I feel
like I should be apologizing, but I just can't appreciate the comedy of Abbott
and Costello no matter how often I try. This film in particular seems to
be a favorite of otherwise sane people, but the best that I can say about
it is that I didn't break into hives. Though that might have been less painful.
It isn't like I have an overly sophisticated sense of humor. I like Wheeler
and Woolsey, the Ritz Brothers, Brown and Carney. No one else laughs at their
comedy, but I do. But Abbott and Costello is like being shut in prison cell
with a madman who keeps repeating the story of his life in iambic pentameter.
Stop! Please stop. But I keep trying. One day I expect I will get it and
break into long bouts of unexplained laughter. They will have to come for
me, but until then I will remain astonished that people find them funny.
This film can be broken down into a few routines that are repeated infinitum.
Lou Costello who gets all the camera time is terrified of something, Abbott
orders him around like a sadist, something happens to Costello but by the
time Abbott shows up it is gone. That is pretty much it. How much Costello
stupidity, mugging, screaming is a person expected to take. Most of the pratfalls
and jokes can be seen coming from another universe. He is relentless. A few
bits work - the dance number and the figure of speech word play were clever
- come to mind. The rest is Costello sticking needles into my soft parts.
The film begins with a nightclub act that was pointless. Band leader Ted
Lewis saying, "Is . . . everybody, , , happy" like his vocal
chords are stuck in quicksand. He sings Me and My Shadow and a black dancer
plays his shadow. This guy was popular? Then the Andrew Sisters. This and
then Lewis and the Sisters at the end were apparently added after the film
was finished. The Andrew Sisters had been in the two previous films by A&C
that had done very well and why spoil a good thing. Then shift to the scene
of the two boys as gas station attendants - which had been the opening of
the original film. They inherit an old broken down house from a gangster
who is reputed to have hidden money.
For reasons never made clear, when they go to the house, some others go with
them. Marc Lawrence as a gangster who plans to kill them, Richard Carlson
a nerdy scientist, Joan Davis a radio screamer and Evelyn Ankers. Ankers
was nearly a good luck charm for Universal horror having appeared in The
Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula and others. In the house
Costello goes into his act of being scared and needy. Other gangsters are
hiding in the house looking for the money and trying to scare the others
into leaving. This was a hit. If only I could transport myself back to a
theater in 1941. Laughing in a theater is contagious.
