Friday's Favorite OTR

 Abbott and Costello: "Lou the Fireman" 12/6/1945

Lou joins the fire department. That works out about as well as you would expect.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Ghosts, Gangsters and... the Andrew Sisters?

 

Last week, I wrote about the 1951 Bowery Boys movie Ghost Chasers, noting that it was a movie that Dan Aykroyd once said was an inspiration for Ghostbusters. The inspiration was purely a thematic one--providing the idea of setting a comedic ghost story in modern times. The other two movies Aykroyd mentioned were The Ghost Breakers, which I reviewed a few years ago, and the 1941 Abbott and Costello comedy Hold That Ghost.

Hold that Ghost is oddly structured in terms of story. Bud and Lou play two gas station attendants who--through bizarre circumstances--inherit a tavern from a gangster they met only moments before the gangster is killed. In the finished movie, the scene opens in a swanky restaurant, with the boys trying and failing to make it as waiters before getting fired and returning to their gas station jobs. Though there is some plot exposition provided, it has nothing to do with the rest of the film. So why was this scene--added late in the production--in the film at all?

The answer is The Andrew Sisters. They had been in the previous two A & C films, which were huge hits. So Universal executives decided they needed to be in this one at well. 

And that's okay, because the boys' shenanigans as waiters are funny and the Andrew Sisters are fantastic. 

We also see then-well-known bandleader Ted Lewis do some of his act.  This includes his song "Me and My Shadow," in which a black dancer mimics his movements. It's definitely a moment in which the casual racism of the era seeps into the film--but on the other hand, it should be mentioned that Ted Lewis was one of the earliest white stars to highlight black performers in his act. It's yet another case of recognizing the sins of the past, placing them in context and then deciding individually whether it interfers with your enjoyment of the film as a whole.

Because the rest of the film is pretty darn funny. The boys, along with several other stranded passengers, end up at their newly-inherited tavern, which used to be a speakeasy and casino. One of the reluctant guests is actually a gangster himself, looking for loot supposedly hidden in the building. But he's soon murdered. Ghostly happenings ensue. But is the ghost a ghost or a mere mortal with murderous intent?

This allows for a lot of great slapstick, including a sequence in which Lou's room keeps changing from a bedroom into a mini-casino, then changing back whenever he runs to get Bud. Lou also has a hilarious dance sequence with actress Joan Davis (who proves to have great comedic chemistry with him throughout the movie). A scene in which Lou watches a candle move around a table whenever Joan isn't looking 

A chase scene through the tavern with Lou being pursued by gangsters provides an uproarious climax.

In terms of plot execution, Hold That Ghost doesn't always properly explain everything that happens at the possibly-haunted mansion. But in an Abbott and Costello movie, if you have a choice between inserting a few more gags or tying up every loose end to the story, then going for more gags would be the correct decision.

This brings our "Influences for Ghostbusters" trifecta to an end.

I'm not sure you want these particular detectives on the case.

Who Done It? (1942) is a fun vehicle for Bud and Lou. They are soda jerks working at a counter in the lobby of a building that includes a radio studio. That studio's most popular show is Murder at Midnight and the boys want nothing more than to sell their own mystery scripts.

By the way, a real show titled Murder at Midnight was syndicated four years after Who Done It? was released. Using the same name was probably a coincidence, but the possibility the producers of the real-life show lifted the title from an Abbott and Costello movie is an entertaining notion.

When Lou isn't getting swindled out of nickles and dimes by a fast-talking bellboy, the boys are able to get into the studio one evening to watch while the show airs. But the fake radio murder is interrupted by a real-life murder.

Well, if you want to break into radio as mystery writers, what's the best way to go about it? Obviously, its to impersonate real detectives and solve a actual murder. What could possibly go wrong?

This is Bud's idea. Gee whiz, people consider Lou to be the dumb one.

As is the case with many of their films, there are a man and woman side characters who are available to fall in love with one another and, in this case, actually figure out who the murderer actually is. Patric Knowles is a writer and Louise Allbritton is the show's producer. While the cops spend most of their time chasing Bud and Lou around the building, these two do some real investigating and come up with a plan that invovles recreating the radio broadcast to flush out the real killer. This, in turn, leads to a wonderful slapstick scene in which the boys and the killer stalk one another on the roof of the building.

Bud and Lou get great support from Mary Wickes, playing her usual acerbic character with her usual skill, and William Bendix as the world's dumbest cop. Later Bud and Lou films would combine the Universal Monsters with comedy and do this brilliantly. Who Done It? is one of several films in which they show themselves to be equally skilled in combining comedy with murder.

Why do Horror and Comedy Mix?

