While Abbott and Costello spent the majority of their film careers at Universal, they occasionally worked for other studios and/or themselves. This was an independent production, which explains why, like Jack and the Beanstalk, it has fallen into the public domain. This one has the duo wind up in Africa, a popular destination for many 40s comics (Bob Hope, etc). The film was directed by Charles Barton, for my money the best director of Abbott and Costello, but this would be his worst A & C movie. It looks cheap compared to the Universal films, and gets bogged down all the time: boring shenanigans involving Costello in a cage with a lion, or the two of them running around the jungle for no good reason. By this stage the team were getting lazy: there’s a scene where Abbott weeps over the death of Costello without realising that Costello is sitting next to him – which they used just two films later in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion.
However there are some funny moments such as Costello having seizures when he sees a gorilla, the chubby camp support character, and Abbot having a Treasure of the Sierra Madre moment over diamonds (indeed, Abbott emotes in this film a lot more than usual - mostly crapping on about diamonds). There’s also an interesting cast including noted African hand Frank Buck and lion tamer Clyde Beatty as themselves, two members of the Three Stooges and Buddy Baer (the Christian gladiator from Quo Vadis). Also the ending really enables Costello to get one over Abbott.
No comments:
Post a Comment