Laikals
The greatest movie ever made..!
StunnaKrypto
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
Aubrey Hackett
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Michael_Elliott
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.
JoeKarlosi
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)
james higgins
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.
wes-connors
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
