Junior G-Men

Now let me first state that I'm a big fan of both The Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys and 1940 serials, but I found this serial with the Dead End Kids to be rather rough going. This tale of a gang of street kids joining forces with the FBI to battle enemy agents is trite and unconvincing. The serial contains to many "cheats." That is a chapter ends with what looks like the end for our heroes and the next chapter a scene is inserted that we did not see in the last chapter. Now even other, much better serials have used "cheats", but this employs to many of them. Also as with most of Universals Dead End Kids films, there is no chemistry between Huntz Hall and Billy Halop. I get the feeling that Universal wanted to make a serial about a group teenagers fighting enemy agents and only cast the Dead End Kids because they were under contract, not because they were suited for the film.