User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** One of the better post Leo & Bernard Gorcey "Bowery Boys" flicks that has Duke reminisce of his days in The US army in North Africa when he together with Sach and later Chuck Butch & Blinkey single handedly made possible for the secret allied invasion that won the war there. That's by the two putting their lives on the line in going undercover as two German soldiers assigned to Rommel's feared Afrika Corps.

This all starts when US War Department investigator Lester Bradfield showed up at Mike Clancy's Diner, after almost getting strangled by a fishnet, in the Bowery looking for a US Army issue pot that's been missing since 1942! It's then that Duke who was he last person to see the pot alive goes into this long flashback about his and the "Bowery Boys" exploits back in WWII that lead to the pots disappearance! Chosen by their superiors Duke & Sach went on a suicide mission to infiltrate the Afrika Corps and find out what their up to in order to make possible the upcoming US invasion of North Africa. Sach & Duke as German Col. Hoffman Von Snabble and Pvt Schultz sneak behind enemy lines to make contact with the local Arab rebels lead by Col. Ahmed Tabari who's to start guerrilla warfare against the Germans. There's also the Hawk who's the major link between the allies and the Arab rebels who has all the information about the German troop and panzer division deployments as well as who among those in power,in his Arab homeland, are really working with the Germans against the allies.

***SPOILERS*** As it turns out it's Sultan Sidi-Omar who's supposedly working with the Americans to liberate his country from the Germans who's actually planning to double-cross them by giving the US Military false information thus setting it up for a German ambush as soon as it's troop & assault boats hit the North African beaches! With both Duke and Sach getting the rest of the "Bowery Boys" to reinforce them they soon take control of the situation and put an end to both Rommell and Hitler's mad dreams of North African, and all the oil wells situated there, conquest by opening the door to that US invasion!

Of course all this didn't at all faze investigator Lester Bradfield who's more interested in getting his hands on the missing pot and bringing it back to US Army headquarters in Washinton D.C then any war stories, true or imaginary, that Duke can dream up!

***MAJOR SPOILER*** It's when Bradfield agrees to accept the four dollars and change that the pot cost is when the you know what suddenly hit the fan! That's when Mike Clancy hit his cash register to get the money to play Bradfield for the pot that all hell broke loose! It's then that the missing kitchen pot,now a flower pot, miraculously reappeared and ended up planting itself right on top of Lester Bradfield's head!

This is the first, (and only one so far) Bowery Boys flick that I've seen without Leo Gorcey, though he had left the franchise one year and a few pictures earlier following the death of his dad Bernard. However it was cool to see that his likeness was kept in view with the comic images presented as part of the opening credits. The thing I missed here that only Gorcey could provide were those witty malapropisms he was known for. The best quote this picture could provide was the one in my summary line, and there were no other contenders.

Of course the boys had appeared in military adventures before (1951 - "Bowery Battalion", 1952 - "Here Come the Marines"), but this one is done as a flashback to Sach's hitch in the Army when he went undercover as a Nazi Officer along with Duke Coveleskie (Stanley Clements). Their mission was to deliver a message to 'The Hawk', an agent who would pass the plans for a secret mission to the Allies, thereby implementing the military liberation of a Middle Eastern country. Hmmm, sounds like it could have been ripped from the headlines of today - Libya, anyone?

The picture remotely reminded me of an old Western going by the title of "The Hawk of Powder River". I'm giving away the plot line of two stories when I say that in both pictures, The Hawk is a female, although in the Western she's a villain, and here, she's an American operative masquerading as a harem girl. True to form, the stereotypical bad guys are enemy Nazi soldiers and evil Arabs, made to look foolish by Sach's usual goof-ball antics.

In case you're wondering, Louie's Ice Cream Shop is no longer the Boys' meeting place once the picture transitions back to present day. The hangout of choice now is Mike's Hash House, Mike portrayed by familiar character actor Dick Elliott. It was curious to me how Elliott, at seventy one years old when he made the picture, would have been part of the same Army unit with the Boys just a few years earlier in this desert caper. But I don't imagine movie audiences were supposed to think about that back in the day.

"Looking for Danger" is number forty-six of the forty-eight entries in Monogram's "Bowery Boys" series. It's also one of only three movies for TV actress, Lili Kardell. Although this particular Bowery Boys entry lacks the Gorceys and the usual gang, its direction by Austen Jewell (promoted from the assistant director ranks) is every bit as dull as William Beaudine's. Nonetheless, "Looking for Danger" actually shapes up as one of the better Bowery Boys' efforts. The money saved by dropping the Gorceys was obviously utilized to provide more appealing production values. The support cast here not only features our captivating little heroine, it also provides some passably interesting villains. And as for art direction, the oriental settings are certainly far more appealing than the usual tatty Bowery backgrounds. Best of all, this entry features a comparatively well-staged action climax!