Hold 'Em Jail

{{short description|1932 film}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2020}}

{{Infobox film

| name = Hold 'Em Jail

| image =File:Hold 'Em Jail.jpg

| caption =

| director = Norman Taurog

| producer = Harry Joe Brown (associate producer)
David O. Selznick (executive producer)

| writer = Walter DeLeon (screenplay)
S.J. Perelman (screenplay)
Eddie Welch (screenplay)
Mark Sandrich (screenplay)
Tim Whelan (story)
Lew Lipton (story)
John P. Medbury (radio dialogue)
Albert Ray (continuity)

| starring = Wheeler and Woolsey
Edna May Oliver
Edgar Kennedy
Betty Grable

| music = Max Steiner

| cinematography = Leonard Smith

| editing = Arthur Roberts

| distributor = RKO Radio Pictures

| released = {{Film date|1932|09|16}}

| runtime = 66 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $408,000Richard Jewel, 'RKO Film Grosses: 1931-1951', Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol 14 No 1, 1994 p57

| gross = $511,000}}

Hold 'Em Jail is a 1932 American pre-Code comedy film starring Wheeler and Woolsey as a couple of inept characters who are wrongfully convicted of firearm possession. They are sent to prison, where they somehow end up playing on the warden's football team.

Warden Edgar Kennedy frames innocent people and blackmails them into playing on his football team in exchange for promises of eventual exoneration.

Wheeler and Woolsey are aware of the racket, but Kennedy treads lightly with them because his spinster sister (Oliver) is in love with one of them.

File:HOLD 'EM JAIL ad - The Film Daily, Jul-Dec 1932 (page 326 crop).jpg, 1932]]

Unusually for the duo, the film is a straight comedy without musical numbers. It is also noteworthy for giving Betty Grable her first substantial role after appearances as a Goldwyn Girl and in bit parts. The title is a pun on the then-popular college football cheer, "Hold 'em, Yale."