Dead End Kid and Son

The Dead End Kids, (later The Bowery Boys, The East Side Kids and The Little Tough Guys) are great favorites of ours here at the Bijou Blog. The gang got their name from their first movie together, Dead End, in which they reprised their roles from the hit Broadway production. Leo Gorcey Jr. has written a remarkable book about growing up with Slip Mahoney aka Muggs McGinnis aka Leo Gorcey. In this excerpt, which he has generously allowed us to reprint, he recounts their relationship, during the filming of Dead End, with Humphrey Bogart. Fans of Leo Gorcey and the Dead End Kids will find the book fascinating, and quite a wild ride. You can order a copy from Amazon.com. For an autographed copy, write to Leo at leogorcey@leogorcey.com.

Humphrey Bogart was fresh off a hard-earned success as Duke Mantee in Petrified Forest. But a long way from Casablanca.

The suits at Warners didn’t see Bogey as a leading man. "He doesn’t have the face,” they complained. “And he sounds like a fairy with that lisp.”

In Dead End, Bogey’s characterization of Baby Face would be a thumbnail sketch of his yet-to-be-realized Picasso – the classic, hard-nosed gangster in the trademark fedora and Dick Tracy trench coat. The guy who sticks his neck out for no one.

One day, after the kids pants-ed Bogey (held him down and stripped him of his trousers) for ignoring them, the Prince did the unexpected. He invited the Kids to join him for lunch at the commissary. Bogey was taking them on.

Huntz threw out the bait.

“We’re bored, Princey.” Huntz whined to Bogart as he ripped into a mustard covered hot dog.

“Bored?"

“Yeah,” chirped Leo. “We duhn about everting we can tink of tuh dese lugs, an’ we still ain’t been kicked off duh picture! We’re all out uh doity tricks!”

“Doncha’ think yer pushin’ it, boys?” asked Bogey.

“Pushin’ wuht?” asked Huntz with mock innocence. “We ain’t been dat bad! Duh picture’ll be in duh can in a week, an’ we ain’t gonna be nuttin’ but a memory tuh dese kingpins!”

“Oh I doubt that. Let’s see, you boys completely destroyed an entire sound stage….”

“Dat was because de gas pedal on duh truck got stuck! Dat wasn’t our fault!” Huntz protested.

Bogey narrowed his eyes. “Oh? So what about you boys costin’ the studio a pile uh dough when you set off the sprinklers and flooded the whole wardrobe department? I suppose yer gonna claim it was the sprinkler’s fault!”

Leo’s turn. “But Bogey, we was jist testin’ duh new sprinklers system. An’ besides, duh five fire engine drivers thawt it was funny!”

Laughter all around. A chuckle from the Prince.

“So, wadd’ ya boys want from me, the Congressional Medal of Honor?”

Back to Huntz. “We don’ want no medal, Princey, we want ideas! You must have some tricks up yer sleeve! You been in dis racket longuh dan we have!”

“Yeah,” piped up the other Kids. “Show us yer bag uh tricks, Princey!”

The bait was too good.

“OK, boys. I set fire to a guy’s newspaper once…while he was readin’ it!”

The Kids exploded with laughter. Leo took the lead. “We ain’t nevuh done nuttin’ like dat!”

“Oh, that was jist for starters,” Bogey bragged. “When I was workin’ on my first picture, me and this other kid, we slipped into this actor’s trailer and nailed his slippers to the floor. When he tried walkin’ in ‘em, he fell flat on his kisser!”

Over to Huntz. “Oh, Daaat’s a good one, Princey!” “Listen, if you boys are serious about causing a ruckus, sneak up behind Willy Wyler and pour water into the seat of his canvas chair!”

“Now yer talkin’, Princey!” yelled one of the kids.

Confident that he was now in with the kids, Bogey got up from the table. “Well, boys, I’m goin’ to saw some logs before we go back to work.”

“Hey, Princey,” Huntz slapped Bogey’s shoulder. “Tanks fer duh hot tips!”

“There’s more where those came from. Now, stay outta trouble, yuh hear? I’d like to get off this picture in one piece. And if anybody asks, we never had this conversation. Is that clear?”

Huntz smiled. “Clear as a bell, Princey!”

The Kids chimed in. “Yeah, clear as a bell, Princey!”

Ten minutes later, the Kids heard snoring outside Bogey’s trailer window that was loud enough to wake the dead.

“Well, light ‘em up Leo!”

“I’ll light ‘em aright, Gabe, but I ain’t trowin’ ‘em in.”

“I’ll trow ‘em in,” offered Huntz.

“Arright, who’s got duh torch?” squealed Leo.

Gabe pulled a pack of matches out of his trouser pocket. Leo lit the bundle of firecrackers and handed it to Huntz. Huntz pitched it through Bogart’s partially opened trailer window. An ear-splitting crackling, machine gun sound filled the air. A cloud of gray, puffyy smoke wafted out of Bogey’s trailer window.

Then Bogart’s angry howl. “You kids’ll pay fer this! You’re all gonna pay fer this!”

Bogey’s threat from behind his trailer door caused the Kids to scatter for cover. When they were out of sight of the trailer, they stopped to catch their breath.

“I tink we jist lost anuddah friend.” Leo muttered with regret.

