Gang's All Here

Rating:
Summary: Darro & Moreland always fun, but vehicle sometimes sputters
Review: Frankie Darro's tough-kid adventures were a mainstay for low-budget Monogram Pictures in the late '30s and early '40s, and when two of Monogram's other series faltered, the studio lumped them into the indestructible Darro series. Thus Marcia Mae Jones and Jackie Moran (of Monogram's teen romances) and Keye Luke (late of "Mr. Wong") joined pop-eyed Mantan Moreland as Darro's co-stars, prompting the title "The Gang's All Here."

The title suggests a genial comedy, but the new co-stars are dropped uneasily into a crime-melodrama plot: villainous truckers running a rival trucking company off the roads and out of business. Frankie and Mantan sign on as new drivers, and are targeted for death. Not as slow as some of the Monogram mellers, but a notch or two below Darro's best; the Darro gang would find more rewarding work in the musical-comedy format.

The source appears to be a carefully edited composite of two vintage prints, resulting in a fully complete and well preserved film. But the picture quality is troubling; the image looks jerky in a few scenes, like a movie taken with a digital camera, as though the action is being "stretched." This is either Monogram tricking up the speed of the "truck" exteriors, or an inferior digital transfer (the Alpha Video series is generally excellent).

It's nice to see Darro and Moreland in action, but B-movie fans might try Alpha's DVD of "Up in the Air" instead, in which the stars work with more assurance.