Somewhat Below East Side Standards.
This East Side Kids melodrama introduces Huntz Hall, one of the original Dead End boys, to this series, and quaintly casts Keye Luke, Charlie Chan's "Number One Son" as a pool hall manager (named Clancy!), but each performer plays only a small role in this story of Muggs McGinnis (Leo Gorcey) and his gang. Released before the U.S. entry into WWII (ergo the Teutonic title), the film is devoid of the customary wartime propaganda that the series featured, but it is also shorn of the snappy ad libbing that caught the Gotham flavour of most of these affairs, and we must settle for a rapidly moving but largely uninvolving account of Muggs' decision to go straight amidst the usual background of the fight game and gangsters.

Leo Gorcey must fight in the ring. Huntz Hall joins gang.
Huntz Hall now joins the East Side Kids, who was over with Billy Halop, Bernard Punsly and Gabriel Dell as the Dead End Kids helping the Little Tough Guys and still will until 1943.
Well as you can see Leo Gorcey with Huntz Hall, Sammy Morrison, Donald Haines and David Gorcey are still up to no good. Leo hits "Monk" (Bobby Stone) and then puts shoe polish on his nose. Policeman Tom decides to stop them and reminds the gang of reform school. He wants to talk to the kids in the Pool Hall. In the Pool Hall is Clancy (played by Keye Luke of Charlie Chan film series, Kung Fu tv series, 1972-75,86 as "Master Po"). Later, Monk tells Bobby Jordan a lie that Leo had said something about his sister. Monk's plan works and Leo and Bobby fist fight. The police show up and the kids make a run for it. Leo ges caught. Policeman Tom talks Leo into fighting in the ring for the Golden Gloves. Can Leo and Bobby ever be friends again? Bobby ends up in the hospital and Leo gives him a special gift of life. In the next film, the boys meet Bela Lugosi and have to chase some spooks in SPOOKS RUN WILD (1941).

Gotham/Alpha DVD is bad, look for the Platinum Disc DVD
If you are a Bowery Boys - East Side Kids fan, you know these low budget dramadies are entertaining. Unfortunately, the DVD issued by Gotham Distributors/Alpha Video is almost unwatchable. A Washed out picture and distorted soundtrack take away from the enjoyment of this movie.
HOWEVER, if you can find the PLATINUM DISC CORPORATION DVD, you will enjoy a sharp clear picture with excellent contrast and a crisp clear soundtrack worthy of DVD.

For What It Is . . . Not Bad
Before there were the Bowery Boys, there were the East Side Kids, and if you thought the Bowery Boys was a low budget series, wait until you catch the East Side Kids. Compared with the production values in the East Side Kids Series, the later Bowery Boys semeed like MGM.

A note of difference: though both were released by the same studio, Monogram, the 22 pictures of the East Side Kids were independently produced by Sam Katzman and his Banner Films company. Once the popularity of the series was established, the Boys wanted more money and so Katzman gladly turned the series over to Monogram, who renemd it "The Bowery Boys.For the 60 or so films that would come out, each was a money maker for this "B" studio and helped finance some of their stabs at "A" billing and the respect it brings.)For students of film, Katzman has a defined niche in history as one of the giants of the exploitation movie. Consider the title of this movie, "Bowery Blitzkreig." One would assume that somewhere along the line Nazis and other bad guys of WWII would be added.

Nope, this is a film about Golden Gloves boxing as Muggs (Leo Gorcey) fights the crooked racketeers of the game while still finding time to donate blood to pal Danny (Bobby Jordan), shot while resisting crime. The performances are nothing new: Gorcey and company simply honed their roles from their previous stint as the Dead End Kids for Warner Bros., but they are entertaining.

The transfer is not the greatest, but we must keep in mind that prints of this movie were probably treated with benign neglect at the best. (I wonder how many of the 22 movies actually survived.) Even so, the movie is clear with only a few glitches and actually lacks the darkness that distinguished most of the series on television.

All in all, it's a little slice of nostalgia (How many of us remember whiling away our Saturday or Sunday afternoons watching these on a local channel?) at just the right price.