“We shouldda thawt uh dat ten minutes ago.” Huntz sounded a bit remorseful himself.

“Ahhhh, shuddup, Cyrano. I didn’t hear you firin’ no warnin’ shots. You trew duh sticks innnair yuh moron!

“Losin’ friends is gettin’ to be a bad habit wit us.” Leo lamented.

But it was too late for apologies.

A thoughtless gag cost the Kids their friendship with Bogey. Bogey wasn’t the only one. Sam’s (Sam Katzman) patience with the Dead End Kids was wearing paper-thin.

Dick Tracy's Celluloid Adventures

When we set out last Week to research an introduction to Dick Tracy’s film heritage for today’s post, we didn’t expect to be showered with serendipity. First there was the Google Alert heralding a just-published Fort Worth Business Press column by author and film historian Michael H. Price (reprinted here). Michael discusses Dick Tracy and particularly Tracy’s celluloid incarnations. This was on the same day that VCI Entertainment released an exquisite new DVD version of the 15 chapter Dick Tracy Returns (1938) serial. We further learned that Orson Welles once made reference to Citizen Kane, Dick Tracy and “matinee at the Bijou” all in the same sentence, in a 1971 interview with Michael. And that the expression “matinee at the Bijou” was often used in the past when talking about the experience of going to the movie matinee.

Great thanks to the Fort Worth Business Press and the author for permission to reprint MHP’s 06-24-08 column “Dick Tracy Returns marks DVD début.”

From the 1930s into the 1970s, Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy was the standard to beat as a competitive force within the newspaper industry. Writer-artist Gould considered his cops-vs.-crooks cartoon to be in competition not only with other comic-strip attractions — but also with the front page. Gould’s selling strategy was to tempt readers by the millions to turn first to Tracy, to see what desperate situation might lie in store, before checking out the news of the day.

The comics pages are hardly like that any longer, even though Dick Tracy has continued long past the day of Chet Gould. Nothing so ferocious or suspenseful as the Gould Tracy graces the present-day scene — although the title character, a tough-as-nails police detective, remains a cultural icon, ready and able to remind anyone of the imaginative thrall of effective storytelling.

I have spent the past year working with San Diego-based IDW Publishing on an ambitious resurrection of the seminal Tracy yarns. The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, a series of hardcover books, is up to Vol. No. 4, now, with a long way to go toward completion. That fourth book brings Gould’s feature into 1937, coinciding with the opening of the first Dick Tracy movie.

I had written, in a Foreword to Tracy Vol. 4, about the hit-and-miss availability of these Dick Tracy movies and television spinoffs. Republic Pictures’ 1937 Dick Tracy, a cliffhanger serial starring Ralph Byrd as the lawman, has seen several video editions since the 1980s. A 1940s run of Tracy features can be found readily enough on DVD, as can episodes of an early-’50s TV series. And of course Warren Beatty’s 1990 production of Dick Tracy has remained steadily in print.

In a cause-and-effect response to the new books, a significant gap is filled by a new DVD edition of Republic’s Dick Tracy Returns (1938), from VCI Entertainment. Where the 1937 serial had pitted Byrd-as-Tracy against a master criminal known as the Spider, the immediate sequel multiplies the menace with a crooked family (headed by gaunt Charles Middleton, of the Flash Gordon serials) whose rampages reflect well Chet Gould’s contempt toward the criminal element.

Where the 1937 Tracy holds pride-of-place as a classic serial, Dick Tracy Returns may anchor a more influential position in the culture of sophisticated filmmaking. One innovative touch of Tracy Returns is a mock-newsreel account of a crime spree. This element proved influential, in turn, upon the establishing moments of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941).

Welles, a lifelong comics-and-serials enthusiast, told me during an interview in 1971: “I loved the Tracy chapter-plays, and the ‘true-crime’ newsreel sequence in that one serial was enough to make me feel as though the story was unfolding in life. The actual Hollywood-studio newsreels, after all, were what kept a matinée at the Bijou anchored in a real-world sensibility. And how better to acquaint the audience with ol’ Charlie Kane, than with a convincing newsreel segment.

Two other Tracy serials remain generally unavailable: Dick Tracy’s G-Men dates from 1939, and Dick Tracy vs. Crime, Inc. from 1941. VHS-cassette editions are scarce. But VCI’s DVD release of Dick Tracy Returns suggests some promising follow-throughs.

Devoted Tracy buffs can find the 1940s feature-films via the Alpha Video label (http://www.oldies.com/) and in rotation on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. The titles are Dick Tracy and Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1945–1946; with Morgan Conway) and Dick Tracy’s Dilemma and Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947; with Ralph Byrd). The Byrd-starring teleseries of 1950–1951 graces an Alpha Video sampler. There have been more high-profile DVD releases for a Tracy series of kid-stuff television cartoons from 1961 and, of course, for Warren Beatty’s Dick Tracy.

Beyond his work on Dick Tracy, Michael Price is a contemporary superhero in the realm of forgotten films. Thanks to Michael's prolific writings and dogged determination, many otherwise forgotten films continue to resurface. He writes more about Dick Tracy, from Strip to Screen in an installment of his weekly Web column at http://www.comicmix.com/, and in his Forgotten Horrors book series available at Midnight Marquee Press.