Hold That Line

Hold That Line (1952)

** (out of 4)

A couple rich snobs make a bet that they can take any group of idiots off the street, send them to Ivy school and make them smart. Slip (Leo Gorcey), Sach (Huntz Hall) and the boys are selected but their dumbness follows them to college but Sach ends up making some "vitamins" that allow him to become a huge football star. As you can tell by the story, this was TRADING PLACES thirty-one years earlier than that classic 1983 film but don't expect the same quality. Yet again we've given a fairly weak story and not too much is done with it. Once again we have a plot where the boys get mixed up with gangsters who eventually kidnap Sach so that they can place bets on a big game. Other stuff in the film includes the boys of course mixing it up with the star football player, dealing with various college exams and we even get to see some football action. The football scenes are all filmed rather poorly and nothing else really works here either. The entire film has a very cheap look to it and it's clear that Beaudine is on auto-pilot as the scenes never really add up to much and the entire thing just feels rushed. There's one saving grace in the film and that's a sequence where the boys get hazed and must go into their old neighborhood in drag. The scene inside Louie's diner is very funny and seeing Louie in drag was well worth sitting through the film. Gorcey once again takes a backseat as his character really doesn't have too much to do. Hull takes over the lead and manages to be OK here and thankfully his character isn't as big a dope as some of the previous films. I'm sure fans of the series will want to check this one out but those new will certainly want to start somewhere else.

74/100. Exceptionally good Bowery Boys entry. A professor bets another professor that he can can make anyone a good student, and one professor insists that he gets to pick the person. Well, you guessed it, he picked some tough subjects, the boys themselves. This is sort of a distant twist of Pygmalion. Well, Ivy University has know idea what they are in for! Sach makes a mixture in chemistry that makes him very strong, and soon enough he is on the football team. The climax football game is quite similar to that of Harold Lloyd's The Freshman. Leo Gorcey does an exceptional job butchering the English language! Very funny, great pace and the boys are at their best.

Tired and old Ivy Unviersity is struggling to find new blood. One member bets another over recruiting new students. They spot the Bowery Boys. They recruit the boys to attend the school and the bet is on. Football star Biff Wallace is the popular hunk on campus. The boys cause plenty of chaos. Sach mixes a drink in the chemistry lab and comes up with a super strength formula. He shows off on the field and impresses the coaches.

Rich jerks betting on poor people has been done many times over the years. I would like the bet to be clearer. I'm not sure about the parameters. Otherwise, this is basic Bowery Boys. It's Slip and Sach. Everybody does a bit of cross-dressing. It's all rather silly and that's perfect for the boys.

It's a pity that How To Succeed In Business was a decade away from its creation. The song Grand Old Ivy would have made a perfect theme for this Bowery Boys comedy as the boys sample a bit of higher education in Ivy College. They probably could have used a bit of lower education before sampling Ivy.

Slip and Sach and the rest go to school on a bet by two older alumni of Ivy as to whether a bit of learning smooth the edges out in the roughest kind of material. Well they certainly picked the roughest material out there.

While there Huntz Hall plays around in the chemistry lab and discovers a formula that makes him super strong. Where else to use this new found ability but the gridiron.

I think you can figure the rest. This is Bowery Boy hijinks as usual but also with the added attraction of Veda Ann Borg as the gambler's moll trying to seduce Sach. No film with her should ever be missed.

It might have been interesting if Leo Gorcey had ever learned in college the real meanings of the words he mangles in every picture. But if he did half the comedy of the Bowery Boys would be gone.

I find it difficult to understand how this trivial bit of fluff got such high ratings. Like many of us, I enjoyed these films when I was a child, but, unlike others, these haven't withstood the test of time well. About the only thing that still works in these 'comedies' are Leo Gorcey's malapropisms. The rest is just lame. Huntz Hall may have been better in his younger days, but by the time this was made, the group was well into their thirties, and showing signs of age. And the supporting gang members have absolutely nothing to do in this film. Apparently they were just there for decoration. They barely even have any lines to say. Even the physical humor is a series of lame and hackneyed bits stolen from a dozen other comedians. Gorcey's real-life father is just another annoying yiddish comedian. One can see why he only appeared in these films. I rated this a 4 only for nostalgia reasons. And at least it's short and not dull...for the most part.