Very well executed

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This Ivy University is in a league of it's own when the Bowery Boys come calling. Former seasoned graduates of the esteemed college bet among themselves that it's possible to take a below average student and make them successful given the right environment. This all sounds strangely like the same idea that's gotten underachieving high school grads who can't read or do basic math, into degree programs today some sixty plus years later. Well, at least the Bowery Boys didn't need safe spaces on campus to make the grade, no place was safe once they arrived on the scene.Right around the time this film was coming out, Gloria Winters was about to begin a lengthy series run on TV's 'Sky King', so it was a nice surprise seeing her show up in this flick. She was Kirby Grant's niece Penny King in that show, so one might conclude that her name was borrowed from her character in this movie, Penny Wells. She didn't really have a lot to do here, but managed to be part of the 'in crowd' on campus so to speak, hanging out with the football team's hunky Biff Wallace (John Bromfield), girlfriend Katie (Mona Knox), and second string boyfriend Harold (Bob Nichols).This picture turns out to be Sach's (Huntz Hall) show pretty much all the way, as 'Hurricane' Jones concocts some magical lab potion that makes him a man of steel on the gridiron and Ivy University's newest football hero. To pass a fraternity hazing, the Boys do a drag routine at Louie's (Bernard Gorcey), who we learn after all this time that he has a brother Morris who looks just like him - who would have guessed?Well with a couple of hoods betting on Ivy's big season ending game with State University, Sach gets sidelined by the gang's moll Candy Calin (Veda Ann Borg), but it won't be enough to stop the Bowery juggernaut. Slip (Leo Gorcey) picks up the ball and manages to get tackled into the end zone on the last play of the game to notch a win for Ivy. To Slip's credit, this film offers him the opportunity to utter what might be the longest stream of malapropisms on record in any of the Bowery films, a degree worthy achievement in it's own right.

The Bowery Boys made an average of four movies per year for 12 years. So it was that Hold That Line was the 25th in the long-running series. Perhaps borrowing from an old Three Stooges short, the story line involves two old time alumni of Ivy University, who bet pro and con whether uneducated social misfits could succeed as well as "blue bloods" at college. Stopping by Louie's Sweet Shop, the two alumni see and choose the Bowery Boys, even though they are by now in their mid-thirties. The boys consist of Slip, Sach, and three others, but minus Gabe and Whitey, who are long gone from the series. They are all enrolled for one semester (or "siesta"). The boys commit their usual shenanigans in their various classrooms, and do provide a few howls. Sach prepares a TNT formula in Chemistry lab, and nearly blows up the class. But he also concocts a vitamin formula that temporarily strengthens him, and allows him to become a hit at football practice. He even surpasses local football hero, Biff Wallace. Meanwhile the boys join a fraternity, and for their initiation must dress like girls.The football season begins unusually well, and Ivy U. wins games by scores of 52-0 and 63-0, with Sach (now "Hurricane Jones") standing out. But, it all comes down to the annual game with State U. Of course big time gamblers are involved, and on the day of the big game, an attractive lady (Candy) lures Sach away from the playing field. He is held in the gamblers' apartment, and the game goes on without Sach. Biff has to leave the game because of an injury, and State has a 13-7 lead with time running out. Meanwhile there is a confession and the hideout is discovered; Sach, drugged, is picked up and rushed into the game. Slip tries unsuccessfully to make up a fresh batch of vitamins for Sach. So it is Slip who must become the hero and save the game for Ivy U.The Bowery Boys films, which do not age well, evoke the witticisms and pretensions of a bygone era. Watching them today is like comparing Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh! (1917) with Satisfaction (1965). In Hold That Line the aging boys still hang out at an ice cream parlor (!), while some of the jokes are old and are suggestive of Harold Lloyd (see one of his truly great films: The Freshman, 1925). Take a look at the outfits the boys wear during their first days at college. See those Bowery boys' football uniforms, which are reminiscent of the 1920s: leather helmets without face masks, light shoulder padding, a sweater. And yet, even though the boys here may be getting old, along with their gags, they still have some appeal. Slip's malapropisms abound. So, for film buffs, the younger set, and for those who remember how it was in the old days, the movie is worth checking out.

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.