Scared Stiff (1953)

A remake of The Ghost Breakers, with the same director, and one of the same writers, behind the camera, Scared Stiff is a lot of fun, but only IF you can tolerate the whacky antics of Jerry Lewis, here doing his loud manchild schtick.

Lizabeth Scott plays  Mary, a woman who has just inherited a property on a small island near Cuba. That's all well and good, but the property is said to be highly haunted. Heading that way, she ends up joined by Larry Todd (Dean Martin) and his friend, Myron (Lewis). Todd is a nightclub singer who thinks he has shot a gangster. Myron seems to have no  main job role, other than to annoy his friend. Hijinks ensue.

I've always had a soft spot for Scared Stiff, having seen and enjoyed it before The Ghost Breakers, and I think it remains a great vehicle for Martin and Lewis. Their very first scenes play out in typical fashion, and the film premise allows them a good bit of room to play around (most notably in the amusing scene that has Lewis dressed up and miming to a Carmen Miranda song). Both the laughs and the spooky trappings are generally heightened here, compared to the 1940 movie, but it works well because the leads are equally bigger “personalities” than Hope and co. 

Walter DeLeon doesn’t need to change too much of the core of his script, and I am not sure if the way the material is adapted for the stars falls to him or co-writer Herbert Baker, who had already worked with Martin and Lewis, but it’s nicely transposed to something the same as The Ghost Breakers . . . but different.

Marshall directs the material as well as he did previously, with the longer runtime reflecting the extra moments that allow Martin and Lewis to step aside from the main thrust of the plot to get up to some of their familiar antics.

Maybe a bit harder to recommend than the previous version of this film, because it depends more on how you feel about the leads (particularly Lewis), but Scared Stiff stands up as a spooky comedy that delivers a wonderful mix of haunted house tropes and chuckles in the third act. I still like it, I still rate it as one of the better Martin and Lewis pairings, and I still urge others to at least check it out. 

7/10

https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews

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