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 Bowery Boys get involved with the infant heir to a fortune when said infant is left in the laundromat in the backroom of Bernard Gorcey's Sweet Shop where Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall have begun their latest business enterprise. Gorcey, Hall, and the rest turn out to be unexpected white knights in saving the fortune left to the infant and his mother from a pair of greedy old maid aunts played by Ida Moore and Florence Auer. The two of them are straight out of Arsenic and Old Lace but they do have enough of their marbles to form an alliance with gangsters Frankie Darro and John Kellogg.

Even scene stealers like Leo and Huntz have some competition with the baby in this film. Leo trying to change the diapers is something to see and Huntz Hall does a nice imitation of Ronald Colman talking to a department store 'mannequin'.

Fans of the Bowery Boys will like Hold That Baby and this is a good film for others to get acquainted with their comedy and command of the English language.

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.