Wise Guy is a 1942 American film starring The East Side Kids and directed by William Nigh.
[1] In New York, the East Side youth gang, consisting of: Muggs McGinnis, Danny Collins, Glimpy Stone, Scruno, Skinny, and Peewee are falsely arrested on the wharf because the truck they are playing in was stolen.
That night, while Bill buys cigarettes in a drugstore, escaped convict Luke Manning robs the place and murders the clerk.
Armed with information that could prove Bill's innocence, the boys escape from the reform school and go to the apartment of Dorothy Melton, the woman from the newsreel.
The kids hold the pair, who had been planning to leave town with the lottery money which actually belongs to Manning, who was afraid of being seen.