Hold That Baby!

Hold That Baby! (1949)

** (out of 4)

After getting fired from his third job in seven days, Slip (Leo Gorcey) decides to open up a laundry service in the back of Louie's shop. Everything is going just find under a young mother (Anabel Shaw) leaves her baby there because her two evil aunts are trying to have her locked up so that they can steal the babies inheritance. It's up to Slip and the boys to keep the baby away from some gangsters and make sure the mother is at the will reading. This fourteenth entry in the long-running series isn't one of the better ones so it's certainly for die-hard fans only. The biggest problem is that we get some rather dark drama that really doesn't work and many of the jokes either aren't funny or are just off-putting. One of these jokes happens early on when idiot Sach puts the baby in a washing machine. Not too funny. Another scene happens towards the end of the movie when the boys are throwing the baby around a room. Again, not funny. The darker moments in the film are almost too dark for the type of humor that we're going for here. The scene where the aunts try to convince the police that the mother is crazy is pretty dark as Shaw really goes all out, delivering a strong performance. Most people will remember her from the Vincent Price film SHOCK and she's certainly very memorable here. Gorcy and Huntz Hall are their typical selves, although Hall really does get some good moments here including one scene where he's going around in drag and gets the baby mixed up with another. Frankie Darro and Gabriel Dell are here as well but both are in pretty thankless roles. While there are a few decent moments scattered throughout, in the end there's just not enough energy or originality in the screenplay to make this worth sitting through. Even the 64-minute running time seems a bit too long and that's never a good thing.

"Don't interrupt my strain of thought"

The Bowery Boys open up a laundry service in the rear of Louie Dumbrowski's sweet shop and come across a bundle of joy that's been left there by its mom. Turns out the kid is the heir to a fortune and a group of greedy folks would love to get their hands on him. This is a typical entry in the series with most of the good lines and jokes coming in the first half of the picture. Contains a morbid moment where a doctor tries to convince authorities that the mother's crazy and gives her an unnecessary injection.

Standard Bowery Boys fare.

The Bowery Boys movies are a hit or miss kind of thing. Because of their short running time most of their movies are pretty watchable. "Hold That Baby!" fits into the watchable category. Everything about the movie is fine. There aren't that many laughs but there are a few. As usual, Louie gets most of the laughs. All in all, "Hold That Baby!" was an easy way to kill and hour (and four minutes) on a lazy Sunday morning. (IMDB has a six hundred character minimum. Usually that's not a problem. But with a movie like "Hold That Baby!", it gets a little tricky. You can only say so much about a movie like this.)

Ida Moore and Florence Auer almost steal the movie as two sweet looking but actually grasping greedy elderly sisters trying to rob a baby of his rightful inheritance by having his mother committed to an insane asylum. Fortunately, the mother, played by Anabel Shaw, hides the baby in the laundromat attached to Louis' Sweet Shop and run by the ever enterprising (and usually unemployed) Terrence "Slip" Mahoney. The boys are up to their usual antics with Slip getting the best lines and Sach doing the most humorous routines. According to the grandfather's will, the baby or his Mom must be at the reading of the will for him to inherit. So the elderly sisters and their crooked partners want to keep the baby from the reading and the Mom in the asylum while the Bowery Boys want to get the Mom out of the asylum and make sure the baby inherits. The routine in the asylum where Slip gets Sach committed is a highlight. This one is a good entry into a long running series.

Slip and Sach crash their laundry delivery truck. They start a laundromat in the back room of Louie's Sweet Shop. A young mother abandons her baby in a basket. The baby is heir to a large inheritance and there are relatives looking to steal the money. Gangster Cherry Nose Mason is looking to cash in on the reward and he knows the Boys have the baby.

The story is a bit convoluted. The plotting is a little chaotic. I would have the will reading up front and lay out the premise a lot clearer. The will reading can also give a ticking clock to the story. Mostly, it's a Bowery Boys film with Slip and Sach. You get what you expect.