Comin' Round The Mountain (1951)

While this is an enjoyable enough effort from Abbott & Costello it also feels like a bit of a step backwards. There is definitely some decent comedy here and there throughout the movie but you also get plenty of recycled gags (which should come as no surprise to anyone who has more than a passing knowledge of the A & C  filmography) and a few songs as well. Okay, the songs are quite entertaining but they still take up time that could have been given over to numerous comedy routines.

The plot is a riff on the old Hatfield-McCoy feud that happened in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It comes to light that Lou, playing Wilbur Smith, is a long lost relation of the McCoy family and his return should be enough to prompt the matriarch of the family to reveal the whereabouts of some family treasure. Bud, as Al Stewart, will go along for a share of the loot and singer Dorothy McCoy (played by Dorothy Shay) may soon regret ever informing Lou of his feisty family tree.

All of the usual suspects are in attendance behind the camera. Charles Lamont directs once more and the script includes contributions from Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant. But it's the cast that lifts the whole film from something potentially dull and below average to a solid slice of comedy. Bud and Lou are their usual selves and Dorothy Shay is a sassy lass but the supporting players are even more enjoyable - Ida Moore is great as Granny McCoy, Shaye Cogan is still very cute despite being a bit of a tomboy character, Glenn Strange makes his second appearance beside our comedy leads (albeit this time without the heavy make up required to play Frankenstein's monster) and Margaret Hamilton has a bit of fun with her reputation as the most well-known witch in cinema history.

When I started writing this review I was going to give the movie a 6/10 rating at most but the more I think about it, the more I realise that this is a very enjoyable piece of entertainment. I still have misgivings about the songs and the amount of recycled gags but I can't deny that I was smiling and laughing from start to finish. Which is why it ends up getting a 7.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Costello-Foreign-Frankenstein-Invisible-Mountain/dp/B00023P4O2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338933506&sr=8-1

Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man (1951)

For anyone who enjoyed Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, you'll be pleased to know that this movie takes another figure popularised on film by Universal and uses it to great effect opposite our comedy duo.

Bud and Lou play a couple of detectives this time, with Lou only passing the training thanks to a timely bribe slipped to the head man from Bud. The two men are put in place to help an experienced detective but, as luck would have it, Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz) bursts in on them when they're alone in the office and assumes that they're the real deal. Tommy is a boxer wrongly accused of murder and he needs help to clear his name. To help him lay low in the meantime he takes an unstable, but effective, invisibility serum and this leads to plenty of laughs as Tommy helps Lou pass himself off as a top boxer in order to find out who the real killer is.

This is a fantastic A & C outing from start to finish, featuring a very funny script from Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant and very capable direction from Charles Lamont, who keeps everything perfectly paced and makes the most of a few great set-pieces.

The cast are all fantastic. Bud and Lou get to recycle a few of their routines, as usual, but also get plenty of new material to wring laughs from as they deal with their invisible client. And a boxing match in the third act is chock full of great physical comedy. Arthur Franz is, obviously, not actually onscreen for all that long but he gives a very good performance, both physically and vocally. Helen Gray is very good, Adele Jergens has fun getting Lou hot under the collar and Sheldon Leonard and John Daheim do well as men running up against our bumbling heroes. William Frawley plays a detective who knows that something is going on but can't get to the bottom of it, Paul Maxey is a psychiatrist who tries to use hypnosis when all else fails and Gavin Muir is the doctor trying to find a way to perfect the invisibility serum before Tommy Nelson is driven mad.

Based more around special effects and (lack of?) sight gags, the film still has more than its fair share of great one-liners and amusing exchanges and it's one that I recommend to fans of Abbott & Costello without any hesitation whatsoever. One of their best.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbott-Costello-Meet-Invisible-Mars/dp/B000GLKNQE

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Bringing together two things I loved in my youth, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein easily remains one of my favourite A & C outings. Of course, purists will balk at a number of factors. The fact that they don't actually MEET Frankenstein but, rather, Frankenstein's monster is one minor criticism often brought up but I must say that this is simply a minor error in an effort to truncate the title because throughout the film the monster is known as The Monster (or Junior, etc). It is never mislabelled as Frankenstein. The other criticism often levelled at this film, and a major one, is that it really was the end of the line for the classic Universal monsters and many fans of those great horror movies saw this as a real dignity-stripping fanfare for the villains they loved (Glenn Strange plays "The Monster" while Bela Lugosi returns to play Dracula and Lon Chaney Jr. once again embodies Larry Talbot/The Wolfman). This is a harder criticism to just shrug off and I think it comes down to personal taste. The monsters themselves aren't necessarily the butt of most of the jokes but they're certainly not the feared figures they once were. Personally, I love the clash between that world of cobwebs and creaking coffin lids and the patter of Abbott & Costello.

