Bud, Lou, and the Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Buck Privates, the 1941 comedy that made stars of Abbott and Costello, doesn't rank among the team's best films (e.g.,  A&C Meet Frankenstein, Hold That Ghost, The Time of Their Lives). Still, that's to be somewhat expected since Bud and Lou aren't even top-billed in the cast. 

Lee Bowman and Jane Frazee.

That honor belongs to Lee Bowman and Alan Curtis, who play new Army recruits vying for the affections of a pretty USO hostess (Jane Frazee). Bowman's rich playboy has a hard time bonding with his fellow soldiers, especially after he ditches a rifle competition to go on a date. It's a superfluous plot that serves to bridge the gaps between Bud and Lou's routines and the Andrews Sisters' musical numbers.

Bud wants to borrow $50.

As for the boys, they play street hucksters who accidentally join the Army, thinking that they're signing up for a raffle in a movie theater. It's easy to see why the duo were the film's breakout stars. With only one other movie to their credit (One Night in the Tropics), they were able to introduce several of their funniest vaudeville routines. Thus, audiences were treated to classic gags like: "You're 40--she's 10," "Give me the $40 and you'll owe me $10," and the craps game. If some of these routines sound familiar, that's because Bud and Lou recycled them in later movies.

Maxene, Patty, and LaVerne Andrews.

The Andrews Sisters were already recording hit songs by 1941. However, their second film appearance in Buck Privates raised their profile significantly. That was mostly due to the debut of one of their signature hits "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." The song earned an Academy Award nomination (losing to "The Last Time I Saw Paris"). Charles Previn's music score also received an Oscar nomination.

Its combination of broad comedy and catchy music turned Buck Privates into one of the biggest box office draws of 1941. Universal Pictures, which was already making Hold That Ghost with Abbott and Costello, put that movie on hold to produce another service comedy. In the Navy reteamed the boys (now top-billed) with the Andrews Sisters--and featured Dick Powell in one of his last singing roles. It turned into box office gold as well and the Andrews Sisters were quickly added to the Hold the Ghost cast.

By 1942, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were the biggest box office stars in America. They remained among the top 10 stars annually throughout the 1940s. Buck Privates is a good introduction to some their best comedy routines, but the pair would make better movies in the coming years.

Abbott and Costello's The Time of Their Lives

Bud and Lou in one of their few scenes together.

One of Abbott and Costello's most atypical films ranks among their best. The Time of Their Lives (1946) is one of only two of the pair's movies in which they don't perform as a team. The previous year's Little Giant is the other non-comedy team picture. In real life, the two actors were in the middle of a rift.

The Time of Their Lives casts Lou as Horatio Prim, a patriotic American tinker during the Revolutionary War. Horatio is enlisted by the upper-class Melody Allen (Majorie Reynolds) to warn George Washington of a treasonous plot involving her fiancé Tom Danbury. However, while Melody and Horatio are departing the Danbury estate, they are pursued by a band of men. Following an exchange of gunfire, Horatio and Melody are killed--by other patriots who assumed they were traitors. Their bodies are dumped into a well and cursed to wander the estate until the "crack of doom" or until their innocence can be proven.

Lou Costello as Horatio.

Horatio's and Melody's ghosts spend most of the next 166 years residing in a tree on the estate following the mansion's destruction in a fire. However, in 1947, they take an interest when a playwright named Sheldon Gage rebuilds the grand house and restores some of the original furnishings. It gives Horatio and Melody hope that they may be able to find a letter from Washington that proves Horatio was not a traitor. That letter would free them from their curse.

While Lou Costello still cracks one-liners and performs pratfalls, The Time of Their Lives is a charming change-of-pace comedy fantasy. Bud Abbott benefits the most, as he gets to play double roles: a conniving manservant in 1870 who dislikes Horatio and a contemporary psychiatrist who takes a big risk to help the friendly ghosts. It's especially refreshing to see him as the latter, a likable character distinctly different from his usual roles.

Marjorie Reynolds as Melody.

Marjorie Reynolds essentially plays Lou's straight man. On screen, the couple project a sweet affection for one another. There's even a hint of romantic feelings between the two ghosts, though that angle is jettisoned awkwardly when Melody learns of her fiancé's regrets. It's really the only misstep in an otherwise well-written script.

The ghostly special effects are impressive for the most part. A highlight is when Horatio and Melody walk "through" each other and exchange clothes. Such effects required the actors to perform the same scene multiple times. That created a problem because Costello often liked to take props as souvenirs from his movies. In one instance, his pilfering of a prop destroyed a scene's continuity and wasted a day of filming.

Marjorie Reynolds retired from movies in the early 1950s. Despite promising roles in "A" pictures like Holiday Inn (1942) and Ministry of Fear (1944), she never became a star. She transitioned successfully to television, though, as William Bendix's wife in the NBC series Life of Riley (1953-58). She also appeared in occasional guest star roles in TV shows like Leave to Beaver and, notably, The Abbott and Costello Show. 

The Time of Their Lives did not perform at the box office as well as Abbott and Costello's other comedies for Universal. Still, the team got back on track later in 1947 with The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, an amusing Western comedy co-starring Majorie Main. And in 1948, they would star in their biggest hit of all: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. 

Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer

The first murder victim and Lou.

Following the huge success of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Universal Pictures was anxious to make another horror-comedy with its top stars. The studio purchased the rights to a screenplay titled Easy Does It, which was originally intended for Bob Hope. It then cast Boris Karloff as one of the heavies and bestowed the film with the awkward title of Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff. The on-screen title, though, is just Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, with Karloff's name listed under the title as one of the film's stars.

Karloff as a suspect.

Abbott plays Casey, the house detective at the Lost Caverns Resort Hotel. It's a pretty easy job until a famous attorney registers as a guest and winds up murdered before he can unpack. The chief suspect is Casey's bellboy pal Freddie (Costello), who lost his job because of the attorney. There are plenty of other more likely killers, to include a hypnotist (Karloff) and a femme fatale named Angela (Lenore Aubert). To make matters worse, additional hotel guests start turning up as a corpses--which keep disappearing and reappearing in the most unlikely places.

There aren't a lot of new comic routines in Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, but that hardly matters. Lou Costello was a comedy genius in terms of his timing, facial expressions, and voices. As for Bud Abbott, he was a perfect set-up man, always willing to let Lou get the laughs. Many comedy teams have performed the "moving body" gag, but A&C do it with a precision that deserves praise. They were--and are--truly underrated as comedians. 

Lou Costello and Lenore Aubert.

The duo's best films--which include Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer--feature solid plots with a bevy of one-liners. The scene with the most zingers is the one where Angela tries to convince Freddie to sign a confession.

Freddie (to Angela): Gee, you're pretty!

Angela: I bet you say that to all the girls.

Freddie: Yes, it don't go over so well with the boys.

Later, Angela pleads with Freddie to take a sip of champagne--which may be poisoned:

Angela: Just one teeny weeny sip...for little Angela.

Freddie:  I wouldn't drink it for big Angela.

Bud and Lou play bridge with corpses.

There are fine visual gags, too, such as Casey and Freddie (dressed as a hotel maid) playing bridge with a pair of corpses as Percy Helton's character flirts with Freddie. The climax in the caverns and Freddie trapped in a steam machine also generate some laughs. 

However, there are some missed opportunities, especially with Karloff. He only has one significant scene with Costello, in which the Swami tries to hypnotize Freddie into committing suicide. In fact, Boris Karloff is in very little of Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, which is a shame. As he proved on stage in Arsenic and Old Lace and later in films like The Raven (1963), Boris could be very amusing.

As a follow-up to Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, A&C Meet the Killer must have seemed disappointing when first released. It still turned a nice profit at the box office, though, and paved the way for additional monsters and mystery pairings with the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (with Karloff again). In hindsight, A&C Meet the Killer is a tidy, above-average comedy-mystery and easily one of Bud and Lou's best films.

Abbott & Costello Try to Find Out Who Done It

In one of their best films, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello play Chick and Mervyn, a couple of soda jerks who aspire to be radio mystery writers. They catch a break when they're given tickets to watch a recording of Murder at Midnight, a popular series produced in the General Broadcasting Company (GBC) building across the street. Of course, Mervyn (Costello) loses the tickets in a obvious scam and the boys end up sneaking into the recording studio. Thus, they're practically on the set when the show begins...and the network's president is electrocuted.

Chick and Mervyn start to go for the police, but quickly decide to play detective themselves. They figure that if they can solve the murder, their new-found fame will secure their employment as mystery writers. When Mervyn comes into possession of a vital clue, he and Chick become pursued by the killer. To make matters worse for the boys, the real detectives (William Gargan and William Bendix) show up and they're not happy about being impersonated.

Costello on the payphone.

Who Done It? is notable as the first Abbott and Costello comedy without musical numbers. As a result, it moves faster than their previous films and clocks in at a brisk 76 minutes. It also means more funny routines, including some of the duo's best: Costello trying to make a limburger cheese sandwich; Lou trying to make a call on a payphone; and a gag about volts and watts with wordplay similar to their classic "Who's on First?" routine. (It's also fun to note that "Who's on First" is referenced twice in Who Done It?)

Mary Wickes.

The standouts in the supporting cast are two comic pros: Mary Wickes and William Bendix. The former plays the network president's secretary and the object of Lou's affection. Bendix, as one of the detectives, plays straight man to Costello in most of his scenes. It couldn't have been easy playing second banana to Lou, whose style of comedy demands that the camera focus on him. But Wickes and Bendix were consummate performers who knew how to complement their fellow actors. It was a skill that kept them in demand throughout their careers in film, radio (for Bendix), and television.

Chick and Mervyn at the diner.

My only complaint with Who Done It? is that it doesn't take maximum advantage of its setting and plot. The radio series backdrop contributes to a few laughs, but whole sequences take place outside the GBC building (e.g., a big scene where Mervyn learns he has won $10,000 in a radio contest). Likewise, the central mystery--which involves spies sending secret messages--could have been integrated into the hijinks better. Yes, this is an Abbott and Costello comedy, but consider how the plot contributed to their classic farce Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Still, you don't watch Bud and Lou movies for meaningful stories--you watch them to laugh. And there are more than enough gags in Who Done It? to satisfy the duo's fans...and maybe even convert some new ones.

The Five Best Abbott & Costello Movies

Abbott and Costello as a ghost.

1. The Time of Their Lives - I doubt if many A&C fans would rank this effort over #2 below, especially because Bud and Lou aren't a team in this outing. However, I stand by this choice, as it's their most original comedy with a good story, nice performances...and it's very funny. In a prologue set in 1780, Lou and Majorie Reynolds play American Revolutionary patriots who are mistakenly killed as traitors. Their ghosts are condemned to roam the Kings Point estate until their innocence can be proven. When the estate is restored 166 years later, the two ghosts have an opportunity to uncover the evidence that will free them. Bud gets to play two roles and the first-rate supporting cast include Gale Sondergaard and Binnie Barnes.

Glenn Strange and Costello.

2. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein - I adore the wonderfully wacky premise: Count Dracula has recently experienced difficulty with controlling the Frankenstein Monster, so he wants to replace the Monster’s brain. Dr. Sandra Mornay (a female mad scientist—a nice touch) has chosen Costello's brain because of its simplicity. When Lou's character discovers Dracula’s plot, he quips: “I've had this brain for thirty years. It hasn't done me any good!” Packed with many of their best routines, this classic comedy was added the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2001.

3. Hold That Ghost - It used to be that comedians were seemingly required to do a "haunted house" movie. This 1941 classic was actually Bud and Lou's intended follow-up to Buck Privates. It was delayed when another service comedy, In the Navy, was released to theaters first. Hold That Ghost features one of their most famous routines: the moving candle. The plot has the boys inheriting a haunted tavern from a gangster. There's a hidden stash of cash plus a great cast featuring Universal scream queen Evelyn Ankers, Joan Davis, Shemp Howard, and the Andrews Sisters. Alas, the producers added some unnecessary songs, but that's the only drawback.

4. The Naughty Nineties - Take Showboat, insert Abbott & Costello, and you've got The Naughty Nineties. Although the duo originated their "Who's on First" routine many years earlier, this version is considered the definitive one. In fact, it runs continuously at the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum and is one of the museum most popular attractions. The Naughty Nineties includes several famous burlesque gags such as the mirror routine and the swapping of glasses (one of which filled with poison). Plus, there's the "Higher/Lower" bit with Costello singing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean." I recommend you check it on YouTube!

5. Who Done It? -  In this outing, Bud and Lou play soda jerks who aspire to be radio mystery writers. They catch a break when they're given tickets to watch a recording of the popular radio series "Murder at Midnight"--which, of course, ends up resulting in an actual murder. Notable as their first comedy without musical numbers Who Done It? features some of the duo's best routines: Costello trying to make a limburger cheese sandwich; Lou trying to make a call on a payphone; and a gag about volts and watts with wordplay similar to "Who's on First?"(which is referenced twice).

Honorable Mentions:  The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man.

Snack-sized Film Reviews: "Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick" and "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy"

Aaron Slick from Punkin Crick (1952). This Paramount Pictures musical was a last attempt to turn popular singer Dinah Shore into a movie star. She had appeared previously in films with Danny Kaye (Up in Arms) and Randolph Scott (Belle of the Yukon). This one pairs her with Alan Young, who was then being groomed for film stardom. Young plays Aaron Slick, a smarter-than-he-looks farmer in love with his neighbor Josie (Shore). His inability to express his feelings leaves an opening for traveling actor Bill Merridew (Robert Merrill), who is actually a con artist. Merridew and his "sister" (Adele Jergens) buy Josie's farm, thinking it's rich with oil. Josie uses the money to move to Chicago, leaving a heartbroken Aaron behind. The first half of Aaron Slick is a pleasant small-town musical with some lively songs by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (the best being "Saturday Night in Punkin Creek"). However, the second half deflates when Josie heads to the big city and Shore and Young aren't on the screen together. The end result is a musical that's agreeable enough, but also quickly forgotten. Dinah Shore and Alan Young both achieved their biggest successes on television. She hosted a successful variety series from 1956-63 and two popular talk shows from 1970-80. Alan Young, of course, gained fame as Wilbur Post on Mister Ed (1961-66). Livingston and Evans wrote the famous title song to that sitcom. (In the clip below, Dinah and Alan duet on the opening number "Chores." If your browser doesn't support embedded YouTube links, then click here to view the video.)

Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). The comedy duo's last film for Universal Studios returned to one of their most successful formulas: teaming them with a classic monster. This outing is nowhere near as good as A&C Meet Frankenstein (1948) nor even A&C Meet the Invisible Man (1951). However, it's better than its reputation and includes some genuinely funny (if recycled) routines. The thin plot has Abbott accused of murdering an archaeologist who was searching for the tomb of Klaris, the guardian of a hidden royal treasure. When the boys find a medallion that contains the location of the treasure, they are pursued by greedy villains as well as those want to protect the tomb at all costs. The three best scenes borrow liberally from previous A&C films: Lou has to cope with a moving corpse; confusion reigns when two fake mummies and one real one clash; and Bud and Lou each try to slip the other one the dangerous medallion. The last scene is the film's highlight with Lou eating the medallion on his hamburger and later undergoing a fluoroscope examination. Following Meet the Mummy, Bud and Lou made one final film together, Dance With Me, Henry (1956), which was released by United Artists. It tried for a slightly more serious tone, casting Lou as an amusement park owner who cares for two orphans. Costello followed it with a solo outing called The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959) before he died of a heart attack at age 52 later that year.

Abbott & Costello Meet the Frankenstein Monster...and Dracula...and the Wolf Man*

Lou sits on the Frankenstein Monster.

Ask a classic movie fan to name their favorite comedians and I suspect only a few would list Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. More likely answers might be Chaplin, Keaton, and the Marx Brothers. And yet, the legacy of A&C is significant. They are often credited with singlehandedly saving Universal from bankruptcy in the 1940s. The duo was a Top 10 box office attraction for almost a decade and their comic routines influenced countless other comedians. Heck, the “Who’s on First” sketch from The Naughty Nineties has played in a continuous loop in the Baseball Hall of Fame for years.

Lou writes a note...not realizing who's
in the background.

The Library of Congress added one of their pictures, 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, to the National Film Registry in 2001. That’s appropriate since it’s one of the team’s finest efforts, casting them as shipping clerks Chick (Bud) and Wilbur (Lou), who receive two mysterious crates en route to McDougal’s House of Horrors. It turns out that one crate contains Dracula’s coffin and the other the Frankenstein Monster. It’s not long before Count Dracula and the Monster relocate to a nearby castle with Larry Talbot—aka the Wolf Man—and a female insurance investigator in hot pursuit.

This was Lugosi's second--and final--
appearance as Count Dracula.

The film’s premise is wonderfully wacky: Dracula has recently experienced difficulty with controlling the Frankenstein Monster, so he wants to replace the Monster’s brain. Dr. Sandra Mornay (a female mad scientist—a nice touch) has chosen Wilbur’s brain because of its simplicity. When Wilbur discovers Dracula’s plot, he quips: “I've had this brain for thirty years. It hasn't done me any good!”

Loosely structured, A&C Meet Frankenstein allows Bud and Lou to recreate some of their most famous comic routines, specifically the moving candle and the revolving door. The former goes on too long, but the latter is a stellar example of perfect comic timing. Lou accidentally discovers a secret revolving door that leads from a passageway to a room containing Dracula and the Monster. Lou returns to the passage to fetch Bud, but as they pass through the revolving door, Drac and the Monster go into the passage—so Bud never sees them. And that’s just the start of the routine. Silly? No doubt. Funny? Most definitely.

One of the film’s strengths is that Bela Lugosi (as Dracula) and Lon Chaney, Jr. (Larry Talbot) play their roles straight. Honestly, it must have been a challenge to keep a straight face in some of the scenes with Costello, such as these two exchanges:

LARRY TALBOT: I know you'll think I'm crazy, but in half an hour the moon will rise and I'll turn into a wolf.

WILBUR: You and twenty million other guys.

Later in the film, Larry approaches Lou, who has agreed to go to a masquerade ball with both Dr. Mornay and the insurance investigator.

WILBUR: I've got a date. In fact I've got two dates.

LARRY TALBOT: But you and I have a date with destiny.

WILBUR: Let Chick go with Destiny.

Lou Costello and Bud Abbott.

A&C Meet Frankenstein was a big hit for Universal and led to several spooky follow-ups: Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer (1949); Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951); Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953); and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). The first two “sequels” were well-done comedies, but the formula started to wear thin by the time the boys encountered Dr. Jekyll (though even Meet the Mummy has its moments).  After that, they only made one more film (1956’s Dance With Me, Henry) and then dissolved the team for good. Costello died three years later.

There are classic horror fans who grouse that A&C Meet Frankenstein sounded the death toll for Universal’s classic monsters. That’s simply not true. The monster movie extravaganzas House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945) already proved that Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Frankenstein Monster had lost much of their appeal. They could not be relied upon to draw audiences individually—only when combined together. The studio needed a different kind of creature and eventually found just that in the early 1950s with The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

By the way, it’s worth noting that the Frankenstein Monster speaks in A&C Meet Frankenstein. I believe his dialogue consists of one word…when he responds to Dracula with: “Master.” If memory serves, the Monster only speaks in two other Universal movies, the acclaimed Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and The Ghost of Frankenstein (1940). Glenn Strange played the Monster in the A&C movie, his third appearance after donning the make-up earlier in both House pictures. The 6' 6" Strange went on to play Sam the bartender, who worked at Miss Kitty’s Long Branch Saloon in TV’s Gunsmoke.

Abbott and Costello Meet Franenstein is certainly one of the duo’s best comedies, along with Hold That Ghost (1941), Who Done It? (1942), and The Time of Their Lives (1946). It sometimes pops up on television around Halloween, but it makes for an amusing evening’s entertainment any time of year.

* The Invisible Man makes an "appearance," voiced by Vincent Price, in the final scene.