Slip's cousin Jimmy gets released from prison and quickly turns back to a life of crime. Slip tries to help him out by going undercover in a car-theft ring. It's the ninth Bowery Boys film and the first without Bobby Jordan. Stars Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are both good here, doing as much drama as comedy. Gabriel Dell, William Benedict, and David Gorcey are all fine. Frankie Darro is enjoyable as Jimmy. Early in his career he was great at playing young street toughs, despite not being one of the Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys. Bennie Bartlett appears for the first time in a Bowery Boys movie. He would become a regular member of the gang in the next film. Geneva Gray and former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche provide the pretty. Sadly Bernard Gorcey's Louie is absent from this one. Instead we get an annoying little kid that looks up to Slip. You get the impression they were trying out a new character hoping he would catch on. He has a 'Bobs Watson scene' that has to be seen to be believed. The rest of the cast includes vets like John Eldredge, Nestor Paiva, and Dewey Robinson. There's a little more drama than comedy with this one, which might not please all fans. It reminds me of some of the gang's 1930s Dead End efforts. There is some comedy, though. The scene where Huntz Hall does impressions of Ronald Colman, Jimmy Durante, and James Cagney is a highlight. It's not one of my favorite Bowery Boys movies but it is an interesting one.

Angels' Alley (1948) *** (out of 4) A surprisingly effective entry in the Bowery Boys series has Jimmy (Frankie Darro) being released from prison and staying with Slip (Leo Gorcey) and his mother. Slip soon learns that Jimmy's involved with a small-time gangster and wrapped up in a auto-theft business. This was the ninth film in the series and it comes as a refreshing one as a lot of the silly comedy winds up on the back burner and we're given a lot more drama. The film really comes off as a major throwback to their 30s period when they were known as the Dead End Kids. Pretty much the only thing missing here is Pat O'Brien playing the Father and Humphrey Bogart playing the gangster. The first fifteen-minutes features the type of comedy we've come to expect from the series and it's actually pretty funny. We start off with a pretty good gag with Slip trying to go after the girl who he of course can't have. We get a few other funny pieces but it doesn't take long for the film to take a quick turn and enter the drama mode. The storyline here isn't anything original as we have troubled kids working for a gangster who is of course taking advantage of them. We have a Father (Nelson Leigh) who of course wants to protect his boys and of course we have Slip and the gang taking charge and trying to bring the bad guys down. I was really surprised at how dark some of the subject matter got including one turn of events that you really won't expect. I thought Gorcey gave his most effective performance of the series and manages to handle the comedy well but also the drama. Huntz Hall is once again called on to act the role of the idiot, which he does quite well but at times his comedy style is really out of place. We got Gabriel Dell playing yet a different type of character in Ricky and Nestor Paiva is pretty good as the crime boss. The film's biggest problem is that there's some comedy bits later in the film that don't work as well as they should but this is still a pretty good entry in the series and most importantly a refreshing one.

As if the world did not have enough troubles, the English language was sent back a few generations as Leo Gorcey acquired an understudy in diction and grammar in Angels' Alley. Other than that, this film takes a more serious tone than most of the Bowery Boys features.Young Thomas Menzies has adopted Gorcey as a hero and has taken to wearing the creased old fedora like him and using the big words without quite knowing the meaning. It's the best thing about Angels' Alley.Another actor who played troubled city kids, Frankie Darro, plays Leo Gorcey's cousin just released from prison. Immediately he gets tied up with the local gangster Nestor Paiva. It's up to the Bowery Boys to get the whole situation straightened.This film did miss Bernard Gorcey as Louie Dombrowski, proprietor of Louie's sweetshop and hangout for Leo, Huntz Hall and the rest. Nice film, but not in the usual Bowery Boys spirit.

***SPOILERS*** It's when Slip's ex-con cousin Chuck came over to crash at his mom's Moma Mahoney's place that things started tuning rotten for everyone involved. With him already a two time loser Chuck gets himself involved with big time gangster Tony Locerno's wear-house high-jacking and hot car racket that if caught can send Chuck away for life and end up killing Moma Mahoney by breaking her heart.Even though he has no use for his rotten Cousin Chuck Slip ends up taking the rap for him in trying to stop Cuck from high jacking a truck loaded with furs and electronic appliances when he ended up getting suckered punched, and left lying unconscious, by Chuck. This has the good Father O'Hanlon come to Slip's rescue in vouching for him and his good character that has Slip now try to get to the bottom of what's going on in the Locerno mob by joining it! Now on the in's with mobster Locerno Slip tries to set him up in a police sting involving hot cars that he and his boys keep hidden, in order to chop up, at the Ace High Garage on the city's waterfront. What Slip and his goofy friend Sach plan to do is get the hottest available cars for the unsuspecting Locerno to chop up that would lead the police straight to his front door at the Ace High Garage: The Mayor District Attorney and police Chief's official city automobiles!There's also Slip's former Bowery Boy buddy Ricky Moreno who's part of Locerno's sleazy operation who after seeing how crooked he is, even for a mobster, turns against him and helps Slip, without his knowledge, set his boss up. Ricky had all he could take from Locerno when he stiffed Ricky for a job he did for him in getting Locerno illegal gambling cash. But worst of all Ricky couldn't stomach Locerno's using young and misguided teenage boys and ex-cons, who faced life behind bars if caught, like Chuck to do his dirty work. Even Father O'Hanlon a man of pace and understanding just couldn't take what Locerno was doing by laying him out, with a straight right to the kisser, when he came to get him to stop corrupting the city's youth!P.S At the end of the movie Sach feeling that he's being stiffed, in being forced to play second fiddle, by his Bowery Boys pal Slip tells him : "This is the last picture I'll ever make with you". As things, and Bowery Boy's film history, turned out Sach was to make over 30 more Bowery Boys films with Slip until 1956 after Slip quit the series when his pop known in the series as sweet shop owner Louie Dumbrowski died, from the injuries he suffered in a traffic accident, on September 11, 1955.