take over for him.
 * Danny in 1956's Fighting Trouble, although he loses his job at the beginning of the film.
 * Involuntary Charity Donation: The Boys give $38,0000 of the $50,000 in mob money they found to charities at the end of Jinx Money (1948).


 * Kidnapped Scientist: Louie, who invented a (non-functional) Death Ray in World War I, gets kidnapped by spies who want to know its secrets in Bowery Battalion (1951).


 * Live Action Escort Mission: In 1958's In the Money, Sach is hired to take care of a poodle on an trip to London, England.
 * Local Hangout: Louie's Sweet Shop, replaced by Clancy's Cafe after the death of Bernard Gorcey.
 * Long Runners: In one form or another the core cast worked together in films for over twenty years.
 * Lower Class Lout: Most of the Bowery Boys are a comic, low-threat version of this character type.


 * A MacGuffin Full of Money:
 * $50,000 of illegal gambling winnings hidden in a newspaper and stuck under a car by a gambler who is shortly thereafter killed by mob enforcers at the beginning of Jinx Money (1948).
 * Mike and the Boys discover a large pile of money inside a former gangster's house which Mike bought in Spook Chasers (1957).
 * Mad Scientist:
 * One is behind the goings-on in Spook Busters (1946).
 * Another wants to transplant Sach's brain into a Frankenstein-type monster in Master Minds (1949)
 * The Boys run into an entire family of them on Long Island in The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954).
 * Malaproper: One of the defining character traits of Leo Gorcey's Slip Mahoney.
 * Man-Eating Plant: One is being raised by Amelia Gravesend in The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters (1954).
 * Meaningful Name: The Gravesend family in 1954's The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters.
 * Medium Awareness:
 * At the end of 1948's Angels' Alley, Sach, upset that Slip is stealing the credit from him for catching Tony Locarno and his gang, says, "This is the last time I make a movie with you!"
 * Similarly, at the end of 1952's No Holds Barred Slip is about to give Sach a new nickname based on the body part into which his Super Strength has moved during its migration throughout his body during the film. (It Makes Sense in Context.)  Sach tells him, "You say it and we're out of pictures!"
 * Memento MacGuffin: The coin formerly worn by the late Frederick X. Prescott in 1948's Trouble Makers.
 * Mentor: Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges appeared in two of the "Little Tough Guys"-era films, and Huntz Hall cited him as a major influence on the later Slapstick style of the "Bowery Boys" movies.
 * Might as Well Not Be in Prison At All:
 * The masterminds behind a string of robberies in 1950's Triple Trouble are behind bars, but issue instructions to their underlings via shortwave radio.
 * In Jail Busters (1955), Percival P. Lannigan and other inmates have been living the high life in jail, unbeknownst by the warden.
 * Mistaken Identity: A common device:
 * Sach is mistaken for a bank robber in Bowery Bombshell (1946).
 * Sach is mistaken for a private detective in Hard Boiled Mahoney (1947).
 * Slip mistakes himself for the identically-named recipient of an inheritance in 1948's Smuggler's Cove.
 * A criminal recently released from jail mistakes Sach for a former associate, and recruits him as the getaway driver for a Bank Robbery in Trouble Makers (1948).
 * In 1950's Triple Trouble the Boys are mistaken for robbers when they investigate noises in a warehouse; they are convicted and sent to jail, where they are then mistaken for notorious criminals.
 * In Paris Playboys (1954), a French professor mistakes Sach for the missing Prof. Maurice Gaston LeBeau.
 * The Boys are mistaken for real criminals when they go undercover in the state prison in Jail Busters (1955), and the contact who promised to inform the prison staff reneges.
 * The Boys are accused of being jewel smugglers in 1958's In the Money.
 * Multiple Choice Past: Louie.  Among other backstories, he was an inventor during World War I, and a poor cowhand falsely accused of murder in a Wild West town in 1927.


