Who Done It? (1942)

Abbott & Costello play two soda jerks who are really just killing time until they can get a chance to impress their local radio station with one of their murder mystery radioplays. They get lucky and gain entrance to the station, just in time for a reading of an entertaining murder mystery, but are then unlucky enough to become suspects when a murder is committed. Our two leads try to solve the case to make their names but, more importantly, try to stay alive while doing so.

Who Done It? is a lot of fun. It's a great mix of comedy and murder mystery and certainly works a LOT better than the earlier Hold That Ghost. The two leads are on great form and the plot pauses now and again for a few fun routines (including Lou being scammed a number of times by Walter Tetley, a discussion about volts and watts and some fun with well-timed recordings).

The script is by Stanley Roberts, Edmund Joseph and John Grant and it moves along at a fairly brisk pace indeed, helped by the fact that there are no musical numbers padding out the runtime. Erle C. Kenton returns to direct the laughs and certainly confirms that he's well-suited to the job.

But the script and direction and leads make up only half the story. Who Done It? benefits from a supporting cast that are all great fun and just as watchable as the leads. William Gargan and William Bendix are standard cops taking no nonsense and it's fun to see the rare times when A & C manage to get the better of them. Walter Tetley, as previously mentioned, gets a few great moments and then we have Mary Wickes easily holding her own in the role of Juliet Collins, a great character brought to life by a great actress.

It's not quite as good as the previous outing but this is entertaining enough from start to finish and easily stays a few notches above the weaker movies in the A & C filmography.

7/10.

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Keep 'Em Flying (1941)

It was obviously only a matter of time. Buck Privates had Abbott & Costello in the army and was quite the hit. In The Navy had the boys in the navy, funnily enough, and was exactly what people seemed to want at the time. Keep 'Em Flying, for those of you who haven't yet guessed, puts our comedy duo in the air corps. They're friends with a daring, but sometimes thoughtless, pilot named Jinx Roberts (Dick Foran) and this means that they get to help and hinder love lives, put each other in dangerous situations and have some amusingly confusing moments with twins Gloria and Barbara Phelps (both played by the sassy Martha Raye).

Falling almost slap bang in the middle of their army and navy adventures, Keep 'Em Flying has some decent comedy throughout and includes some nice aerial stuntwork. The scenes featuring Bud, Lou and both incarnations of Martha Raye are definite highlights and even the few musical numbers interspersed throughout the movie actually provide entertainment as opposed to irritation. William Gargan isn't too bad as Craig Morrison, the trainer who has quite a history with Jinx, and Carol Bruce makes for an attractive and appealing love interest for our plucky pilot.

Arthur Lubin directs the action once more, and works from a capable script by True Boardman, Nat Perrin and John Grant. The lack of consistent hilarity is compensated for by some solid adventure moments (or, in the case of Lou stuck on a runaway torpedo, maybe that should be comedy adventure moments) and the patriotism that crops up here and there never threatens to unbalance the whole thing.

This is one of the better movies from the earlier filmography of A & C but it's still as flawed as many others from the era and doesn't hold up well when stood alongside their better outings. Having said that, fans will find enough to enjoy here and it's a fun way to pass a rainy afternoon.

6/10.

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