User reviews

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.

It's the later Bowery Boys at the top of their game in this well-paced and satisfying comedy farce. Two elderly rich men make a bet that the classless Slip, Sach, and the rest of the group can be enrolled in a well-to-do college and still make the grade. While in chemistry class, Sach (Huntz Hall) then develops his own secret formula which transforms him into a powerhouse with super-strength, becoming a new football hero rivaling the All-American Football champ of the campus.

A recommended entry in this everlasting series which stands out a bit from most of the films.

**1/2 (of four)

It was made for a certain audience at a certain time, and the producers, writers, directors and players delivered exactly what was called for...and had no idea that self-pointed critics would surface five decades later and...rate??? and critique it.

Against what? This one has two wealthy clubmen, Billingsley (Francis Pierlot) and Stanhope (Pierre Watkin), wanting to test a theory that their old school Ivy, can make blue bloods out of Bowery toughs. They didn't come any tougher and unpolished than the Bowery Boys and they are soon enrolled at Old Ivy.

Biff Wallace (John Bromfield), the college football hero wearing a name straight out of the days when only Yale, Harvard and Brown players made the All-American teams named by the Eastern sportswriters, Harold (Bob Nichols), editor of the school paper and determined to keep the hallowed halls pure and no white-trash or Commies allowed, Katie Wayne (Mona Knox), Penny (Gloria Winters), Candy Calin (Veda Ann Borg, evidently doing post-graduate work)and other students, are more than a bit dismayed to find the likes of Slip (Leo Gorcey) and Sach (Huntz Hall)---with lines---and Whitey (Gil Stratton Jr.), Chuck (David Gorcey billed as David Condon, because the producer didn't want more than two people named Gorcey in the cast) and Butch (Bennie Bartlett)---all with no lines but marks to stand on---mingling amongst 'em. The times, they were indeed a'changing at Old Ivy.

First rattle out of the box, Sach mixes up some vitamins that make him invincible as an athlete in all sports, and he did this without the aid of Balco Labs. Soon, the football team, thanks to Sach and no thanks to former BMC (Big Man on Campus)Biff, is undefeated and unbeatable. Biff is hacked and he approaches Big Dave (Al Eben) and his sexy girlfriend Candy (aha, she was more than a student)with a proposition. Dolls played by Veda Ann Borg were always open to propositions and sometimes came up with some on their own volition. Anyway, Candy vamps Sach just before THE BIG GAME with STATE, lures him to Big Dave's place, and Dave knocks Sach out with dope, and didn't even tell him it was an arthritis cream to be rubbed on his wrists so he'd be ready for baseball season.

Well, as usually the case when a college named Ivy plays one named State in Football, the odds are high that Ivy (even with handsome Biff in the lineup) will soon be getting their clocks cleaned and furrows plowed and this game is no exception. The questions now are will Biff confess so Sach can be rescued, will Sach be rescued and, if Sach is rescued, can he get to the game on time to win it for Old Ivy.

If you don't already know, far be it from us, to tell you.

But...any film with Mona Knox on the sidelines in a tight sweater, short-shorts two-sizes too small and carrying a megaphone and doing splits is a 10 (TEN)edging toward 11 (ELEVEN)...judged against any movie ever made.

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.

Very funny Bowery Boys movie (twenty-fifth in the Monogram series) has the boys going to college! How can our favorite morons get into an ivy league school, you ask? Well, because two elderly alumni make a bet over whether the boys can succeed at their prestigious university. From there the movie goes a bit sideways and Sach takes a potion that makes him into a football star but, hey, it's still a better plot than most movies in the series. Huntz Hall gets the spotlight in this one, rubberfacing and acting like an idiot throughout. Lots of good slapstick with Huntz. Leo Gorcey is funny as ever, providing many great malapropisms, including a monologue in class that's quite a mouthful even for Leo. Bernard Gorcey is adorable as Louie the Sweet Shop owner (and, in a hilarious bit, as his mustachioed brother Morris). It's interesting to notice as the series wore on how much bigger his role got and how much more he brought to the table than most of the non-Slip or Sach Bowery Boys. David Gorcey and Bennie Bartlett are both around. Future sportscaster Gil Stratton joins the gang in this entry. He would only appear in two Bowery Boys films, including this one. He basically does nothing in the whole film. Veda Ann Borg, Gloria Winters, and Mona Knox provide the pretty. It's not my favorite Bowery Boys flick but it is a fun one. I can't imagine fans of the series not liking it.

In a "Pygmalion"-type plot, two cultured, chess-playing college alumni agree to round up some ruffians, and enroll them in an Ivy league school. To wit, they find Leo Gorcey (as Slip) and "The Bowery Boys": Huntz Hall (as Sach), Gil Stratton (as Junior), David "Conden" Gorcey (as Chuck), and Benny "David" Bartlett (as Butch). They set out to answer the question: Can any "boy" make the grade at their "Ivy University", or do you need "blue blood"?

"The Bowery Boys" go to college - routine, unimaginative, and... too late.

In a "hazing" scene, the "Boys" dress like girls, and go to Louie's. In a sub-plot, Leo Gorcey's father Bernard's "Louie Dumbrowsky" character's brother "Morris" appears, making it four Gorcey characters in one film. The main story involves a chemistry dabbling Mr. Hall inventing, and drinking, a vitamin concoction which makes him a super-strong football star. Some underworld types lure Hall away from the important "big game".

*** Hold That Line (3/23/52) William Beaudine ~ Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bernard Gorcey

In "A Chump at Oxford", Laurel & Hardy are both sent to Oxford by a beneficiary who does this to thank them for capturing some bank robbers. And, in "Trading Places" many decades later, two rich jerks take a man out of the gutter and make him over into a rich and successful stockbroker...just to see if clothes make the man! Both films are much like "Hold That Line" from the Bowery Boys.

The story begins at a rich gentlemen's club. Two of the members have made a bet. One insists that you could take a poor guy and place him in a top university and he'll be a success....the other disagrees. So they both go in search of a poor, undereducated soul to test the theory. In the process, they meet the Bowery Boys and decide to send all five to college!

At first, Sach nearly gets them thrown out of school when he accidentally creates dynamite in chemistry class. Later, Sach plays around with chemicals again...and he thinks he's created vitamis. Instead, he's made a formula that gives him phenomenal strength...and soon this boob is the star athlete of the school! And, when it comes to the big game, the film becomes a bit like "Horse Feathers"....when Chico and Harpo are kidnapped so they cannot play in (once again) the big football game!

As you may have noticed, there are quite a few story elements in "Hold That Line" that are very familiar. And, in a surprising twist, a newer film, "Trading Places", sure seems to be based, in part, on this Bowery Boys movie.

So is this any good? Yes, surprisingly so. While it's no classic, it had good momentum, a few laughs and kept my interest.

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.

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.

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.

"Hold That Line" is not the best Bowery Boys movie. That doesn't mean it's a bad movie. It's just not as good as some of the others. This movie does have its fair share of laughs. But even at very short running time (67 mins), it feels a little long. "Hold That Line" is worth the watch. It's just more silly than it is funny.