Hold That Woman

Rating:
Summary: Hold That Woman!
Review: Somehow a Poverty Row company like PRC (Producers Releasing Company) making, as their tagline tells us, "A Laff-Drama of Budgets and Bill Collectors!" should be a natural. The only problem is that HOLD THAT WOMAN! was left in the hands of Sam Newfield, a dreadful director who hacked out movies faster than Carter produced liver pills.
James Dunn plays skip tracer Jimmy Parker. A skip tracer is what they used to call repossession agents. Then wife Frances Gifford plays his fiance and traveling companion. Parker is tracing a radio which, unknown to him, has a fortune in stolen jewels hidden inside. Naturally he nabs the radio and thrills and hilarity ensue. Almost.
HOLD THAT WOMAN! is so sluggish and unnecessarily complicated - there's a second set of thieves chasing the first set of thieves - that it's almost impossible to sit through unless you're doing some else a little more interesting at the same time.
How unfunny is it? The first chuckle didn't come until 13:07 into the movie. The best chuckle came about five minutes later. Dunn and Gifford are jailed overnight after his is first attempt to repossess the radio is foiled. Gifford's simmering parents are in the courthouse when the defendants walk in:
Pa: There's the wolf who kept our daughter out all night.
Ma: But John, she was safe in jail.
After the laughter dies down we're treated to the best "thrill" scene, which has tremendous potential but is undeveloped. Bad Guy Group 2 has a BGG1 goon in a basement and they're turning the heat on. "My buddy always had an interest in dentistry," says one alpha baddie while another grabs and turns on an electric hand drill and a third holds the victim down in a chair. It could have gone somewhere, but the scene ends right about there.
HOLD THAT WOMAN! is more annoying than anything and I'd recommend it only for those curious about old movies. I wasn't familiar with either of the stars and wasn't impressed with them in this one. Dunn is a doughy little actor in the back-slapping, forced hilarity, Wallace Ford mold. To be fair to him though I should mention that he won the Academy Award as Best Actor in a Supporting Role in 1946 for his work in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN.


Rating:
Summary: HOLD THAT MOVIE!
Review: This is not so much a review of the 1940 PRC comedy/drama HOLD THAT WOMAN! as it is my sincere attempt to warn others of my species.

James Dunn, who is terrible in this film, is a skip tracer, which is a guy who repossesses items bought on credit but not paid for. His fiancé is Francis Gifford, who is terrible in this film, the perky daughter of a police officer (Martin Spellman, who is terrible in this film). Mr. Dunn is trying to repossess a radio from a woman (Rita La Roy, who is terrible in this film), but she's holding onto that baby with both mitts because it has some diamonds stashed in it, diamonds stolen from famous movie star Anna Lisa, who is terrible in this film. I could go on listing the plot and the cast, but I think you get the picture.

Stuntman/actor Dave O'Brien is the second male lead, as Dunn's rival skip tracer, and he's buried down in the credits, billed eleventh. I'm quite certain that he begged his agent and PRC to leave his name out of this mess altogether, and this was some sort of a compromise (and yes, he's terrible in this film).

Three writers were credited for HOLD THAT WOMAN!, and my guess is that their names were either Larry, Moe, and Curly, or Beppo, Winkies, and Mr. Bubbles. This script would've been rejected by the Bowery Boys.

Miss Gifford is lovely, at least, and if you suffered through the dreadful serial JUNGLE GIRL (1941) just to see her, well, I guess you can suffer through this, which, although even more dreadful, is a lot shorter (and only one chapter long). She wears a fur coat made of "genuine Japanese weasel."

PRC actually stood for Producers' Releasing Corporation, not Pathetic, Rotten, and Cheap, but you'd never know it from this film. My high school production of THE MUSIC MAN had better sets. Oh, yeah, and don't let me mention that the Alpha DVD is one of the worst I've seen from that hit-and-miss company; it's terrible.

Sam Newfield directed, although you'll find none of the sublime artistry and top-notch filmmaking skills he brought to such other pictures as WHITE PONGO, I ACCUSE MY PARENTS, RADAR SECRET SERVICE, THE LOST CONTINENT, or NABONGA.

Yep, HOLD THAT WOMAN!

I have to go lie down now.