Crapshoot Cinema: The Gang's All Here (1941)
This Monogram Pictures movie should not be mixed up with the 1943 extravaganza starring Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda, although I wish it could be. Rats.
That’s not the movie’s fault, though. Its running time is around an hour, so it’s barely a movie, and everything about it screams, “POVERTY ROW.” However, it’s not without a few charms.
The plot is simply this: The Overland Transit Company keeps losing drivers and trucks under mysterious circumstances, so much so that the company is in trouble and their last good driver, Bob, quits. He’s got a wife and kids and can’t risk leaving them high and dry. The owner, Pop, is a little desperate because he has a loaded truck all ready to go and no one to drive it.
Overland’s not completely sunk, however. Frankie O’Malley and his buddy, Jeff Smith decide to apply because the pay is good and the work is steady. Frankie has never driven a truck before, but he’s got a driver’s license and that should be plenty, right? Overland’s mechanic, Chick, thinks Frankie and Jeff are OK, and so does Pop’s daughter, Patsy, who thinks Frankie is pretty cute.
Also heading into the fray is George Lee, a nice fellow from San Francisco who wants to learn the trucking business. He doesn’t even care that Pop can’t pay him very much. It seems Pop has himself a nice new crew of upstarts. Now if he could just get a handle on his little sabotage problem.
Fortunately, Frankie is saboteur bait. He likes to speed and on his first run he gets a ticket for fifteen dollars, or about three-hundred twenty-five in today’s money. Meanwhile, the saboteurs follow in their own rig trying to catch up. Also fortunate is George always being around at just the right time. He seems to have a secret of his own.
The biggest strength of The Gang’s All Here is its cast. They’re not A-listers, although they would have been familiar to 1941 audiences. For instance, Frankie is played by Frankie Darro, who worked steadily in film and TV from 1924 until the year before his death in 1976, often playing jockeys because he was only five-feet three inches tall, and youths because he looked young for his age.
Jackie Moran who plays Chick, was even more familiar, as he was a busy character actor, who, among his many credits, played Buddy in the 1939 Buck Rogers series and Johnny Mahoney in 1944’s Since You Went Away.
Another familiar face is Keye Luke, who’s almost unrecognizable at first as George due to his character’s glasses and tiny mustache, but who plays an intriguing part. Luke enjoyed a jam-packed career in film and television for decades, amassing over two hundred credits as an actor.
The Gang’s All Here’s sole female player was Marcia Mae Jones, yet another busy character player whose credits include such classics as The Garden of Allah and The Little Princess. She even played a landlady on the TV show, Streets of San Francisco.
So, with all that The Gang’s All Here has going for it, why is it mostly a dud? The story isn’t bad. Not great, but not bad.
First of all, while the story is ambitious, the movie couldn’t get around its low budget. In any place but Poverty Row, there would have probably been some stunts or more effects than what we got, but the movie stops just short of bringing that because those in charge at Monogram Pictures couldn’t afford it. That’s why, instead of crashing the trucks in the chase scenes, trucks would pull over and jerk to a stop, an extremely common cost-cutting trick. Excessive scenery chewing would have been out, too, because replacing scenery costs money.
Instead, there are a lot of scenes in which characters stand around and talk. Or sit around and talk. Nothing goes on any longer than it absolutely has to. The movie also unfortunately falls into mild racial stereotypes, especially concerning Jeff, who’s Frankie’s willing sidekick and only allowed to display some of his intelligence. George inspires suspicion at first as well, being an Asian man in America at the beginning of the Second World War, which means he has to qualify his background and be overly nice, at least at first. Part of that is due to his character’s arc, but the other part is, again, the time period.
While what we do get serves the story, and the acting is certainly above par, it makes for a somewhat limp viewing experience. Poverty Row is always well-worth visiting (read more about it here), but movies like The Gang’s All Here inevitably get overshadowed by their fancier counterparts.
Most, however, don’t have to compete with Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda. Poor Gang.
The Gang’s All Here is free to stream on Amazon Prime. Not rated.
My grade: B-
Principal Cast: Frankie Darro, Marcia Mae Jones, Jackie Moran, Keye Luke, Mantan Moreland, Robert Homans, Irving Mitchell, Ed Cassidy, Pat Gleason, Jack Kenney, Jack Ingram, Laurence Criner, Lee Bennett, Paul Bryer, Herman Hack.
Directed by Jean Yarborough.
Written by Edmond Kelso.