''Hold That Baby!'' is a 1949 American
comedy film
The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...
directed by
Reginald LeBorg
Reginald LeBorg (born Harry Gröbel; 11 December 1902 – 25 March 1989) was an Austrian-American film director. He directed 68 films between 1936 and 1974.
Film career
In 1934, he moved to Hollywood, California to seek employment as a scre ...
and starring
The Bowery Boys
The Bowery Boys are fictional New York City characters, portrayed by a company of New York actors, who were the subject of 48 feature films released by Monogram Pictures and its successor Allied Artists Pictures Corporation from 1946 through 1 ...
.
The film was released on June 26, 1949, by
Monogram Pictures
Monogram Pictures Corporation was an American film studio that produced mostly low-budget films between 1931 and 1953, when the firm completed a transition to the name Allied Artists Pictures Corporation. Monogram was among the smaller studios i ...
and is the fourteenth film in the series.
Plot
The boys are running a laundromat in the back room of Louie's Sweet Shop. A woman, Laura Andrews, comes in and leaves her baby in one of the laundry baskets and the boys find him. They discover that he is the heir to a fortune, and that his mother hid him so that her aunts couldn't steal the inheritance. After discovering the baby is missing, the aunts have Laura committed to a
sanatorium
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, is a historic name for a specialised hospital for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments, and convalescence.
Sanatoriums are often in a health ...
for supposedly being mentally ill.
Meanwhile, a bunch of gangsters get wind of the situation and make a deal with the aunts to keep the baby away from the reading of the will. Sach and Slip sneak into the sanatorium under the guise of committing Sach where they help Laura escape. They make it to the reading of the will just in time and Laura and her son gain the inheritance and the aunts are arrested, along with the gangsters.
During the film Sach has a ''
One Touch of Venus
''One Touch of Venus'' is a 1943 musical with music written by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Ogden Nash, and book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, based on the 1885 novella ''The Tinted Venus'' by Thomas Anstey Guthrie, and very loosely spoofing the Pygma ...
'' type longing for a store
mannequin
A mannequin (sometimes spelled as manikin and also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off dif ...
he calls Cynthia.
Cast
The Bowery Boys
*
Leo Gorcey
Leo Bernard Gorcey (June 3, 1917– June 2, 1969) was an American stage and film actor, famous for portraying the leader of a group of street-wise city toughs known variously as the Dead End Kids, East Side Kids, the East Side Kids, and as adults ...
as Terrance Aloysius 'Slip' Mahoney
*
Huntz Hall
Henry Richard "Huntz" Hall (August 15, 1920 – January 30, 1999) was an American radio, stage, and movie performer who appeared in the popular "Dead End Kids" movies, including ''Angels with Dirty Faces'' (1938), and in the later "The Bowe ...
as Horace Debussy 'Sach' Jones
*
Billy Benedict
William Franklin Sater Benedict (April 16, 1917 – November 25, 1999) was an American actor, perhaps best known for playing "Whitey" in Monogram Pictures' The Bowery Boys series.
Early years
Benedict was born in Haskell, Oklahoma, After ...
as Whitey
*
Bennie Bartlett
Floyd B. Bartlett, known professionally as Benny Bartlett or Bennie Bartlett (August 16, 1924 – December 26, 1999), was an American child actor, musician, and later a member of the long-running feature film series '' The Bowery Boys''.
Bio ...
as Butch
*
David Gorcey
David Gorcey (February 6, 1921 – October 23, 1984) was an American actor and the younger brother of actor Leo Gorcey. Gorcey is best known for portraying "Chuck Anderson" in Monogram Pictures' film series The Bowery Boys, and "Pee Wee" in i ...
as Chuck
Remaining cast
*
Gabriel Dell
Gabriel Dell (born Gabriel Marcel Dell Vecchio; October 8, 1919 – July 3, 1988) was an American actor and one of the members of what came to be known as the Dead End Kids, then later the East Side Kids and finally The Bowery Boys.
Acting c ...
as Gabe Moreno
*
Frankie Darro
Frankie Darro (born Frank Johnson, Jr.; December 22, 1917 – December 25, 1976) was an American actor and later in his career a stuntman. He began his career as a child actor in silent films, progressed to lead roles and co-starring roles ...
as Bananas
*
Anabel Shaw as Laura Andrews
*
John Kellogg as Cherry Nose Gray
*
Edward Gargan
Edward Gargan (July 17, 1902 – February 19, 1964) was an American film and television actor.
Career
Gargan was born of Irish parents in Brooklyn, New York. He was the elder brother of actor William Gargan.
As soon as Gargan had left colle ...
as Officer Burton
*
Ida Moore
Ida Moore (March 1, 1882 – September 26, 1964) was an American film and television actress.
Early life
Moore was born in Altoona, Kansas as the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Marvelton Moore.
Career
Moore's first professional work had her singin ...
as Faith Andrews
*
Florence Auer
Florence Auer (March 3, 1880 – May 14, 1962) was an American theater and motion picture actress whose career spanned more than five decades.
Life and career
Born in Albany, New York, Auer began her career on East Coast stages at the turn ...
as Hope Andrews
*
Bernard Gorcey
Bernard Gorcey (born Baruch Ugorsky; 9 January 1886 – 11 September 1955) was an American actor. He began in Vaudeville, performed on Broadway, and appeared in multiple shorts and films. He portrayed ice cream shop proprietor Louie Dumbrowski i ...
as Louie Dumbrowski
*
Pierre Watkin
Pierre Frank Watkin (December 29, 1887 – February 3, 1960) was an American character actor best known for playing distinguished authority figures throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is best remembered for his roles of Mr. Skinner the b ...
as John Winston
*
Torben Meyer
Torben Emil Meyer (1 December 1884 – 22 May 1975) was a Danish-American character actor who appeared in more than 190 films in a 55-year career. He began his acting career in Europe before moving to the United States.
Early life
Meyer was ...
as Dr. Hans Heinrich
* Fred Nurney as Dr. Hugo Schiller
* Frances Irvin as Cynthia
*
Emmett Vogan
Charles Emmett Vogan (September 27, 1893 – October 6, 1969) was an American actor with almost 500 film appearances from 1934 to 1954, making him, along with Bess Flowers, one of the most prolific film actors of all time.
In 1913, Vogan ...
as Dr. Foster
* Meyer Grace as Joe, the Crooner
* Max Marx as Gypsy Moran
*
Cay Forrester as Nurse
*
Buddy Gorman
Charles J. "Buddy" Gorman''Hollywood's Made-To-Order-Punks: The Complete Film History of the Dead End Kids, Little Tough Guys, East Side Kids, and Bowery Boys,'' Richard Roat, BearManor Media, 2010. (September 2, 1921 – April 1, 2010) was an A ...
as Paper Boy
Home media
Warner Archives released the film on made-to-order
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
in the United States as part of ''"The Bowery Boys, Volume One"'' on November 23, 2012.
References
External links
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1949 films
Bowery Boys films
1949 comedy films
Monogram Pictures films
American comedy films
American black-and-white films
Films directed by Reginald Le Borg
1940s English-language films
1940s American films
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