utgard14 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.

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.

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.

fubared1 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.