Movie review – A&C #16 - “Abbott and Costello in Hollywood” (1945) **1/2

Abbott and Costello finally get around to spoofing Hollywood, and since the film was made at MGM you’d think it would give them a chance to act with some higher-ranked talent than they could at Universal. Think again – well, unless you count cameos by Rags Ragland as himself as a high ranked talent (who was Rags Ragland?). Oh, to be fair there’s Lucille Ball, Preston Foster, Robert Z Leonard, and Jackie Butch Jenkins… but really they may as well made it at Universal. At least they had – and surely would have been willing to use - Deanna Durbin, Maria Montez and Lon Chaney Jnr.

The plot involves a particularly wet crooner who tries to get a job in Hollywood, is cast in a movie – then fired. And sooks. We’re supposed to feel sorry for him. Get used to it, pal! In order to get his job back, Abbott and Costello (who are the kid’s agent) conspire to entrap the sleazy crooner who’s taken their client’s place in a scandal; it winds up that everyone thinks the crooner has killed Costello, which is a bit full on. So the climax, with the crooner trying to get Costello to prove he’s alive, you can’t help being sympathetic for the “baddy”. Having said that, there is a reasonably spectacular production number plus a funny chase on a roller coaster. This isn’t top class Abbott and Costello; a little glossier maybe.