 * Name's the Same: There was a real New York City gang in the very early 1900s called the "Bowery Boys", one of the most infamous gangs in the city's history.
 * Negative Continuity: Every Bowery Boys film essentially exists in its own stand-alone universe.  While they all share a common "base", the events and consequences of one film rarely if ever impact another.  This is why Slip and Sach always seem to have different jobs in every movie, why sometimes names vary for the other Boys, why Louie falls for every Zany Scheme involving his shop, and why Gabe can be killed in 1949's Angels in Disguise but still be alive in five subsequent films (as well as switching between a Friend on the Force, a lawyer, a bank messenger and other jobs), and Louie's Multiple Choice Past.
 * The Neidermeyer: When he gets promoted to a sergeant in 1952's Here Come the Marines, Sach becomes a martinet despised by the other Boys.
 * Nepotism: In 1952's Here Come the Marines, Sach is promoted to sergeant instead of being punished because his father served with his commanding officer in World War I.
 * Never Suicide: In 1950's Lucky Losers, Slip and Sach are convinced that their boss David Thurston, who apparently committed suicide, was in fact murdered. (They are, of course, right.)
 * Nice Hat: The core group were almost always wearing hats (as that was the fashion for men through much of their film careers). Most distinctive were Gorcey's battered fedora with its front brim pushed up, and Hall's various baseball-style caps (all of which also had their visors flipped nearly vertical) -- both of which can be seen in the page image.
 * Nubile Savage: Anatta in 1954's Jungle Gents.


 * One Steve Limit: Deliberately averted in 1948's Smuggler's Cove when Terrance Aloysius 'Slip' Mahoney thinks that he is the recipient of an inheritance actually due to one Terrence Mahoney, Esq.
 * Overt Operative: Pretty much any spy the Boys encounter.


 * Paranormal Investigation: The Boys set themselves up as ghost hunters in 1946's Spook Busters. In 1951's Ghost Chasers, they're actually out to bust a fake medium -- aided by a real ghost.
 * Passed Over Inheritance:
 * The aunts of a baby due to inherit a fortune (leaving them with nothing) plot with a group of gangsters to steal the child's inheritance in 1949's Hold That Baby!
 * The relatives of a British Earl who is about to make Sach the heir to his title and estate plot to kill him before he can change his will in Loose in London (1953).
 * Past Life Memories: In Hold That Hypnotist (1957), Sach undergoes hypnotic regression and recounts memories of past lives, including Algy Winkle, a British tax collector who once got a map from Captain Blackbeard.
 * Peeling Potatoes: While in the Marines, Sach is put on KP for impersonating a doctor early in Here Come the Marines (1952).
 * Perpetual Poverty: The Boys seem to live in this, regardless of what jobs they have in their current film.  Despite this they're able to make transAtlantic trips on the spur of the moment in at least three films.
 * The Peter Principle: Once Nepotism nets him a promotion to Sergeant in Here Come the Marines (1952), Sach can't stop getting promoted, usually for spurious reasons.
 * Phony Psychic: Bogus spiritualists, mediums and fortune-tellers are sprinkled liberally through the earlier films.
 * Pirate Booty: The recovery of Blackbeard's buried treasure, using Sach's Past Life Memories of his map, provides the main plot of 1957's Hold That Hypnotist.
 * Pretty in Mink: The first client of the Boys' detective agency in Private Eyes (1953). She leaves behind the mink, which is stolen, as well as evidence to incriminate some mobsters.
 * Princess Classic: Princess Anne of Truania in 1955's Spy Chasers is an early-20th century version.
 * Private Detective: In Private Eyes (1953), Slip opens a detective agency after Sach develops Telepathy from a punch in the nose.
 * Professional Killer: The "Umbrella" in 1948's Jinx Money.
 * Professional Wrestling: When Sach acquires Super Strength in 1952's No Holds Barred, Slip enters him into a wrestling match and guides him into becoming world champion.
 * Punch Clock Villain: Gabe in News Hounds (1947).
 * Put on a Bus: From the start the cast was in constant flux.
 * One of the first Bowery Boys, William Frambes, only lasted one film before he was replaced by David Gorcey.
 * Bobby Jordan lasted only one year and eight movies. Jordan's replacement Bennie Bartlett himself lasted eight movies in two years, was replaced by Buddy Gorman who did seven films in between 1950 and 1951 before Bartlett returned and replaced him in 1951, making another seventeen films before leaving the series again in 1956.
 * Barlett's replacement Jimmy Murphy only did one film before Danny Welton replaced him, then he returned and replaced Welton after another film, again in 1956.
 * The Boys, who were originally a much larger gang, were reduced to a group of four -- Gorcey, Hall, David Gorcey (billed as David Condon) and Bennie Bartlett -- in 1952's Feudin' Fools.


