When Sash (Huntz Hall) delivers food to a travel agent (Ralph Gamble) and messes things up in a matter of minutes, he's observed by the travel agents customer, Clarke (Leonard Penn), who quickly sees possibility in the guy and invites him to accompany him and his two companions, Cummings (John Dodsworth) and lovely Babs (Patricia Donahue), on a boat trip to London, and all he has to do is to play bodyguard to their dog Gloria - for a wagonload of money. You see, the trio are diamond smugglers, and they hide the stones in Gloria's fake fur, but since they know Scotland Yard inspector Saunders (Paul Cavanagh) is also on the ship, and he's been after them for years, they rather had Sach pretend the dog belonged for him for the time of the trip. Of course, Sash falls for it, and really grows attached to Gloria as well, but Sash's friends Duke (Stanley Clements), Chuck (David Gorcey) and Blinky (Eddie LeRoy) grows mighty suspicious of the whole story so they sneak onto board on the ship as stowaways but are caught and put to work on the ship. The trip itself goes almost without incident (relatively speaking), it's only when Sach and company are to hand the dog back to its original owners that things really go awry, when Gloria escapes, Sach confuses Saunders and his colleague White (Leslie Denison) for dognappers, Gloria's secret is found out after Sash and company have mistaken the diamonds under the fur for gallstones, and Sash almost steals the wrong dog. But ultimately Gloria is found, the diamonds are detected, the baddies get their just rewards, and Sash, the boys and Gloria are honoured by Scotland Yard.

The 48th and final Bowery Boys film, and it shows that the formula, which has been carried over from the Dead End Kids and the East Side Kids, the former of which originated in 1937 (even if the slapstick increased over the years). That said, it's probably also the low production values, the repetitive scripts and the lack of continuity of membership among the group - only Huntz Hall was in all 48 films, David Gorcey in monst of them, but he remained mostly in the background - that over time a smaller and smaller audience would be interested in the exploits of the boys, and the advent of TV that over the years stamped out the classic B-movie didn't help either - even though the old Bowery Boys films would go into syndication starting 1960.

Taken by its own rights, In The Money isn't a terrible movie, and at least Huntz Hall has some really funny scenes, but at the same time it feels pretty random narrative-wise and somehow like a relic of the 1940s rather then 1958. Worth a chuckle at least, but not really one of the better films of the series.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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