Movie Reviews: Abbott and Costello Sampler

A sampling of Abbott and Costello films from the 1940s...

Hit the Ice (1943) directed by Charles Lamont

Abbott and Costello are photographers trying to make a dime on the street when they accidentally join up with some bank robbers. The head bank robber has been pretending to be sick at a hospital across the street, where his doctor is a bit clueless about the situation but his nurse knows something is up. When they finally do the robbery, the crooks follow the doctor to an upstate winter resort where they plan to lay low. Abbott and Costello are accused of the robbery and head north to try and find some evidence to clear them (and also lay low).

The movie's plot seems more like a situation to hang comedy routines on rather than a compelling story. The boys have some typical comedic routines for them (verbal banter, physical comedy, comic abuse of each other). The resort has a big band traveling north with its leader knowing Abbott and Costello from their schooldays together (the doctor is also a chum from school). The band has a singer, Ginny Simms, who has a couple of gratuitous musical numbers which is also very typical of the comedy duo's films. The ice skating sequences are fun. The movie is entertaining but definitely B-quality for Abbott and Costello.

Mildly recommended.

In Society (1944) directed by Jean Yarbrough and Erle C. Kenton

The boys are plumbers just starting out. They get a break when they are called at the last minute to a mansion for a repair job during a fancy party. A quick taxi ride with their friend Elsie (Marion Hutton) gets them there. The party is a costume ball and the millionaire Peter Evans (Kirby Grant) comes dressed as a cab driver. Naturally he falls in with Elsie who tries to explain she really is a cab driver, not dressed up as one. Peter is smitten and won't let her go. The boys are upstairs having a hard time with the plumbing. Back at their shop the next day, shady character Drexel (Thomas Gomez) wants them to either pay back the thousand dollars they owe him or steal some valuables from the next mansion. They are accidentally invited to the next society party where (of course) Peter takes Elsie. A lot of comic misadventures and musical numbers ensue.

The plot is a little better thought out, even though it mirrors Hit the Ice. The comic routines are bigger (The bathroom repair and the Susquehanna Hat Company routines). They are in fine form with a more enjoyable romp. The final chase scene with an old-style fire truck is very impressive.

Recommended.

Here Come the Co-Eds (1945) directed by Jean Yarbrough

The boys are dime-a-dance escorts at a downtown club where Bud's cinematic sister Molly (Martha O'Driscoll) works too. They get fired from the job but she winds up with a scholarship to Bixby College, a women-only school. The dean (Donald Cook) takes a shine to Molly and agrees to hire Bud and Lou as caretakers. They are supervised by Johnson (Lon Chaney Jr.) who torments them as much as they torment him. The stuffy chairman of the board doesn't like a showgirl at the school but she is great at basketball, which leads their team to a big game where, with the right bet, they can win enough money to pay off the school's debts to the chairman and run the school in a more modern way like the dean wants.

The movie is the usual pastiche of skits and musical numbers. Lou has a nice scene trying to clean up a kitchen and becomes "one of the girls" to help win the basketball game at the finale. The movie gets enough laughs in but the musical numbers do feel shoe-horned in, with almost no connection to the story. 

Mildly recommended.

The Naughty Nineties (1945) directed by Jean Yarbrough

Bud is the main actor in a riverboat show while Lou works behind the scenes. It's the 1890s, the heyday of riverboat entertainment on the Mississippi. The boat runs into trouble when a trio of crooks swindles away majority ownership from the boat's captain and owner (Henry Travers). They want to make money off the boat by crooked gambling--before the sheriff catches up to them they will just sail on to the next town. Bud and Lou work hard to get the bad guys out and save the day.

The plot is pretty thin but provides plenty of oppportunities for comedy routines. This movie has the full version of the "Who's on First?" routine that is the most famous Abbott and Costello comedy sketch. Plenty of other comedic moments are also good, including "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and a feather cake routine. The finale with a chase on the boat is very well executed and quite funny. The boys are back on top tier with this film.

Highly recommended--the "Who's on First?" routine is a classic of comedy.

Movie Reviews: The Son of the Ghost of the House of Frankenstein

More Frankenstein films from the classic Universal era!

The Son of Frankenstein (1939) directed by Rowland V. Lee

Wolf von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) returns to the home town of his father, Henry Frankenstein, with his American wife and their young son. The town of Frankenstein is hardly welcoming to another Frankenstein. Their reaction is understandable, given the horrible history and the rumors about the monster (Boris Karloff) still being alive. Wolf is both a scientist and a hothead. The castle comes with his father's notes and formulas, which inspires the younger man to follow in his father's footsteps. At Frankenstein castle, the local ne'er-do-well, Ygor (Bela Lugosi), wanders around. The local police officer (Lionel Atwill) warns Frankenstein not to socialize in town and offers to protect the family from potential angry mobs. Frankenstein reassures the officer that no shenanigans will happen. Then he meets Ygor, who has the monster under his control and has been using him to kill all the locals who condemned Ygor to be hanged. The monster has now lapsed into a coma but the new Frankenstein is inspired by the challenge to bring the monster back to full life.