You wouldn't think the two genres would mix together smoothly, would you?

Horror exists to scare us. Yes, there can be deeper thematic meaning in a good horror story, but if it doesn't make us jump out of our skin a few times, then it has failed in its appointed task.

Comedy exists to make us laugh. Once again, deeper meaning can be there beneath the laughs. But we need the laughs to be there or its simply not a comedy.

But anyone reading a blog about old-timey stuff already knows quite how effective horror and comedy mix together if both elements are treated with appropriate respect by the storytellers. How many of you saw Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) on TV as a kid? How many loved it? How many were scared and made to laugh aloud at the same time?

That's pretty much all of you, isn't it?

This may be my favorite Bud and Lou movie, if only because it is so brilliant in how it mixes in the classic monsters. I first saw it when I was quite young, so I don't remember now how many of the Universal Monster films I had seen prior to that. But then, I literally don't remember a time I didn't know who all the monsters were and their back stories. As far as my childhood memories are concerned, I always knew about them. Much like I always knew about Superman, Kirk & Spock, or Spider Man. The existence of these things are simply built into my DNA.

Though I usually enjoy rambling on with my own opinions about stuff like this (as I secretly believe that mankind's only hope is to embrace my opinions and cultural tastes on a global basis), I believe I will pause here to share an informative and insightful documentary on Abbott and Costello's monster films. This comes from the Blu-Ray release of A & C Meet Frankenstein and it is well-worth a half-hour of your time.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Abbott and Costello: "Lou has to Pay Income Tax" 3/14/46

Lou needs 500 dollars to pay his income tax. The process of finding someone to lend him the money goes... less than smoothly.

Click HERE to listen or download.

Friday's Favorite OTR

Abbott and Costello: "Making a Movie with the Andrew Sisters" 4/26/45

The boy are being sued by the Andrew Sisters, so agree to appear in a movie with them as part of a settlement.

Click HERE to listen or download.

The Last Invisible Man

Read/Watch ‘em in Order: #9

The previous movie in this series—The Invisible Man’s Revenge—was too different from the other films to be considered a part of the same continuity, but that’s not the case with this film.

Despite a heavy dose of both verbal and slapstick humor, Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951) ties squarely in with the original film. Bud and Lou are newly licensed private eyes. When boxer Tommy Nelson is accused of murder, he hires the boys to help him catch the real killers.

But Tommy has another advantage. His girlfriend’s dad has inherited Jack Griffith’s original formula (heck, there’s a picture of Claude Rains hanging in his lab) and Tommy injects himself with it. But there’s still the danger of the formula driving Tommy insane and there’s no guarantee he can be cured even if he does clear his name.

Of course, that last bit does represent a continuity glitch---it had already been established in the second film that a complete blood transfusion would work as a cure. Also, Tommy is able to eat without the undigested food being visible inside him. But we can forgive this last one, since it helps set up a great visual gag later in the film when Lou and Tommy are sharing a plate of spaghetti.

The film was one of several that followed up on the commercial success of 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.  The boys had shown us that it was possible to incorporate great comedy with a serious and respectful treatment of Universal’s classic monsters, so that formula was repeated several times. In this case, the plot involved Tommy and the boys getting evidence against mobsters who framed the boxer and arranged for fights to be thrown. This part of the film is played relatively straight and progresses in a logical manner as they identify the chief mobster and set him up for a fall.

But the gags mixed in with this are hilarious without distracting from the “rational” part of the plot. The dialogue highlights Bud and Lou’s verbal wit, while several bits of physical comedy are amongst the best in any of their films. The funniest moment, I think, might possibly be the punch line (or rather the punch sight gag) involving Lou accidently putting a number of people to sleep via hypnotism.

And an extended sequence with Lou in a boxing ring, being secretly helped by Tommy during a fight, is truly classic. In fact, the entire film was consciously built around this routine.

Even the short throwaway gags (such as Lou trying to pick up a gun while wearing boxing gloves) are funny. The special effects are great and the supporting cast holds up their end of the film nicely. Sheldon Leonard plays the head mobster—a standard role for him but one he always did well both in serious films and in comedies. William Frawley gets several terrific scenes as the long-suffering police detective trying to catch Tommy.

It’s a worthwhile finale for a classic and enjoyable series of horror films.

And that does indeed bring us to the end of the Invisible Man films. We’ve still one more Shadow novel in “The Hand” series to cover, then we’ll be ready to move on to something else. Right now, I’m leaning towards examining Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellicidar novels—if only because I haven’t revisited them in awhile. But we’ll see. It’s my blog and I’ll cry if I want to… um, I mean I’ll read what I want to. 