The plot sees our comedy duo getting themselves caught up in quite a monster mash between all of those I've already mentioned. I don't think I need to say any more though I will say that the plot has at least been created with a decent idea or two used to bring this motley crew together.

Director Charles Barton is at the helm once again and does a great job, once again. The performances are all quite enjoyable - as well as those icons of horror we also have decent support from Lenore Aubert, Jane Randolph, Frank Ferguson and Charles Bradstreet (there's even a fleeting cameo from Vincent Price) - and the movie wastes no time in setting up the action and wringing the laughs from it. Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo and John Grant are back on the writing duties and the premise of the movie allows them to create some real gems. This is the movie with the following, unforgettable exchange -

Larry Talbot: "You don't understand. Every night when the moon is full, I turn into a wolf."
Wilbur: "You and twenty million other guys."

I wish I could recommend this to everyone and know that they would like it as unconditionally as I do but I know that will never happen. In the meantime, I just hope that some people give it a viewing soon and find themselves laughing more often than not.

9/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbott-Costello-Meet-Frankenstein-Mummy/dp/B000GKHM28

The Wistful Widow Of Wagon Gap (1947)

AKA The Wistful Widow.

One of the best movies starring Abbott & Costello, this comedy Western contains a great mix of verbal and physical humour and has considerably less of the annoying mugging and childish behaviour that Lou Costello had been making his trademark over the preceding decade. He's still a naive and nervy "little boy" but doesn't need to make funny whining noises and/or do a double-take every two minutes.

The plot sees our two leads heading in to a dangerous town to try and make a buck or ten. They're only there for a few minutes when someone dies and Lou gets blamed for it. Thankfully, instead of being given a death sentence the two men are ordered to support the widow and family of the deceased and to help pay off the dead man's debts. This is demoralising and tiring for Lou, who has to work from sunrise to sunset, but things take a turn for the better when he realises that nobody wants any harm to come to him. Why? Because if they are found responsible for his death then they have to take over the responsibility and put up with the fearsome widow. Having found the secret to becoming almost untouchable, Lou is made the sheriff of the town and begins to enjoy himself a little. But there's always going to be a time when a sheriff, even an apparently untouchable one, will get into some serious trouble.

Director Charles Barton gets plenty right here. The script (by John Grant, Robert Lees and Frederic I. Rinaldo) helps a lot, as do the performances, but Barton brings everything together in just the right amounts. Abbott and Costello fans will enjoy the standard A & C comedy but there are also many moments for fans of standard Westerns to enjoy.

Marjorie Main is very entertaining as Widow Hawkins, as is George Cleveland (who plays the Judge), while Gordon Jones, William Ching, Audrey Young and the others onscreen all do very well. The two leads, as already mentioned, are on top form with a mix of one-liners and enjoyable physical comedy.

Definitely a movie that fans of A & C will want to see and, hopefully, love as much as I do.

8/10.

http://www.amazon.com/Abbott-Costello-Complete-Universal-Collection/dp/B001EXE2Y2

Buck Privates Come Home (1947)

Following on from, as if you couldn't guess, Buck Privates, this Abbott & Costello vehicle sees our two leads trying to adjust to civilian life after their stint in the armed forces. This is made a bit trickier by their plan to keep and look after a young illegal immigrant named "Evie" (Beverly Simmons) and by the fact that they haven't really got any trade to fall back on besides their usual quick sales/con work.

Even more so than their other vehicles, Buck Privates Come Home has an air of comfortable familiarity about it. It's a sequel that spends the first few minutes introducing the lead characters with some footage from the earlier movie before going on to recreate the chemistry of that film. Bud and Lou are still the troublemakers with good intentions, Sgt. Collins (Nat Pendleton again) is still the authority figure trying to put a stop to their antics and there are a number of decent comedy moments that are stretched almost to breaking point. Okay, you could almost give that description to every Abbott & Costello movie ever made but the interaction between A & C and Pendleton here works as well as it did the first time around and it feels like a very smooth continuation despite the gap of over half a decade.

