They're Back!

THE GANG’S ALL HERE-1941-Once again Frankie Darro is “teamed” with Mantan Moreland, this time in the trucking business. Pop Wallace (Robert Homans) is finding it hard to get drivers. His mechanic Chick (Jackie Moran) hires Frankie (Darro) and Jeff (Moreland) to drive a rig to Fresno. Unbeknownst to them “Pop” has been in cahoots with a crooked lawyer to collect insurance money. The duo due a pretty good job but almost get fired anyway. Wallace's daughter Patsy (Marcia Mae Jones; also in LET'S GO COLLEGIATE with Darro & Moreland) pretends to be sweet on Frankie to make Chick jealous. In an unusual turn a green horn Asian American named George Lee (Keye Luke; also in LET'S GO COLLEGIATE) is actually an investigator for an insurance company. Although Frankie insults and bosses Jeff most of the time they do use teamwork at the climax. 

This was one of several Monogram programmers director Jean Yarbrough made featuring Darro who sometimes acts like a third rate Leo Gorcey and not very likable especially when teamed with the outrageously funny Moreland.

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Truckers

WHITE LINE FEVER-1975-Carrol Jo Hummer (Jan Michael Vincent  who died in February 2019) comes back from the army and gets married to his sweetheart Jerri (Kay Lenz). He buys his own rig and becomes a trucker. That's when the trouble starts! He finds his dead father's old friend Duane (Slim Pickens) is corrupt and has a bunch of thugs (including Martin Kove) working for him. The real villains are three rich guys Buck (LQ Jones), Cutler (Don Porter) and their lawyer (RG Armstrong). Carroll tries to organize a union, gets blacklisted, beat up and almost tried for murder but Jerri's tear jerking testimony gets him off. Buck tries to kill him with a forklift. After Cutler seems to make a deal with the truckers, Hummer's house is burned down and Jerri who was pregnant loses her baby and becomes comatose. Dick Miller (who died in January 2019)  has a small role as Birdie Corman. This depressing little tale was directed by Jonathan Kaplan three years before the similarly plotted big budget FIST starring Sylvester Stallone. Kaplan later directed THE ACCUSED (1988) and recently was the executive producer of a documentary about Dick Miller (THAT DICK MILLER GUY).

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