 * Rags to Royalty: 1953's Loose in London starts when Sach receives notice that he is a long-lost relative of a dying British earl, who wants to make Sach his heir.  At the last moment it's revealed a lawyer made a mistake and Sach isn't a relative at all.
 * Rear Window Investigation: Averted in 1948's Trouble Makers when Slip and Sach get the help of their Friend on the Force Gabe to investigate the murder of a man in a hotel, which they witnessed through a telescope.
 * Rear Window Witness: Slip and Sach see a man being strangled through a telescope in 1948's Trouble Makers.
 * Reassigned to Antarctica: After saving Sach from a Deal with the Devil in 1957's Up in Smoke, the Boys find devil forced as punishment to work as a busboy at Mike's.
 * Reset Button: Is hit all the time for Sach, whenever something makes him exceptional in some way:
 * In Master Minds (1949), a toothache allows him to predict the future. By the end of the film he's swallowed the aching tooth and loses the ability.
 * In Blues Busters (1950), a tonsillectomy gives him a great singing voice, but at the end of the film we learn he went to a doctor to cure a "tickle in his throat" and the cure takes away his singing ability.
 * Played with in Hold That Line (1952) he creates (and doses himself with) a Super Serum. He runs out of the original serum, but then he creates another serum that lets him fly!
 * The Rez: The uranium mine out west that the Boys buy in 1955's Dig That Uranium turns out to be on the local reservation and doesn't actually belong to them.
 * Room Disservice: Played with in 1948's Trouble Makers -- the daughter of a murdered man gets Slip and Sach genuine jobs as bellboys in the hotel of which she is part owner, in order to investigate the murder.
 * Ruritania: Truania in Spy Chasers (1955).


 * Satchel Switcheroo: A variation is performed with horses in 1951's Crazy Over Horses, as the Boys and a group of gangsters keep swapping one horse for another.
 * Scotland Yard: Inspector Herbert Saunders of the Yard appears in In the Money (1958) and accuses the Boys of being jewel smugglers.
 * Secret Path: A secret passage built into a fireplace and a hidden room in the basement of a manor house are key to the plot of Smuggler's Cove (1948).
 * Seers: In addition to a plethora of Phony Psychics in various films, in 1949's Master Minds Sach gets a toothache that lets him predict the future. No, really.
 * After an accident with electricity in 1956's Crashing Las Vegas, Sach gains the ability to predict numbers.
 * The Sheriff: The unnamed Sheriff of Hangman's Hollow, whose arrival in New York looking for Louie kicks off the plot of 1947's Bowery Buckaroos.
 * Short Film: Although officially all the Bowery Boys films and most of the predecessor series' films are considered feature-length, some are right on the cusp of actually being short films -- most of them barely run more than an hour.
 * Slapstick: Although they started out in a gritty urban drama and frequently returned to the genre over their early years, by the time The Bowery Boys series began it had mutated into pure slapstick comedy.
 * Slobs Versus Snobs: The Boys vs. the relatives of Sir Percy, Earl of Walsingham in Loose in London (1953).  The Earl himself, however, gets along so well with Sach he plans to change his Will to make Sach his heir.
 * The Smart Guy: Slip, but only by comparison to the rest.
 * Social Services Does Not Exist: Implicit in the settings of the "Dead End Kids" films, many of which were dramas. They're homeless kids who live in the streets without any supervision, causing mischief. Granted, in Dead End one of their members does have a mother (but a Disappeared Dad) that he frequently ditches so he can hang out with the gang. Another member mentions having a father who's drunk all the time. They were often used in gangster movies to symbolize the kinds of kids gangsters were before they grew up and became criminals.
 * The only exception would be They Made Me a Criminal, directed by Busby Berkeley (yes, that Busby Berkeley). In this case the Dead End Kids are sent to a ranch in Arizona by a philanthropic priest who hopes to reform them through hard work and good caretaking figures. Whether it works or not is up for debate.
 * Spoiled Brat: Child star Joey Munroe in Hot Shots (1956).
 * Start My Own: In 1945, "East Side Kids" producer Sam Katzman refused to give Leo Gorcey a desired raise.  Gorcey quit the series, then formed a new production company with Bobby Jordan's agent and Huntz Hall, which began producing the "Bowery Boys" film series.
 * Stealing From the Till: In 1950's Blonde Dynamite, bank messenger Gabe has $5000 (US$63,000 in 2022 dollars) stolen by gangsters, who then threaten to frame him for the crime if he doesn't get them the bank vault's combination.
 * Street Smart: All the characters in one way or another.
 * Street Urchin: Predominantly in their earliest appearances such as the "Dead End Kids" films when they were still teenagers or younger, but obviously with a run measured in decades, they quickly stopped being kids and this trope dropped out of their films.
 * Strictly Formula: Just look at all the tropes on this page that have lists of films in which they appeared, or which simply say "frequently used" or the like.  One gets the impression the writing team had a dartboard with plot elements on it, and they created a new movie by throwing a half-dozen or so darts at it.
 * Suicide Mission: In a tale of the Boys' time in World War II, Duke and Sach are sent on a suicide mission by a sergeant who's fed up with them in Looking for Danger (1957).
 * Super Ringer: A nightclub owner hires a professional boxer to fight all comers (including Sach) in an amateur boxing contest with a prize of $2500 (approximately US$40,000 in 2022 dollars) in 1946's Mr. Hex.
 * Super Senses: Sach acquires the ability to smell diamonds thanks to sinus medication in 1954's Jungle Gents.
 * Super Serum: In the movie Hold That Line (1952), Sach mixes a bunch of random chemicals together and drinks down the mixture. The potion turns Sach into a super-athlete (but not permanently). Inverted later in the movie when Slip tries to replicate the formula -- Slip gives the potion to the college Dean, who.
 * Super Strength: Sach acquires this for no apparent reason in No Holds Barred (1952), but it's specific to a body part -- it starts in his head, moves to his finger, continues traveling through his body to his butt, and ends up in place which, if Slip creates a new wrestling moniker for Sach from it, would get them kicked out of the film business according to Sach.
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Stanley Clements as Stanislaus "Duke" Coveleskie, cast to replace Leo Gorcey after he quit the film series in the wake of his father's death.  His first film was 1956's Fighting Trouble.
 * Clancy's Cafe, run by Mike Clancy, replaced Louie and Louie's Sweet Shop after Bernard Gorcey's death. It first appeared in 1956's Crashing Las Vegas.