Actually, I’m open to suggestions. Any film or book series you all would like me to cover?

Lou Costello---MURDERER!!!!!!

No, Lou isn't really a murderer. But he once played someone suspected of murder in what I believe was his only purely dramatic role.

I'm always a little reluctant to admit that there is such a thing as a good TV show, because that medium is responsible for killing off dramatic radio. But in reality, the first decade or two of network television included a fair percentage of well-written and well-produced shows. I've mentioned shows like Perry Mason, Bat Masterson and Combat in previous posts. Another good one was Wagon Train, which starred the wonderful character actor Ward Bond as the leader of a wagon train that never actually seems to arrive at its destination. Good writing, great actors and stark black-and-white photography made for a classy and entertaining Western.

An episode from the second season had Lou playing a drunken bum named Tobias Jones, who stows away in a wagon in his effort to reach California. With him is an orphan girl he's befriended.

The girl looks up to Tobias and wants to stay with him. But he just won't stop drinking, no matter how many times he promises to do so. When someone else on the train is found dead with Tobias' whittling knife stuck in him, he confesses to the crime, despite Ward Bond's conviction that he's innocent. By now, he's given up on himself and just wants to die.

Lou gives a strong, believable performance as Tobias--helping build a real sense of personal tragedy. The story itself gets a little too corny from time to time and I'm not sure the twist ending is as much of a surprise as it should have been, but overall the script is solid. It makes interesting viewing, both as good storytelling and as a chance to see one of the world's funniest men play a straight dramatic role.

If you subscribe to Netlfix, the episode is available for instant viewing. ("The Tobias Jones Story"--fourth episode from Season 2).

Comedians often turn out to be quite good at dramatic roles. Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Jack Benny and Danny Kaye all played murderers on the radio anthology series Suspense--and all did quite well. So it's not that surprising that Lou Costello can play a tragic drunk and endow the part with real emotion. Perhaps it all relates to the enormous skill involved in being funny on a regular basis. After all, as an actor supposedly once said on his death bed "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

Which Came First--Bud or Lou or Moe or Shemp or Larry?

The Abbott and Costello movie Naughty Nineties has a lot of great comedy bits in it. Set on a showboat in the 1890s, it manages to sandwich some of Bud and Lou's best routines within the otherwise straightforward plot (involving gamblers trying to take over management of the boat). This, of course, includes what is perhaps the best filmed version of Who's on First.



Another routine involves a series of misunderstandings leading poor Lou to think he's eating a hamburger made from a cat. I found a reference stating that this (like "Who's on First" and many of their other film routines) was based on a routine they did when they were in vaudeville.


What's interesting it is that in 1949, the Three Stooges used almost the exact same routine as part of their short Malice in the Palace.


That makes me wonder. Did the Stooges recycle the routine from the Abbott and Costello film? Or from Abbott and Costello's old vaudeville act? (The Stooges started on vaudeville also, remember.)  Or maybe it was the Stooges who first did it on vaudeville. Or maybe someone else entirely originated it. Vaudevillians were always "borrowing" material from one another. In fact, Lou Costello in Naughty Nineties uses a gag involving Lifesaver candy that Groucho Marx first used in the 1932 movie  Horse Feathers.


 Heck, there's a bit in Naughty Nineties in which Lou is forced to pretend to be the bad guy's reflection in a shaving mirror. It's nearly as funny as the classic scene from Duck Soup, in which Harpo pretends to be Groucho's reflection in a full-length mirror.


Oh, well, it really doesn't matter, does it? It's not something that needs to be researched thoroughly. Whomever first originated any one particular vaudeville routine, each comedy team that used it would give it a life of its own. All that matters is that it comes out funny.

Who the heck IS on first, anyways?

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.


"Who's on First" is still, in my opinion, the funniest comedy routine in the history of the universe.






Abbott and Costello were veterans of vaudeville. Gee whiz, I miss vaudeville. I'm not old enough to actually remember it--but I miss it. It was an extraordinary training ground for comedians. Aside from Bud and Lou, guys like Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope learned their trade by playing a zillion small-time theaters in a zillian towns and cities. When they brought what they learned to radio and the movies (and eventually television), they all regularly brought the house down.




Comedian Fred Allen wrote an autobiography about his years in vaudeville called Much Ado About Me. It is informative and hilarous and not a little bit heartbreaking in its portrayal of a bygone era. In fact, there's a chapter late in the book in which he breaks away from his narrative to compose what is basically a love letter to vaudeville, filled with priceless anecdotes about his fellow performers. It's one of the reasons I miss vaudeville so much--even though it died away before I was born.










By the way, I've got the above clips and 50 or so others posted in one convenient location HERE.