Hold That Baby!

The habitually unemployed "Bowery Boys" are losers at the laundromat; so, entrepreneurial Leo Gorcey (as Slip Mahoney) decides to "take in" laundry, using the spare room at father Bernard (as "Louie")'s Sweet Shop". As usual, Mr. Gorcey is amusingly assisted by Huntz Hall (as Sach De Bussy Jones), who fantasizes about "Cynthia", his department store wax dummy girlfriend. William "Billy" Benedict (as Whitey), Benny "Bennie" Bartlett (as Butch), and David Gorcey (as Chuck) are also on hand. During the expected washing machine mishaps, a mysterious woman (Anabel Shaw) leaves a baby at "Mahoney Enterprises"...

"Hold That Baby!" finds the comedy team of Gorcey & Hall in fine form. Hall's scenes with "Cynthia" are a highlight, along with the entire "Midvale Sanitarium" sequence - watch as quick-thinking Gorcey passes Hall off as a nut-house hopeful, and poses as a bumbling doctor. The Charles R. Marion & George Schnitzer screenplay is excellent; and, each Jan Grippo performer is perfectly cast, with the entire production running very smoothly. It's ably directed by Reginald Le Borg, and features particularly outstanding appearances by Ida Moore and Florence Auer (as Faith and Hope Andrews), a delightfully greedy old duo.

******** Hold That Baby! (6/26/49) Reginald Le Borg ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Ida Moore, Florence Auer

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.

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.)

The story finds the gang turning Louie's back room into a laundromat. One of the customers deliberately leaves her baby behind....which, even given her circumstances really didn't make any sense. It seems the distraught woman has a couple nasty old relatives trying to take away her baby's inheritance....and to do this, they'll stop at nothing. They soon arrange to have the mother committed to a mental institution against her will using an evil doctor...but what about the baby? This is where a gang up thugs come into the story...as it's their job to make sure the baby stays lost...at least until the will is read.

The plot, as I mentioned above, didn't make a ton of sense. But I really did like seeing Slip disguised as a doctor...that was pretty funny and surprisingly well acted. Otherwise, it's the standard Bowery Boys stuff...undemanding and silly entertainment.

It's a Bowery boys. Made right about in the center of the collection of the Bowery Boys films, 1949. co-starring his brother and his dad, of course. and Huntz Hall. in this one, Slip run a laundry out of the back in the soda shop. first, someone abandons a baby, and then the washers explode. another typical bowery boys story. this one is a little sillier than usual, if that's possible! the boys get caught up in a kidnapping scheme, and could end up in big trouble! Anabel Shaw (only 26 credits, on imdb) is Laura, who brings the baby to the laundromat. they actually put blackface on a baby. oh my. this one is over the top. not their best. Slip (Leo Gorcey) died quite young at 51. these show on Turner Classic now and then. directed by Reg LeBorg. he only directed three of the bowery films. LeBorg had also directed a bunch of the Joe Palooka films. this one is okay, but nothing earth shattering.