Review of The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters

Any film that has a conversation about how to make prettier pickles is classic in my book, and this ends up being probably the best of the Bowery Boys films,an Abbott and Costello style horror film. There's a Lurch like Butler (Grisom, whom they keep referring to as Gruesome) who gets the predictable reaction when he orders Sach and Slip to "walk this way", a series of wacky relatives and an exotic Theda Bara like vamp, all gathered together in a spooky mansion where it's best to expect the unexpected. Some great character comics (among them Ellen Corby and Lloyd Corrigan) have a ball emoting dramatically for laughs. Corby has a tree monster who happens to like cats (as a snack, I'm sure), and Gruesome, err Grisom, takes a potion that makes him Mr. Hyde's long lost twin. A funny looking robot and a gorilla round out the ensemble of wacky creations/creatures.

There's more laughs in this single entry than all of the series up to that time. The script is filled with funny gags and dialog ("The living of today are the skeletons of tomorrow"), and it's an interesting set design as well. Corby, looking like granny without the Tweety Bird, will delight her fans from "The Waltons", looking the same but no match for her no- nonsense matriarch as she regrets the lack of living flesh for her funny looking tree. Minimal screen time of the gang for all but Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall doesn't matter, as the wacky characters of this madhouse are entertainment enough.