Slip, aka Leo Gorcey, provides a Philip Marlowe style narration in this entry in the Bowery Boys series that spoofs the new breed of crime film known as "film noir", perhaps not realizing what they were doing. It's as deliciously close to film noir as the spoof's, "The Cheap Detective" and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" were. They are taking on a mysterious gang known as "the Loop" who attacked their pal, Gabriel Dell. Told in flashback, this has all the elements of the great film noir of the day, not that I consider this a classic by any means. The use of music, editing and photography is more cleverly used, making this stand out among the long running D grade series that was never meant to be anything but a quick money maker for Monogram studios during the late 1940's. I don't think that Leo Gorcey gets the credit for being as good an actor as he is, but this ranks as one of his best performances, really making the grade in his narration as well as in the use of his malapropisms in describing what's going on. So probably the best of the series up to this point, it would only find competition in a few more over the next decade.

(Some Spoilers) The movie starts with Slip & Sach beaten to a pulp and left unconscious in an alley by their fleeing, from the cops, attackers. Was this the result of a street mugging? A bar room brawl that spilled into the street? Or something else like a police undercover operation that went seriously wrong. It's then that we get the low down from Slip himself as he recounts the events, in his hospital bed, that lead to this calamity to both him and Sach who, with his famous nose badly bruised, still hasn't regained consciousness.It's when former Bowery Boy and now policeman Gabe Moreno was gunned down with his partner, who later passed away, Officer Murphy that Slip & Sach decided to track down their attackers by going undercover as big time hoodlums. Working for the Daily Chronicle as copy boys Slip & Sach took a leave of absences and infiltrated the notorious Chicago Loop Mob that was opening up business in the Big Apple. The Loop Mob headed by the sharp and collegiate looking Mr. Carver had committed a string of payroll robberies where both Officers Murphy & Moreno were their latest victims.Getting in good with the Caver Mob both Slip & Sach together with the Bowery Boys and sweet shop owner "Big Louie", all 4 foot ten inches of him, Dumbrowski are entrusted by Carver in his latest job in knocking off the Gotham Steel Works payroll. With Slip secretly forwarding this information to his boss Jim Cobb the editor of the Daily Chronicle, who in turn forwards it back to the NYPD, he doesn't realize that someone on the paper is working with Caver and his mob and relying that information back to him.Somewhat serious Bowery Boys film with more people getting gunned down in it then in most Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson gangster flicks. There's also the drop dead gorgeous and classy Jean Dean as mob boss Caver's moll Vickie Darwell who keeps the boys, Slip & Sach, minds off their job as undercover agents of the NYPD and Daily Chronicle every time she's on the screen with them.

This film of the Bowery Boys series finds them as Angels In Disguise. Though Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall are only newspaper copy boys they go undercover as investigative journalists to track down the notorious Loop gang which has been pulling robberies all over the city. Their latest robbery wounds police officer Gabriel Dell and kills another officer who was a friend to the Boys.Gorcey's skill with a pool cue gains him entry to the gang which is headed by Edmond Ryan who is a really chilling character, a bit out of the general fun of a Bowery Boys film. The gang has been getting inside information on which places to rob, but I will have to say that the way it is transmitted is one of the cleverest gimmicks I've ever seen on film. Talk about hiding it in plain sight.The film is narrated by Gorcey with his usual command of the English language and syntax. And Huntz Hall is as clueless as ever. Definitely Angels In Disguise is one of the better Bowery Boys films.

"Angels in Disquise" is the most stylish, most Irish, and arguably the best of the Bowery Boys series. Eddie Ryan is great as an intellectual crime boss who believes the boys are tough gangsters. There are the usual number of amusing malapropisms from Slip, lots of zany moments from Sach, and the height-challenged Bernard Gorcey gets to play a gunman called "Big Louie Dumbrowsky".The best part of "Angels", however, is Jean Dean as bad girl Vicki Darwell. Dean was a Vargas model in the 1940's (for his redheads) and Esquire calendar girl who was as close to physical perfection as any woman before or since. The scene in which she makes her first appearance is magical; that moment transcends the whole series. It even appears that the actors recognize this as it is happening, and are genuinely blown away by this stunning beauty.