MartinHafer In "Hold That Woman!" you hear the term 'skip-tracer' a lot and because it's such a seldom used term, it would be best if I explain it before getting to the review. Like the words say, this is a person that looks for someone who has skipped out of town and is in hiding. The skip-tracer can be doing this for a variety of reasons, such as bounty hunting, process serving (court notices) and, in the case of this movie, it's someone who is looking to repossess items for which the owners did not finish making payments. Making such a person the hero in your story is a bit odd to say the least.The skip-tracer in this film is Jimmy Parker (James Dunn). When out collecting a radio from a very unpleasant woman, he gets himself into trouble by breaking into her apartment. Sure, she's a crook but legally you cannot just break in to repossess the radio. The lady is very indignant and insists on pressing charges against him. But this is a ruse...she doesn't want him to have the radio because there is something hidden inside and she cannot let him have it. What is it and who else is looking for the radio?This film was made by tiny little PRC Studio--one of the crappier small-time outfits of the day. Most of their films are very forgettable--with lousy stories, directing and acting. Here, however, PRC actually created, accidentally, a decent movie which still contained a few of the usual clichés (such as the leading guy who knows MUCH more than the dopey cops). Overall, this is a mildly entertaining mystery movie--with both a bit of comedy and some gritty violence (I like the drill sequence).

Paularoc Jimmie Parker, an easy going, affable, likable guy is just not very good at his job as a skip tracer. Skip tracers either get the cash owed on a product or repossess the product and return it to the store. Parker's completion rate is very low and he is in danger of losing his job. His boss likes to point out how very good Miles Hanover (Dave O'Brien) is as a skip tracer. Given how smug and smarmy Hanover is, the audience can eagerly anticipate his being given his comeuppance by Jimmy. In addition to being a nice guy, Jimmy also has incredible good luck. In one afternoon he gets married to a beautiful woman (who is fortunately also easy going), buys a house, buys furniture, moves into the house, catches jewel thieves and helps a colleague repossess a car. There are a couple of snags along the way like getting arrested and buying the furniture from a crooked old lady who sold it (cheap) to Jimmy right before the skip tracers came for it. Somehow this convoluted plot works and is actually entertaining and a pleasant way to spend an hour.

classicsoncall I'm simply astounded by what used to pass for movie entertainment back in the Thirties and Forties. In this one for example, the picture's leading man (James Dunn) marries his girlfriend (Frances Gifford), buys a house, and fills it with furniture that will wind up being repossessed by the company he himself works for - Skip Tracers Ltd. Not only that, he solves the case he started working on that same day, the recovery of some jewels that were stolen from a glamorous movie star. And are you ready for this - it all happens in the space of a single afternoon! Oh well, can't be too critical. This was done more as a comedy than an actual crime drama, with the leading players an affable enough couple. However I couldn't wrap my mind around the idea that a pretty gal like Mary Mulvaney (Gifford) would ever go for a guy like Jimmy Parker (Dunn), and then I find out that the actors were actually married in real life! Sometimes you just can't account for taste.Anyway, this is a fairly fast paced and frenetic story that's all over the place with car chases, stake-outs and other assorted hi-jinks before it's satisfactorily wrapped up by skip-tracer Parker. You have to keep an eye on that radio with the hidden jewels as the central plot element. When Jimmy recovers it from Lulu Driscoll (Rita La Roy) the first time, he unplugs it from the wall in her apartment only to be arrested by the time he makes it down the stairs of the building. By the end of the picture, the film makers dispensed with that little inconvenience; when Jimmy grabbed it near the end of the story, it didn't even have a cord!Well I guess this didn't have to make too much sense as long as it was entertaining. Which it was for the most part if you don't think about it too much. Filmed by Poverty Row movie company PRC (Producers Releasing Corp.), I was intrigued by one of the opening credits that mentioned it was filmed using Western Electic's 'Noiseless Recording' process. Who would have thought?

rsoonsa Originally titled SKIP TRACER. this very entertaining, briskly paced comedy adventure features James Dunn, cast as Jimmy Parker, an agent for Skip Tracers, Ltd., who with his girl friend Mary (Dunn's real life wife Frances Gifford) find themselves embroiled in the midst of a burglary case concerning diamonds stolen from a movie star, bringing about their being arrested, shot at and chased by the thieves, yet finding opportunity to be wed and set up housekeeping, all during one frenetic day, thanks to a snappily penned script that neatly ties together disparate plot elements. A small budgeted production from producer Sigmund Newfield's PRC studio, the work is ably directed by his brother Sam, an old hand at such poverty row action pieces, assisted here as often by Holbrook Todd, editor, and cameraman Jack Greenhalgh who is accustomed to thinking quickly for this type of film, the trio joining to create smooth montage effects. That aspect of acting called "business", prominent from the 1930s into the 1950s, particularly in U.S. cinema, benefits this production, especially that employed by Dunn (who ad libs effectively) in conjunction with beautiful Gifford whose natural graces earn for the future star of serials the acting laurels here, although her native athleticism is sublimated for her role, while able turns are to be appreciated from Rita LaRoy, Paul Boyar and George Douglas as members of the gem thieving gang, and from Dave O'Brien as a skip tracer in competition with Parker. The DVD release from Alpha offers adequate sight and sound, with no extras.