Director Charles Barton, working with the script by John Grant, Frederic I. Rinaldo and Robert Lees, does just fine with the material. Lou Costello may have regressed slightly with each movie, going from an innocent and all-too-trusting manchild to a dumb and incompetent  baby, but that fault (for those who view it as such) lies with the development of his comedy persona rather than the director having to shoehorn the personalities into a film. The leads all do their stuff, little Beverly Simmons is a bright young thing and Tom Brown and Joan Shawlee provide decent support.

It's a shame that there isn't more of the better A & C material in this movie but I must admit that the delivery of the standard slapstick and gentler comedy is very well done. It makes for a decent sequel to Buck Privates and an enjoyable vehicle for the comedy duo.

7/10.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbott-Costello-Privates-Comin-Mountain/dp/B000GLKNR8/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1333035636&sr=1-1

Hit The Ice (1943)

It would seem that by this point in their careers, Abbott & Costello had really hit their stride. The template had been set a long time ago but the fine tuning had taken a while. Thankfully, it was worth it to get entertaining movies like this one and many others.

This time around our loveable fools are a couple of photographers trying to get an exclusive that will secure them work with a local paper. Instead of a steady job they actually end up, inadvertently, watching the front doors of a bank while it is robbed. The boys are, obviously, accused of the crime and so have to set about hatching a plan that will clear their names and bring the real criminals to justice. That plan may end up involving pratfalls on ice, some fancy skiing and a few musical interludes.

There's nothing extraordinary about this film but it's just so much fun from start to finish that it's one fans of A & C should happily be able to watch again and again. The songs aren't too bad, the physical comedy is enjoyable and there are a few moments of very good, quickfire dialogue.

The leads are, well, as they always are while support comes from Ginny Simmons as the lovely Marcia Manning, Patric Knowles as a doctor, Elyse Knox as his observant nurse and Sheldon Leonard as the "patient" who comes up with the great bank robbery idea. Oh, and Johnny Long and His Orchestra are on hand to back up the singing.

Director Charles Lamont took over after Erle C. Kenton was fired and he does a good job, maintaining the quality and number of the gags in comparison to the past couple of fantastic films, that Kenton had directed, featuring the duo. True Boardman gets the credit for creating the story but Robert Lees, Frederic Rinaldo and John Grant craft the dialogue (with some uncredited input from Allen Boretz, apparently).

All in all, another fine slice of A & C hijinks.

7/10.

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Hold That Ghost (1941)

Abbott & Costello star in a film with a well-used premise that will be familiar to many. Sadly, it fails to include any of their better material and so ends up being one of their weaker outings from the first phase of their career.

The boys are a couple of gas station attendants unsuited to anything that has more responsibility (as illustrated at the beginning when they fail to grasps the basic of waiting on diners). They have about as much luck as they do cunning but that's all set to change. When a famous crook, Moose Matson (William Davidson), dies in their presence they are rewarded as the benefactors in his strange will and testament. Moose was so untrusting and paranoid that he simply left his estate to whoever was by his side at his moment of death. But people want to find out where Moose hid his stash of cash, which leads to plenty of scare tactics when the boys are driven out to the run-down building full of secret panels, dark corners and revolving casino furnishings.

Directed by Arthur Lubin, and written by Robert Lees, Fred Rinaldo and John Grant, Hold That Ghost has a number of enjoyable moments here and there but often relies too much on Lou Costello overacting as someone being petrified by events that everyone else seems to miss. His wheezing and muffled panic starts to grate quickly but it's the focus of the fun again and again and again. The sad thing is that the cast around our comedy duo are really quite a good bunch. The Andrews Sisters pop up for a couple of numbers, but are thankfully missing from most of the movie, and Joan Davis and Evelyn Ankers are fantastic actresses and great sports for going along with the fun. Richard Carlson is very enjoyable as the doctor far too busy examining things around him to actually notice the important things and Marc Lawrence and Mischa Auer are both just fine.

If this film was just above average then it would still pale in comparison to films such as The Cat And The Canary (the 1939 version), The Ghost Breakers (1940) and even the daffy Scared Stiff (which, to be fair, came a long time after in 1953). It would also pale in comparison to the later A & C movies that mixed comedy with mystery and/or supernatural elements. But it's not even just above average, it doesn't really satisfy and it just doesn't hold up all that well for fans who want to enjoy some quick-talking, quick-thinking fun and idiocy.

5/10.

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