 | Hey gang, this week's treat is an East Side Kids picture (that was the group squeezed in between the Dead End Kids and the Bowery Boys). It was directed by Wallace Fox and released in 1941, and it begins with Mugs (Leo Gorcey) beatin' the crap out of some poor slob down at Clancy's pool room. |  |
| Mugs is aces with his fists, but he gets a stern lecture from local flatfoot Tom Baker (Warren "The Spider" Hull). That's Donald Haines, late of the Our Gang series, watching. |  | |
 | And here on our left we meet "Clancy" -- Keye Luke, the world's most unlikely Irishman. Mugs is reading about the upcoming Golden Gloves tournament, which East Side Kid Danny is sure to win. |  |
| Sunshine Sammy Morrison, another former Our Gang star, is the shoeshine boy outside Clancy's. |  | |
 | Danny (Bobby Jordan) has fallen in with the wrong crowd, see, in the person of a guy named Monk Martin, who wows him with an expensive $75 suit and a nice set of wheels. Bobby decides to dump Mugs and the gang and throw in with Monk. |  |
| Mugs runs afoul of the law once again, and this time Brady pinches him. I think Mugs sassed him by telling him he was a bupke in Mandrake the Magician. |  | |
 | Danny breaks the heart of his sister (Charlotte Henry; remember her as Bo-Peep in the Laurel & Hardy film Babes in Toyland? Neither do I). Anyway, Mary's datin' the copper, and Danny don't approve much. |  |
| Danny drives the getaway car while Monk goes in and makes a little cash withdrawal from a local establishment. |  | |
 | The Kids head in to bail out Mugs, who is sprung on the condition that he goes to live with Mary and her mother and fights for the cops' team in the Golden Gloves tournament. |  |
| Mugs decides to play square with the cop, and is soon immersed in a training regimen... |  | |
 | Well, Limpy (Huntz Hall) isn't much of a trainer. In a minute the bike will crash, and he'll fuss, "I'll never steal THAT bike again!" | |
| Here, Limpy gets some pointers on being a good trainer. They include tape on his wrists and mouth. |  | |
 | Before long, Mugs is knocking out foes left 'n' right 'n' left again, and the police issue him a special citation. Even the gang is impressed (and that's Gorcey's brother David as "Peewee" in the striped shirt; he'd last into the Bowery Boys days). |  |
 | Because of Mugs' success, a gambling syndicate decides to offer him a $1000 bribe to throw the champeenship. Mugs surprisingly agrees, and takes the dough. The fix is in. |  |
 | Yikes! Monk and Danny have been cornered by the cops, and Monk pulls out a pistol. Bullets fly, and Monk is killed while Danny is severely wounded. |  |
| Danny needs a transfusion but quick, and he's got a blood type that's hard to match. Mugs is a fit, though, and he stops enroute to the Garden to donate for his estranged pal. |  | "Why waste time?" he tells the doc. "I've got plenty o' blood!" |
| He makes it to the fight just in time, but he's drained and tired from his trip to the hospital and worry about Danny. |  | |
 | The Gang is there in force to cheer him on! And the fight's a corker, with no mercy asked for and none given. Mugs looks sluggish, though, and the cops begin to wonder if maybe the rumor is true and Mugs DID promise to throw the fight. |  |
| Mugs is knocked down several times, but keeps bouncing back up. It's tough to keep a Dead End Kid down, or so they say. |  | |
 | As the fight goes on, Mugs gets stronger and stronger, and pretty soon it's the gamblers who are starting to look a little nervous. Mugs' opponent is beginning to take a ferocious beating! What a fight! |  |
| Finally, he's down for the count, and Mugs is the Golden Gloves champeen o' the city. |  | Listening in on the radio from his hotel room, Danny can only smile. He's gonna spend the rest of his life devoted to goodness, not rottenness, for sure. |
 | Turns out Mugs had given that $1000 to his mudder, and had no intention of throwin' the fight. The gamblers are rounded up, Tom and Mary marry, Huntz and Leo and Sammy go on to lots more East Side Kids movie, and we all live happily ever after. And the DVD's available from Alpha! |  |