The movie is a big step down from the first two, making it fairly average. The effects are still good, though the sets are less lavish and it takes a surprisingly long time to get to the monster. The other problem with the film is that Mel Brooks used lots of elements in his delightful parody Young Frankenstein. The policeman has a false arm that was ripped off by the monster and he slaps it around much like Brooks's character. The cop and Frankenstein even play darts, with the inspector using his false arm to hold the darts. It's really hard to take parts of the movie seriously thanks to Brooks's film. 

The movie is entertaining enough but disappointing in comparison to the previous films. I can see how the monster might have survived the explosion of the lab at the end of the last film, but he fell into a molten sulfur pit. It's hard to imagine him surviving, maybe that's why the next film was called...

The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) directed by Erle C. Kenton

The townsfolk of Frankenstein are tired of the economic bad times caused by the bad name of the family, so they decide to level Frankenstein's castle in the hopes that people will no longer associate the town with the monster. Somehow, Ygor (Bela Lugosi) has survived being riddled with bullets by Wolf Frankenstein and is still wandering around the castle. As the locals dynamite the castle, they release the monster who has been encased in sulfur. He comes out okay, though now played by Lon Chaney. Ygor leads the monster to the town where Henry Frankenstein's second son, Ludwig (Cedric Hardwick), is living as a doctor catering to the mentally unwell. It isn't long before he's drawn into reviving the weakened monster with the hope of transplanting a fresh, non-criminal brain into the monster.

The filmmakers bend over backwards to try and keep continuity with the previous films. The awkwardness of the effort is visible on screen. Chaney is fairly expressionless and uninteresting as the monster. Lugosi does the same performance (slightly cheesy) as the previous film. Hardwick is not as compelling as Rathbone or Clive as a scientist driven by ambition. The brain-switching idea is interesting but turns out preposterous when the monster starts talking with the voice of another actor. They only switched brains, not vocal cords! Other bits in the story are also hard to believe, even for a Frankenstein film.

With The Ghost of Frankenstein, the series finally dips down from average into bad. But the franchise didn't die yet...

The House of Frankenstein (1944) directed by Erle C. Kenton

Karloff switches to the mad scientist role in a sequel combining the Monster, the Wolf-man, Dracula, and a hunchback. Karloff is Doctor Neimann, a mad scientist imprisoned with the hunchback (J. Carol Naish). When lightening strikes and destroys the prison (which looks like a medieval castle, you know, the sort that wouldn't be phased by lightening), they escape. They join a two-man traveling horror show where the main attraction is the actual skeleton of Dracula. It isn't long before Neimann has his lackey off the two carneys and pulls the stake out of the skeleton, restoring Dracula (John Carradine) to life. Neimann makes a deal with Dracula who helps kill off the people who put Neimann in prison. Neimann's other goal is to imitate Doctor Frankenstein's work, so they head to the town of Frankenstein to find the buried notes of the original doctor. Dracula dies along the way but underneath the ruins of Frankenstein's castle Neimann and the hunchback discover the Wolf-man (Lon Chaney, Jr.) and the Monster (Glenn Strange) encased in ice. A little thawing lets out Larry Talbot (aka the Wolf-man). He makes a deal with Neimann--Talbot will recover the lost Frankenstein notes if Neimann will cure his werewolf curse. They return to Neimann's home town where he can finish taking revenge on his persecutors (though, let's be honest, he did deserve to be in jail for what he did) and can combine his own ideas with Frankenstein's to do some brain transplants. He's a bit slow at the job and Talbot kills someone when the full moon rises. That murder brings out the local mob. During the mobs' search for the killer, some of them notice lights flashing at Neimann's lab. Naturally, they go there to burn down the lab, driving the Monster and the Doctor into the quicksand marsh where they sink to their doom.

The movie is uneven. The early part with Dracula seems thrown in just to have Dracula in the picture. His early demise is surprising and a bit disappointing. Carradine gives viewers a fairly average and not very interesting vampire. On the other hand, the travelers pick up a young gypsy woman who is at first interested in the hunchback until she sees he is deformed. She's still willing to be friends with him. Once Talbot joins them, she is a lot more interested in him (Chaney may not be a great actor but he is good looking), causing some strife. That side plot is more interesting than the main plot. The special effects are a bit cheesy. The collapsing prison is hard to believe and Dracula's transformations to and from bat-form are obvious animations. Neimann's lab is good-looking, with the typical mad-scientist equipment and electrical discharges. They do repeat important points (like Dracula will die in sunlight or the werewolf can be killed only with a silver bullet) too many times. The movie has likable and unlikable parts.

Overall, it's not a satisfying movie except for completists. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a much better combining of the Universal horror monsters than this movie.