 * Telepathy: Sach gainz the power to read minds from getting punched in the nose in Private Eyes (1953).
 * Time Skip: Let's Go Navy! (1951) has a year-long time skip between the story set-up, which results in the Boys joining the navy, and the majority of the action and conclusion.
 * Treasure Map:
 * In Bowery Buckaroos (1947) Louie has one tattooed on his back, which leads to the gold he and his late partner Pete Briggs found back when they were Cowboys in a 1927 version of The Wild West. When the Boys decide to head out west to clear his name and find the gold, they paint a copy of the map on Sach's back.
 * While hypnotically regressed to a previous life in 1957's Hold That Hypnotist, Sach remembers a map he got from Blackbeard the pirate.


 * Vegas Montage: A very dated 1950s version appears in 1956's Crashing Las Vegas.
 * Viva Las Vegas: The Boys win an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas on a game show in 1956's Crashing Las Vegas.


 * Wacky Racing: The auto race in 1953's Jalopy ends up this way because of the Boys' participation.


 * Whole-Episode Flashback: 1957's Looking for Danger is presented as a tale told by Duke of the days when he and the Boys served in World War II.


 * Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs?: Due to the series' Negative Continuity, Slip and Sach have different jobs in almost every film, the loss or performance of which often directs the plot of the movie.  Sometimes they are mistaken for someone in a particular job and must perform it while having no idea what they are doing.
 * Outside of them, Gabriel Dell's "Gabe" character is also prone to randomly switching jobs between films.
 * The Wild West: Somehow it's still around in 1947, when the Boys travel to Hangman's Hollow to clear Louie's name and collect the gold that he and his late partner hid.
 * Will:
 * A plot to steal a baby's inheritance in 1949's Hold That Baby! culminates in a gangster-assisted plan to keep the baby and his mother from the will reading.
 * A (formerly-)dying British earl is about to make Sach the heir to his estate and title in 1953's Loose in London.
 * In High Society (1955), Sach is told he is the heir to the Terwilliger Debussy Jones fortune, although it turns out a different member of the family is the true heir.
 * Wrong Side of the Tracks: At the time the films were made, the Bowery was still mostly this, although by the time the series ended in 1958 it was considerably improved.


 * Yiddish as a Second Language: At one point Indian Joe from Bowery Buckaroos (1947) (played by Iron Eyes Cody) says "Something not kosher here!"
 * You Look Familiar:
 * Until the start of the "Bowery Boys" films proper, the various characters played by the core six actors were frequently different from film to film.
 * Not all of the secondary Boys in the gang had the same names every time.
 * Bernard Gorcey played a bookie named "Jack Kane" in the first Bowery Boys film, Live Wires. It wasn't until the second film, In Fast Company, that he took on the role of Louie, which he played until his death in 1955.


 * Zany Scheme: At least one per movie.

Internal Tropes
The Bowery Boys films developed a few devices of their own to which they returned regularly.


 * Mistaken Enlistment/Tricked Into Enlisting: In a half-dozen or so films, the Boys approach the military for one reason or another and rather than accomplish their intended goal, they end up enlisted instead.
 * Super Sach: Sach does something or something happens to him to give him some manner of super power -- at least two ways of seeing the future, Super Strength, Telepathy, the ability to smell diamonds...