East Side Kids Collection

It's been two weeks of unrelenting New York City summer heat. Sooner or later the boys are apt to get into mischief, so Knuckles takes the load of 'em to Algy's father's camp in the mountains. The trip gets sidetracked when they cross paths with Judge Parker's party on the road. The Judge, hiding from the mob, is desperately heading to his mountain manor when he runs the boys' vehicle off the road, nearly disabling it right before his own car conks out. With only the boys' car barely able to travel, they all wind up at the judge's manor where ghostly sightings, spooky organ music, death threats and a creepy housekeeper await them. Judge Parker is the very judge who once nearly put Knuckles on death row for murder. When the judge turns up dead, Knuckles is in trouble again, with little brother Danny and the gang ready to help him out.

With a former gang buddy on death row, policeman Pat O'Day establishes a junior police boys club to swerve his buddy's younger brother Danny away from a life of crime. A counterfeiting ring uses the club and it boys to blanket the area in phony fivers. A cop is slain, and it looks like Danny, the kids and Patrolman Pat will be blamed for it.

A street kid has dreams of becoming a jockey. He gets his chance when he and his gang discover a poor old man who has a championship race horse. The man agrees to let the boy ride his horse in a race, but first the gang must get enough money to pay for the race's entry fees.

Danny, managing boxer Muggs, books him into a Civilian Conservation Corps camp for training. Muggs' arrogant manner soon alienates him from the other boys who downright ostracize him with a camp-wide silent treatment after Muggs' public display of bad sportsmanship in a camp boxing match. One of the few boys still willing to talk to him is Willie, a cowardly and manipulative sort, who privately admits he stole $100 from the Captain's safe to send to his aunt and begs Muggs for help. In Muggs' world you aid a friend in trouble, so he enters a city boxing tournament to earn replacement money for Willie. Willie, however, allows Muggs to get caught trying to replace the money. Muggs stoically takes the rap for stealing, but Danny, a true and observant friend, knows something's up and clears Muggs by capturing and beating a confession out of Willie. The Captain leaves Muggs with the lesson that ratting out a friend is sometimes the right thing to do.

There's a saboteur at large in the Reynolds factory where Mugg's gang works building airplanes. Mr. Reynolds enlists Danny's help to try flushing out the saboteur. It doesn't work but it gets Muggs involved, who highly suspects the well-respected Dr. Nagel. Muggs has Danny feign an illness to get a closer look of the good doctor. That puts the saboteurs onto the boys, who then mark the lads for death.

East Side Kids: Fighters Danny Breslin and Muggs McGinnis, once boyhood chums, have drifted apart. Policeman Tom Brady - because his own former friend fell into a life of crime and got the electric chair - takes rough and tumble Muggs under his wing to turn the lad's life around, but Danny, brother of Mary Breslin (whom Tom plans to marry), is also at risk. Everyone believes studious Danny is on his way to being president someday, but while Tom's focus goes toward putting Muggs on the straight and narrow, ambitious petty criminal Monk Martin's been working slyly on steering Danny into a life of crime. Adding a little complication, racketeers get involved, trying to set up a fixed fight with Muggs.

The boys are sent to a mountain camp. Stranded en route in a small rural town, they hear about a "monster killer" roaming the countryside. At night, they sneak out. Peewee is shot by a grave-digger, forcing them to seek aid at an old mansion. The owner of the mansion (Lugosi) insists that the boys spend the night. After seeing Peewee walk around the house in a trance, the boys decide that the man turned him into a zombie. They gang up on him and tie him up. The nurse at the boys camp (Dorothy Short) sets out to find the missing boys, taking up with Von Grosch (Dennis Moore) who has come to rid the town of the killer - or has he?

This eighth film in the East Side Kids series finds the gang sent to the Wilton Reform School after an unjust conviction for stealing a truck. Bill Collins, brother of co-leader Danny, becomes involved in a killing and, while also innocent, is convicted and sentenced to death. Through a series of events, Muggs, Glimpy, Danny and the rest of the gang learn that Knobby, an idiot henchman of Luke Manning, knows something about the murder.

Outraged by the attack on Pearl Harbor, Muggs, Danny, and the rest of their gang want to enlist. Turned away because of their age, they take out their frustration by harassing an Asian shopkeeper. When the shopkeeper is found dead soon afterward, the boys learn that he was Chinese, not Japanese. Determined to atone for their behavior, the gang stumbles across evidence that a real group of Japanese spies is operating in the area, and they become determined to expose them. Meanwhile, Danny is troubled further by the news that his older brother has been dishonorably discharged from the Navy.

Danny helps to capture a wanted criminal and receives a $200 reward; however, he has a falling out with the gang when they believe he should share the money with them. Complications ensue when the crook that Danny helped capture escapes from jail and comes looking for him.

The East Side Kids rescue a young gal from the apartment of her abusive step-father. Believing her to be innocent, they hide her in their clubhouse for protection. The nefarious McGaffey, seeing a way to finally recruit Mugs into his gang, kills the man and keeps the broken chair leg Mugs used as a weapon (with Mugs' fingerprints on it). It's Danny, however, who gets arrested.

East Side boxing champion Muggs McGinnis has been challenged to fight the West Side champ but is abducted before the match. His friend Danny takes his place and wins the fight only to have Muggs think that Danny was responsible for his abduction.

Muggs' rich Uncle Pete comes to visit. Unfortunately, Muggs' late father bragged that he had seven kids, so Muggs recruits members of the gang to pose as his family - including Scruno as an adopted brother and Glimpy as his sister, "Annabelle." Things turn sour, however, when a local mobster finds out about Muggs' deception and threatens to expose it.

Glimpy's surprisingly beautiful sister gets married to Jack, a young engineer, and will move to a 'bargain' suburban house neither has ever seen. During the honeymoon, Mugs orders the gang to fix up the house for the newlywed but mistakenly pick the 'haunted' house next door, which is occupied by some mysterious and nefarious live men, dodging in and out of secret panels - clearly up to no good.

Muggs, ordered by a judge to get a job "or else", is hired by a society matron as the chauffeur for her wacky family. An engagement party is thrown for the family's daughter, and the rest of the gang is hired as servants for the party. However, a valuable necklace disappears during the festivities, and all the gang is blamed for the theft.

The gang is befriended by a millionaire whom they save from a mugging; however, they begin to suspect that the man's son was actually one of the muggers. Knowing that the boy's father, grieving for an older son lost during the war, would be devastated to learn his remaining son was a criminal, the gang sets out to reform the boy.