Bowery Buckaroos

Bowery Buckaroos (1947)

** (out of 4)

Eighth film in the Bowery Boys series has the boys heading out West where they must try and prove that Louie (Bernard Gorcey) was framed twenty-years earlier when some said he shot a man in the back. Once out West the boys must pretend (once again) to be someone they're not and get to the truth. Considering most comic duos or groups traveled out West at some point in their careers it should come as no shock that the Bowery Boys would eventually find themselves out there. For the most part this is yet another harmless entry in the series and there are some nice laughs but in the end there's no question that there's no enough to carry the short 66-minutes. I thought the film got off to a very good start with Bernard Gorcey really getting many laughs as he gets a tad bit more to do here than in some of the previous movies. Him telling about the "map" on his back was very funny as was his opening song. Speaking of songs, we get a later scene with the boys driving out West that is very funny as well. Once we get to the West things start off pretty good with a spoof of Indian attacks but after this things slow down rather quickly. I think the biggest problem is that the majority of the jokes simply aren't funny and instead of spoofing the genre the film just gives us one cliché after another. I think had the film kept the spoofing up then it could have gotten a lot more laughs than what's actually here. Leo and Huntz are their typical selves but we get some nice supporting performances by Minerva Urecal, Russell Simpson and Julie Gibson. This here also marked the last entry for Bobby Jordan, which was a shame considering how good he was but it's understandable that he left considering how he wasn't given much to do.