Hold That Baby!

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.

10 STARS

Prime Bowery Boys entry, with a terrific mix of drama and comedy. Good acting on the part of Anabel Shaw as Laura Andrews, whose baby is heir to a fortune and may be kidnapped. Anabel really turns on the tears. She had a distinguished career, having appeared opposite Vincent Price in the cult thriller SHOCK, a few years earlier. Her next film was GUN CRAZY (1950), in the role of Ruby.

This time around, Slip and Sach (with the help of Louie, of course) are running a successful laundry business? Laura, who believes her evil aunts will harm her child, leaves the baby with the Bowery Boys! This is really good stuff, and with some fine acting, especially veteran actress Ida Moore as the sinister aunt.

I agree with the last reviewer; Slip gets the best lines, but Sach gets into all the goofy trouble. There's a laugh out loud scene where Slip tries to commit Sach to an insane asylum(!) in order to meet with Laura, who is being held against her will. Slip plays a wacky doctor with thick glasses!

Gabe Dell is back at the detective, and fun to watch. This was the last appearance of Frankie Darro in the series, playing bad guy Bananas.

Best scene is when Slip pulls the baby out of a washing machine and exclaims.... "What'll they think of next!" Also Louie cooks up a hamburger, fries and a drink for the baby?

This story may have actually been influenced by the famous Gloria Vanderbilt custody case at the time, and the homicidal aunts were modeled after the two deadly sisters in ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.

Remastered by Warner Brothers in dvd boxes of 6 to 8 episodes.

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.

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

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.)