Let's Get Tough!
| Let's Get Tough | |
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Original film poster
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| Directed by | Wallace Fox |
| Produced by | Sam Katzman |
| Written by | Harvey Gates based on his story I Am an American |
| Starring |
Leo Gorcey Huntz Hall |
| Music by | Johnny Lange & Lew Porter |
| Distributed by | Monogram Pictures Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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62 mins |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Let's Get Tough! is a 1942 film and the ninth film in the East Side Kids series, starring Leo Gorcey (as Muggs), Huntz Hall (as Glimpy), Bobby Jordan (as Danny), and Robert Armstrong (as "Pops" the Cop). Released in early 1942, it was directed by Wallace Fox, and features the gang caught up in World War II and fighting the Black Dragon Society, an enemy sabotage ring.
Watching a military parade ( from World War I), the gang decides to enlist in order to "kill a million Japs". Rejected by the Army, Marines, and Navy for being too young, the punks help the war effort by throwing fruit at a shop they believe is owned by a Japanese American. Confronted by him wielding a short sword, the gang decides to come back at night but find him dead. Their father figure Police Lieutenant "Pops" Stevens tell them they should be ashamed of themselves as Keno, the owner of the shop, was Chinese, an ally of America and that Danny should be especially ashamed as his brother is in the service.
The boys buy some flowers and go to the shop to apologize to the widow and notice a Japanese man take a pen from a locker the widow opened for him. Glimpy steals the pen and find that it contains a message written in Japanese.
They visit a Japanese shop run by Mr. Matsui to have it translated. He tries to steal the message but the gang threatens him, whereupon Mr. Matsui commits hara-kiri in their presence. The boys run to the police.
Matusui's son (Philip Ahn) successfully disguises himself as his late father to impersonate him and discredit the boys to the police. The boys take the law in their own hands to discover that Matsui is in league with German residents of the neighborhood (such as Gabriel Dell, who would play a different role in each film of the series) who are in a sabotage group called the Black Dragon Society. In a subplot, Danny's brother Phil (Tom Brown) has supposedly been dishonourably discharged from the US Navy but is working undercover to infiltrate the Black Dragons. Danny's brother's girlfriend Nora (Florence Rice), (who is in the WAVES) has a Japanese friend she went to high school with whom she seeks help from to translate the message. However he turns out to be Matsui's son, the leader of the spy ring and has her locked up in a cell in the basement of the shop.
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Wikipedia