East Side Kids - Let's Get Tough!

The East Side Kids tackle espionage, sabotage, murder and mayhem as they get tough on the enemy at the start of World War II! Anxious to put their patriotism to work, but rejected by the Army because of age, the East Side Kids see an opportunity to do good in their own neighborhood when an argument breaks out between Kino, a Japanese immigrant, and German local Fritz Heinbach. Assuming the worst of Kino, they plan to ransack his store that night, but when they arrive they find a dead body. Taken downtown by the police, they find out that Kino is actually Chinese. Ignoring local beat cop "Pop" Stevens' (Robert Armstrong) warnings to stay on the straight and narrow, the boys turn to investigating a Japanese infiltrator named Matsui. Next thing they know they're at the center of a Japanese spy ring, and discover an evil alliance between the group and Fritz the German. In over their heads, the kids barely escape disaster! Flush with the characterizations of New York's Lower East Side in the 1940s and peppered with gags, Let's Get Tough! uses the patriotic feelings of the day as a perfect backdrop for the East Side Kids' funny and lovable antics.

• comedy