Let's Get Tough!

Director: Wallace Fox, Wallace W. Fox Wallace Fox

Overview

Set soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Let's Get Tough! opens with the East Side Kids -- Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, David Gorcey, Sammy "Sunshine" Morrison, and Bobby Stone -- trying to enlist in the armed forces and getting turned down because they're not yet 18 years old. Eager to contribute and frustrated at not being allowed to help out in the national emergency, they decide to take action on their own when they see an argument between Kino, a Japanese dealer in antiques, and a local boy named Fritz Heinbach (Gabriel Dell). They try to run Kino out of his own store but instead, the shopkeeper runs them off, and the boys get a warning from "Pop" Stevens (Robert Armstrong), the local cop on the beat, to stay out of trouble. That night, however, they return intent on trashing Kino's store, only to find the man at his desk, stabbed to death. When they're pulled in by the police, the boys find out that Kino was a Chinese agent impersonating a Japanese, and trying to uncover a cell of saboteurs. The boys decide to investigate on their own after they hear rumors that Bill (Tom Brown), the brother of one of them, has been thrown out of the army for his un-American beliefs and has been seen hanging around Matsui, who is considered a potential suspect. They end up infiltrating a meeting of Japanese saboteurs and spies, and find an alliance between them and German immigrant Fritz Heinbach; Bill turns out to be an American agent working the same case as Kino, but they're all trapped, until one of the gang escapes to summon the police.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/29/2017
UPC:	0889290261496
Original Release:	1942
Source:	Film Detective
Language:	English
Time:	1:02:00
Sales rank:	58,707

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Leo Gorcey	Muggs,Peewee
Bobby Jordan	Danny Connors
Huntz Hall	Glimpy
Florence Rice	Nora Stevens
'Sunshine Sammy' Morrison	Scruno
Bobby Stone	Skinny
Tom Brown	Phil Connors
Robert Armstrong	Officer `Pops' Stevens
Gabriel Dell	Fritz Hienbach
Philip Ahn	Joe Matsui
Sam Bernard	Hienbach Sr.
Jerry Bergen	Music Teacher
Pat Costello	Navy Recruiter

Technical Credits

Harvey Gates

Jack Dietz	Producer
Wallace Fox	Director,Director
Sam Katzman	Producer
Harvey Gates	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

At 62 minutes in running time, and with lots of room for comic relief vignettes and portrayals, even as it tells a story of murder, suicide, espionage, and sabotage, Let's Get Tough! is brisk entertainment. It contains myriad characterizations that reflect some of the ethnicity, and script elements that do recall the texture of life in New York's poorer neighborhoods on the eve of World War II, particularly as embodied by Glimpy (Huntz Hall) and his long-suffering mother, and Robert Armstrong's brusk yet friendly portrayal of the veteran police officer. Even more important, it's briskly entertaining and has a message that's relevant 60 years later, as the United States faces a new national emergency, a war overseas, and the aftermath of another Pearl Harbor-type sneak attack. The first half of the movie captures the basic feelings of patriotism that motivated millions of people in the days after Pearl Harbor, as well as some of the changing racial sensibilities of the time -- Sammy "Sunshine" Morrison's Scruno, the black member of the East Side Kids, is treated with far more dignity and care than he would have been just a couple of years earlier. Additionally, the gang's attempted assault on Kino, whom they erroneously believe to be Japanese, is depicted as intrinsically wrong even if he were Japanese (which, as they discover, he is not). The film's messages about race and national heritage are somewhat mixed; the gang discovers that people who appear to be Japanese, or of Japanese ancestry, may well not be, and could even be friends, allies, and heroes. They also learn that as unfriendly as one group of Asians (the Japanese) might be, there are others (the Chinese) who are our allies; but there is no German-American character to balance the presence of Fritz Heinbach (Gabriel Dell) and his father (Sam Bernard) as spies and saboteurs.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder