- Still, The Abbott and Costello Show is a hilarious treat for anybody willing to go along with it. Lou and Bud were masters of incongruity and confusion jokes. Lou and Bud were masters of.
- Abbott and Costello. Even at the height of their success, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello struggled with problems in their personal lives. Abbott was a heavy-drinking epileptic, and Costello suffered.
- Abbott and Costello continued to perform on stage, and in 1939 opened on Broadway in Streets of Paris. By now Hollywood began making overtures. Abbott and Costello fully expected to do one picture, One Night in the Tropics, then return to New York and continue working on radio and Broadway. Fortunately, that's not what became of Abbott.
Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's. See full summary » Director: William A. Seiter Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Brenda Joyce, Jacqueline deWit. Abbott and Costello, American comedic duo who performed onstage, in films, and on radio and television. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello engaged in rapid-fire patter and knock-about slapstick, and they are regarded as the archetypal team of burlesque comedy. Abbott was a schemer, and Costello played a childlike patsy.
1950
![Abbott and costello Abbott and costello](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/L3VfSrRdw20/hqdefault.jpg)
BLONDE DYNAMITE
(1950)The Boys: Leo Gorcey ('Slip'), Huntz Hall ('Sach'),William 'Billy' Benedict ('Whitey'), David Gorcey ('Chuck'), Buddy Gorman ('Butch'), Gabriel Dell ('Gabe'), Bernard Gorcey ('Louie Dumbrowski')
With Adele Jergens, Harry Lewis, Murray Alper, Jody Gilbert
Directed by William Beaudine
The boys start the fifties with a new Butch, and William Beaudine back at the helm after a year-long absence. Their first film, Blonde Dynamite, is an above average entry with an increasingly rare emphasis on the whole team. The setup has Louie going on vacation (Coney Island) and in his absence, the boys turning his Sweet Shop into their own escort service, Slip's latest get-rich-quick scheme. Meanwhile, Gabe, now working at a bank, is being blackmailed by some shady characters into giving them the combination to the vault. Naturally, as in any good Bowery Boys film, these two plot threads come together in the end, as the gangsters use the boys to drill a tunnel through the floor of Louie's Sweet Shop into the bank a few doors away.
The film is so team-oriented that even David Gorcey and Buddy Gorman get their own comedy scene, when they are hired by a Women's Self-Defense Defense instructor and judo-flipped across a room. Meanwhile, Billy Benedict and Huntz Hall have a fun scene as Whitey and Sach are hired to be escorts to the opera for a couple of old maids. Bernard Gorcey gets a number of cutaway scenes, the best being the first, as he plays a ukulele on the beach and sings 'Aloha Ay' while watching girls, as his wife glares disapprovingly. Sky bet casino.
Mrs. Dumbrowskl is played by wonderful comic actress Jodi Gilbert, best known to comedy fans as the waitress 'Blimpie-Pie' in W. C. Fields' Never Give a Sucker an Even Break. In Fighting Fools, Louie insisted he wasn't married, yet here we see his wife. If you're looking for continuity, you are looking at the wrong series.
For trivia buffs, Slip may have revealed the real names of his cohorts in this film, as he introduces Butch as Bartholomew, Chuck as Cedric and Whitey as Whitmore.
SLIP OF THE LIP
'I'll sue them for salt and some batteries!'
LUCKY LOSERS
(1950)The Boys: Leo Gorcey ('Slip'), Huntz Hall ('Sach'),William 'Billy' Benedict ('Whitey'), David Gorcey ('Chuck'), Buddy Gorman ('Butch'), Gabriel Dell ('Gabe'), Bernard Gorcey ('Louie Dumbrowski')
With Hillary Brooke, Lyle Talbot, Harry Cheshire
Directed by William Beaudine
A solid mixture of drama and comedy, Lucky Losers is a well-directed and edited film about the Bowery Boys invading the casino business to investigate the suicide of their stock broker friend. As with Blonde Dynamite, the film makes good use on the entire team, with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall getting the bulk of the footage, Gabe Dell helping to move the plot along, and Billy Benedict, David Gorcey and Buddy Gorman getting moments to shine. Then, of course, there is Bernard Gorcey, as Louie, or in this case 'Arizona Louie', a shill brought in by the boys. Huntz Hall was undoubtedly the best comedian of the bunch, but the older Gorcey had an uncanny ability to steal any scene he was in. Listen to him closely during one of his angry moments at the craps table and you may actually hear him using the 'F Word' mixed in with his Yiddish!
My favorite sideline scenes have Whitey, as a blackjack croupier, cheating to allow two nice elderly ladies to win back their money, and Whitey, Chuck and Butch all climbing into one phone booth to make a call (why do they always do this?). For those keeping track of the Bowery Boys fighting routines, 'Routine 8' apparently consists of throwing whatever is at hand, in this case hundreds of poker chips, at the bad guys until they are incapacitated.
Gabe Dell, as Gabe Moreno, works as a television commentator, a nod to the invention that was quickly becoming a thorn in the side of the movie industry. Of course, as in all movies of this time, the television reception characters get is immaculate!
The female lead, Hillary Brooke, had a long but relatively undistinguished movie career, but is beloved by fans of both the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films and Abbott and Costello. She appeared in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) and The Woman in Green (1945). She also co-starred with Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams (1949) and Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952) as well as in the first season of their television show which ran from 1955 to 1956. I am particularly fond of her because she was born in my hometown of Astoria, Long Island City, New York.
![Abbott Abbott](https://rightedition.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/abbot.jpg)
TRIPLE TROUBLE
(1950)The Boys: Leo Gorcey ('Slip'), Huntz Hall ('Sach'),William 'Billy' Benedict ('Whitey'), David Gorcey ('Chuck'), Buddy Gorman ('Butch'), Gabriel Dell ('Gabe'), Bernard Gorcey ('Louie Dumbrowski')
With Richard Benedict, Pat Collins, Lyn Thomas, Jonathan Hale
Directed by Jean Yarbrough
After several above-average pictures, Triple Trouble falls curiously flat. The opening is creepy and bizarre, as the Boys, dressed in rubber Halloween masks, happen upon a robbery and are mistaken for the actual criminals. It's a unique mood setting opening which, unfortunately, the rest of the film fails to live up to. In one of Slip's least comprehensible plans, he elects to plead guilty to the crime (and enters the same plea for Sach) in an effort to track down the real crooks. Once in prison, they pretend to be two more famous gangsters, with Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall occasionally doing over-the-top impersonations of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. There are moments that resemble Laurel and Hardy's 1931 feature Pardon Us, especially when a scene in which Slip and Sach are put in solitary confinement is filmed from the exact same angle as a similar scene in the Laurel and Hardy film. But the Laurel and Hardy film, although patchy and episodic, had a lot of good comic sequences. Triple Trouble lacks any real comic highlights.
There are times when Huntz Hall's exuberant characterization of Sach could be overbearing, and this is one of them. Without halfway decent material, Hall's nonstop talking, gesticulating and laughing is not terribly funny. He would do much better in the next film, Blues Busters, in which he gives one of his best performances.
BLUES BUSTERS
(1950)The Boys: Leo Gorcey ('Slip'), Huntz Hall ('Sach'),William 'Billy' Benedict ('Whitey'), David Gorcey ('Chuck'), Buddy Gorman ('Butch'), Gabriel Dell ('Gabe'), Bernard Gorcey ('Louie Dumbrowski')
With Adele Jergens, Craig Stevens, Phyllis Coates
Directed by William Beaudine
It's not overloaded with gags or action, but Blues Busters is one of the most pleasant and certainly the most musical of the Bowery Boys films. The premise - after Sach has his tonsils out, he can sing like Bing Crosby - is so wacky, the film doesn't even need much of a plot to be entertaining. The film just rides along on Sach's new ability, the Boys' creation of a supper club out of Louie's Sweet Shop, and a rival nightclub owner's attempts to win back the crowds that have now deserted his establishment. As usual, Gabe has a new job directly tied to the plot - he's a song plugger at a sheet music store on the same block (who knew it was such a musical neighborhood?) and to help out matters, Slip's latest girlfriend is a dancer.
The songs are catchy but not classic, and they are really sold by the voice (attributed to John Lorenz) and Huntz Hall's ability to sell them with his superb mimicry of your standard 1940's crooner. There's also a scene that is reminiscent of Laurel and Hardy when Sach, who has accidentally signed a contract with the rival owner, meets Slip on the street and both men come to near tears because their friendship is no longer what it once was. Except for one or two Slipisms ('You're at the pineapple of your success'), the scene is played completely straight and is one of those rare moments when you can feel the affection these two characters had for each other. (Whether that affection was real between the two actors may be another story, though Leo Gorcey certainly knew that Hall was a huge factor, possibly the primary factor, in the success of the Bowery Boys).
Some cast notes: this was Gabriel Dell's last Bowery Boys film. A talented man with an affable screen presence, he continued acting on Broadway, on television and in the movies for most of the rest of his life. In the fifties, he formed a nightclub act with fellow Bowery Boy Huntz Hall. He was also part of the rogues gallery of comics on Steve Allen's television shows in the late 50s and early '60s. (See video below)
As for Phylis Coates, who plays dancer Sally Dolan in Blues Blusters, well, let me put it this way: almost every Bowery Boys film had one beautiful B-movie actress in its cast, and many of them were quite good. But Phyllis Coates? Talented, funny, cool and just all kinds of sexy. Coates would never become a huge star, but she will always be remembered by TV fans as Lois Lane, playing opposite George Reeves in the first season of The Adventures of Superman where she was still all kinds of sexy even as a brunette.
SCHTICK 'EM UP!
'Maybe we could float a loan at the bank.'
'With our reputation, we couldn't float a rowboat.'
'With our reputation, we couldn't float a rowboat.'
The Bowery Boys
by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2012 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reservedThe film was Buck Privates, the second film made by Abbott and Costello and the first in whichthey starred — and an enormous hit (it grossed $4 million, more than anyprevious film in Universal’s history and more than How Green Was MyValley or Citizen Kane, on an investment of $180,000) that basically had itall: surprisingly lavish production values (though much of the mock-battlefootage was clearly stock from Universal’s newsreels), sprightly music (theAndrews Sisters are in the film and are featured almost as prominently asAbbott and Costello are!) and an unexpectedly topical theme. In October 1940,President Franklin Roosevelt signed America’s first peacetime conscription billin its history, and the bill was predictably controversial, especially amongthe still-powerful isolationists who wanted no part of the European or Asianwars. Roosevelt saw U.S. entry into World War II as inevitable and wanted us tobe prepared, and as part of the war-preparation effort he asked the moviestudios to make films illustrating life in the Army for the new draftees andpromoting both voluntary enlistment and cooperation with conscription.
Amongthe movies that got produced in response to the U.S. government’s call werethis one, Great Guns (a virtualcopy of Buck Privates made at 20thCentury-Fox with Laurel and Hardy instead of Abbott and Costello; left to theirown devices Laurel and Hardy could probably have made a considerably funnierservice comedy, as they had in 1932 with the first half of Pack UpYour Troubles, but they were given theirmarching orders by the “suits” at Fox and the result was a film that’sbasically Buck Privates, only notas good) and Caught in the Draft(a Paramount comedy that starred Bob Hope and was probably more influential forthe future direction of his career than it was as a movie in its own right: inorder to promote it, Paramount booked Hope to perform live at two Army bases,including Fort Ord near Monterey, California; and Hope enjoyed the experienceof performing at Army bases so much he literally did it for the rest of his career!)
Service comediesfrom Hollywood pretty much followed the same formula, and this one is noexception: it’s essentially three parallel tracks — a romantic plotlet in whichArmy “hostess” Judy Gray (Jane Frazee) is torn romantically between arrogantrich bastard Randolph Parker III (Lee Bowman) and his former valet, Bob Martin(Alan Curtis); Parker arrogantly expects his influential father to get him outof the ranks and into a cushy job in Washington, but dad decides to leave himin the Army thinking it will make a man out of him — which, of course, it does— plus Abbott and Costello essentially playing the comic relief (two small-timecon men who join the Army to get away from the cop who’s chasing them, only tofind that the cop, played by Nat Pendleton, is in the Army too and is, ofcourse, their drill sergeant) and lots of music not only from the Andrews Sisters (this is the film thatintroduced their song “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” a hit for them at the time andlater for Bette Midler in 1972) but from Jane Frazee (singing a quite lovelyromantic ballad called “I Wish You Were Here”) and Lou Costello (a quite funnynovelty in which he’s stuck in the kitchen with Shemp Howard — who before hegot tapped to replace his brother Curly in the Three Stooges worked with quitea few other legendary comedians, including W.C. Fields in The BankDick and Olsen and Johnson in Hellzapoppin’ and Crazy House — and fantasizes that he’s a captain).
Abbott And Costello Episodes Youtube
Indeed, Charles thought themusic held up better than any other element in the film — though the Abbott andCostello verbal routines are still very funny (their main writer, John Grant,got a “special material” credit, and deserved it) and it was nice to see theirfirst one, in which Costello claims never to have played craps before but hiscommand of such gambling lingo as “fade it” and “let it ride” “outs” him — andin which for once it’s Costello who takes Abbott’s bankroll and not the otherway around (though Abbott cons Costello back and gets the money in a laterscene). I’ve had mixed feelings about Abbott and Costello; as a kid, watchingthese movies when San Francisco’s Channel 7 showed them early Saturdaymornings, I thought they were hilarious; later I thought Laurel and Hardy andthe Marx Brothers were a good deal funnier; then in the early 2000’s whenAmerican Movie Classics (in their death throes as a classic movie channel beforethey went all John Wayne or James Bond all the time) showed quite a few of theAbbott and Costello features, my reaction was that maybe they weren’t funnierthan Laurel and Hardy or the Marx Brothers but they’re a damned sight funnierthan just about anyone who’s done movie comedy since.
Abbott And Costello Free Movies
Leonard Maltin’s book MovieComedy Teams, published in 1970 and revised in 1974, wasappreciative of Abbott and Costello but also zeroed in on their main weakness:“[W]ith few exceptions, the team never strove to portray realistic charactersin their films. If they had any flaw, this was it. They always provided laughs,but they could never establish the bond that made Laurel and Hardy so popularwith audiences; they never convinced their fans that the two guys they wereplaying were real people, worth caring about.” (Neither did the Marx Brothers,but the Marxes made themselves such figures of anarchistic wish-fulfillmentthey didn’t need to.) Still, Buck Privates holds up pretty well; the drill sequence (in which Costello not onlycan’t tell his left from his right but, in its funniest gag, gets tired ofbeing told to put his rifle on his left shoulder, then on his right, then onhis left again ad infinitum andwhines to the drill sergeant, “Will ya make up your mind?”) was apparently largely improvised (and, accordingto one imdb.com commentator, was shown by the Japanese army as an alleged example of their enemy’sincompetence!), and though the gags are so old Aristophanes probably would haverejected them as too clichéd, they’re still funny.