1935's "Hold 'Em Yale" is an amusing comedy starring Patricia Ellis as a spoiled socialite who cannot resist uniforms, her wealthy father (George Barbier) paying a steep price for such casual affairs. She has now fallen for a gigolo called Georgie the Chaser (Cesar Romero), who leaves the poor girl in a New York apartment when he learns that she has been disowned by her old man. Stuck with her in the same place are a quartet of small-time ticket scalpers with colorful names: Sunshine Joe (William Frawley), Liverlips (Andy Devine), Sam the Gonoph (Warren Hymer), and Bennie South Street (George E. Stone), who have also been abandoned by former go-between Georgie. Just when you begin to wonder how a title promising one of college football's greatest rivalries could go so wrong, they convince her to join them at the annual Yale-Harvard game, in an attempt to fix her up with her childhood sweetheart, Hector Wilmot (Buster Crabbe), a bookworm riding the bench for Yale. Edward Gargan (brother of William) plays a private detective working for the socialite's father, and Lon Chaney Jr. can be spotted wearing a hood as another football player riding the bench for Yale (no dialogue, just an extra). It's not a bad thing to see Cesar Romero departing a third of the way through the picture, while William Frawley and company provide all the laughs from then on (lifelong buddies Lon Chaney and Andy Devine may have met on this film, working together in several titles at Universal). Buster Crabbe and Lon Chaney would be back in another Paramount campus comedy the following year, "Rose Bowl," while Lon's final role on the football field found him riding the bench once more in the Ritz Brothers' "Life Begins in College." Damon Runyon's original story of the same title was published in a 1931 issue of Collier's.
2 Reviews
Very funny Damon Runyon story
HotToastyRag30 April 2021
The premise of the movie is very funny, and although it completely disappears after the first fifteen minutes, the rest of the film continues to be hilarious. Cesar Romero is a gangster in a ticket-scalping racket alongside William Frawley, Andy Devine, Warren Hymer, and George E. Stone. He has a weakness for dames, and when he sees an article in the society pages about a girl whose father repeatedly pays off her no-good suitors, he gets an idea. Patricia Ellis has a weakness for men in uniform, so Cesar buys one, dons a Spanish accent, and pretends to be a member of the royal Army. It works, and Patricia vows to elope with him.
How does the rest of the movie unfold? You'll have to watch Hold 'Em Yale to find out. It's very funny, so I recommend you do. A Damon Runyan story, it's full of quick one-liners, and precursor jokes later found in Guys and Dolls. George E. Stone even plays a character called Benny South Street! (Benny is a character in the musical, and in the movie, George played the gangster Society Max.) Cesar isn't in the movie very much, but the others take over from his beginning and keep you laughing all the way to the end. Check it out!
How does the rest of the movie unfold? You'll have to watch Hold 'Em Yale to find out. It's very funny, so I recommend you do. A Damon Runyan story, it's full of quick one-liners, and precursor jokes later found in Guys and Dolls. George E. Stone even plays a character called Benny South Street! (Benny is a character in the musical, and in the movie, George played the gangster Society Max.) Cesar isn't in the movie very much, but the others take over from his beginning and keep you laughing all the way to the end. Check it out!
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