Sach (Huntz Hall) is hanging out at Louie’s sweet shop eating candy when he gets a toothache. The ache puts him into a trance where he predicts that his friend, Gabe Moreno (Gabriel Dell), will walk in the door. His friend, Slip Mahoney (Leo Gorcey), tells him that Gabe is working. Sach says that Gabe was fired twenty minutes ago. Just then Gabe walks in and confirms everything that Sach predicted.
Slip sees dollar signs and decides to put Sach in a mind reading act in a sideshow, at a local carnival. He is billed as Ali Ben Sachmo. Slip and the guys, Chuck (David Gorcey), Whitey (William Benedict), and Butch (Benny Bartlett) continuously feed Sach candy to keep his toothache going. At the sideshow Sach does some predicting for a few of the audience members.
In the audience is a mad scientist, Dr. Druzik (Alan Napier) and his minion, Otto (William Yetter Sr.). Druzik is working on an experiment where he is creating a super-human. He has his monster, Atlas (Glenn Strange), but the monster still has violent tendencies. Druzik decides to kidnap Sach and transfer his brain into Atlas and transfer Atlas’ brain into Sach. Sach is taken to Druzik’s laboratory in the abandoned Forsythe mansion.
When Slip and the guys find out that Sach was kidnapped, they decide to rescue their friend and money ticket.
“Master Minds” was released in 1949 and was directed by Jean Yarbrough. It is an American poverty row comedy horror film and is the sixteenth film in “The Bowery Boys” series.
The best part of the movie was seeing Glenn Strange get to act silly like Huntz Hall, but in a monster costume. Strange did a lot of westerns and monster movies. This film gave him a chance to have a little fun and be campy. His impression of Huntz Hall is impeccable and the best part of the film.
The entire movie is very much camp, slapstick and ridiculous humor, which is standard procedure for Bowery Boys films. It is filled with Leo Gorcey’s usual butchering of the English language. His malaprops are the essence of his character. The cast also includes Louie Dombrowski, the sweet shop owner, played by Bernard Gorcey. The plot may be pedestrian and the humor unadventurous but because of Glenn Strange, it works.
This is one of “The Bowery Boys” films that weren’t shown as often on television as some of the others. I’m a fan from way back of “The Bowery Boys” and all their renditions including “The East Side Kids” and “The Dead-End Kids”. As far as Bowery Boys style films are concerned, this is one of the better ones.
The three Gorceys in the movie are all related. David and Leo Gorcey were brothers. Bernard Gorcey was their father.