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.

Plot
Watching a military parade (stock footage 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.

The gang breaks into Matsui’s shop that is filled with haunted house type secret passageways and trapdoors where they discover the Black Dragon Society dressed in hooded costumes that Glimpy refers to as “Japanese Halloween”. The gang frees Nora and revenges the attack on Pearl Harbor by beating up the saboteurs. The film ends with Nora and Phil getting married but as they walk down the church steps with a sabre arch of East Side Kids holding their captured Japanese swords (that are quickly confiscated by the police at the end of the ceremony!). Phil is told he has orders to report back to his base as soon as possible. Phil and Nora briefly lament their not going on a honeymoon, but Muggs and the gang pile in the car and gallantly offer to accompany Nora on her honeymoon unaware of what a honeymoon entails.

Cast
Leo Gorcey as Muggs
Bobby Jordan as Danny Connors
Huntz Hall as Glimpy
David Gorcey as Peewee
Sunshine Sammy Morrisson as Scruno
Bobby Stone as Skinny
Gabriel Dell as Fritz Heinbach
Tom Brown as Phil Connors
Florence Rice as Nora Stevens
Robert Armstrong as Officer ‘Pops’ Stevens
Sam Bernard as Heinback Sr.
Philip Ahn as Joe Matsui
Jerry Bergen as Music Master