Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy: A Review

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY

I have seen the comedy duo of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello meet the Invisible Man. I have seen Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein. Now here I am, seeing them meet another Universal Monster. I have been open about my dislike of Abbott & Costello, the former doing nothing but beating up the latter, who is a childlike idiot. Despite this, I found Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy actually funny, something I could not say before. 

"Pete Patterson" (Abbott) and "Freddie Franklin" (Costello) are in Egypt trying to get some money to go back to the United States. Overhearing Professor Zommer (Kurt Katch) saying that he needs good strong men to move his recently discovered mummy, Bud and Lou arrive unannounced at his house. They are shocked to find Zommer has been murdered.

Worse, the mummy that he found, that of Klaris, is missing. Owing to circumstances from Bud and Lou, the police now think that Bud is a murderer. Desperate to clear their names and stay away from the police, Bud and Lou think their luck has turned when they find a medallion which they hope to hock for some cash.

That medallion is from Klaris, who is the guardian of Princess Ara's treasure-filled tomb. Unaware that two rival groups want to find the medallion, Bud and Lou once again find themselves hunted. One group, headed by Semu (Richard Deacon) is a cult of Klaris worshipers bent on protecting Princess Ara's tomb. The other, headed by Madame Rontru (Marie Windsor) want Ara's treasure. Dragging both Bud and Lou to where Ara's tomb is, Simu and Rontru try to deceive each other for their own aims. Will the mummy return to wreak havoc on everyone? Will Bud and Lou survive meeting a mummy?

I have been immune to the charms of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, finding nothing of great humor from them apart from their "Who's on First?" routine. Curiously in Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy, they do a variation of this wordplay routine when they are ordered to literally dig their graves. When Lou tells Bud to "take your pick", Bud picks a pick instead of the shovel that Lou expected Bud to take. From there, we get about a few minutes routine about how Bud's pick is a pick and not a shovel. We get another bit of wordplay when Bud attempts to explain Zoomer's mummy to Lou. The latter is clearly confused over why Zoomer's mummy is still around, growing more confused when told that some mummies are men, and some are women.

Having encountered our dimwitted duo meet two other Universal Monsters, I was leery of them going for thirds. However, I admit that Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy made me laugh. The constant moving of Zoomer's body, with poor Lou always finding it in the oddest of circumstances, made me laugh. There is another funny bit when, after being told that the medallion will bring death to anyone holding it, Bud and Lou keep trying to switch it to the other. 

Even things that normally would have my eyes rolling had me chuckling instead. Bud, for example, is so dimwitted that when photographing Zoomer's body for evidence, he ends up making it look as if he caught Lou murdering the doctor. Lou using his flute to unwittingly both send Bud up in the air with a rope and summing cobras was also funny. 

I think an element in Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy that lifts it in my view is that everyone is basically in on the joke. While Bud Abbott and Lou Costello technically have character names, they keep referring to themselves by their names of "Bud Abbott" and "Lou Costello". At this point, I think even they knew that it was not worth the effort to pretend to be other people. 

Abbott here, I found, is not as abusive to Costello as he has been in other Abbott and Costello films. There are times when Lou gets the upper hand, and while few it is nice to see a little more balance in things. To be fair to Abbott, here Bud is right to be frustrated at Lou. He ended up framed for murder thanks to Lou's idiocy. However, for the most part Bud's physical and verbal abuse towards Lou was small. I can recall only one time, early in the film, when Bud was his usual bullying self. "How stupid can you get?", he snaps at Lou. In his childlike manner, Lou replies, "How stupid do you want me to be?".

The sense of everyone treating Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy as a lark extends to the cast. Marie Windsor, primarily known as a film noir femme fatale, plays a bit against type as the treasure hunter. She is still evil, but her efforts at seducing Lou will bring at least a smile to your face. Deacon plays it straight as Semu, cult leader. It is a laughable suggestion to think that he is Egyptian or some kind of occult priest, but Deacon never sends up the premise. Droll to the point of parody, Deacon does not bother pretending that this is anything serious.

Peggy King, primarily a singer but with some acting credits, appeared in a musical number that has no ties to anything in Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy. Despite having a short runtime of 79 minutes, it does seem to not fit anywhere in the goings-on. That, along with a club number that opens the film and an elaborate dance number at the cult's lair that looks more Thai than Egyptian, are a bit hit and miss but not dealbreakers.

I still do not think that I will be an Abbott & Costello fan. However, it would be false of me to say that I did not enjoy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy. It is good to know that Bud and Lou love their mummy dearest.

DECISION: B-

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein: A Review

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN

I have tried. I really have tried. However, try as I might, I simply do not find Abbott & Costello funny. In my few dealings with them, all Bud does is either yell at or beat up on Lou. To be fair, the childlike dimwit Lou would probably drive anyone into fits of rage. Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the comedy team's first foray into the world of the Universal Monsters, is fine, but I still cannot understand the appeal that they have. 

Cantankerous baggage clerk Chick Young (Abbott) and his frenemy and coworker Wilbur Gray (Costello) have been tasked to deliver a couple of packages to a Florida horror museum after Wilbur gets a strange phone call from London. Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) begs Wilbur not to take the crates to McDougal's House of Horror, insisting that they contain the real-life Dracula and Frankenstein's monster. Despite Wilbur's misgivings, he and Chick take them to the museum, where the terrified Wilbur sees Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) rise. Chick, however, keeps missing the creepers and thinks Wilbur is crazy.

Not, however, as crazy as Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), who is smitten with Wilbur. Chick finds it impossible to believe that a beautiful woman like Sandra would find the short, fat and intellectually weak Wilbur an object of desire. Chick is right: Sandra, who is Dr. Mornay, is not interested in Wilbur's body. She is interested in his brain, but to use as part of Dracula's plan to resurrect Frankenstein's monster and make him Dracula's slave as part of his plot for world conquest. Wilbur is the perfect brain: totally blank and easy to control. 

More hijinks occur when insurance agent Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph) also appears to find Wilbur irresistible. That is part of her plan to find out what happened to the missing delivery objects, the idea that they literally walked away impossible for her to believe. Things get more complicated when Talbot comes to Florida, but struggles whenever there is a full moon, for that causes Talbot to turn into The Wolf Man. Will Chick and Wilbur, aided by Talbot, be able to stop the evil plans of Dracula and Dr. Mornay? What role if any does her assistant, Dr. Stevens (Charles Bradstreet) have in this unholy plan? Things come to a head at a masquerade ball and the next day, when some meet a fiery end, and a surprise monster makes an unseen appearance.

I wish I could love Abbott & Costello the way so many people do. Having now seen two of their films, this and when they met The Invisible Man (or met him again), I still do not get the appeal of a bully and a nitwit. I find both personas of Abbott and Costello pretty grating: the former is almost always abusive towards the latter, and the latter is almost always someone with the mind of a four-year-old. Yet, I recognize that for many, Abbott & Costello are comedic geniuses. Now, after decades of avoiding Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, I think the film is fine. I did not find it hilarious. I did not find it clever. I found it tolerable.  

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein seems a bit of a misnomer given that a lot of their interaction is with either Dracula or the Wolf Man. I could even be more technical in that Abbott and Costello did not actually meet Frankenstein himself, but his Monster as the Monster is not named Frankenstein. Moreover, I think Frankenstein's monster is in the film less than Dr. Stevens, and he seemed pretty unimportant to the plot apart from making him both Dracula's dupe and a potential love interest for Joan. 

As a side note, I copyright the term "Dracula's Dupe". 

I think the humor in Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein comes from the blending of the spooky and the silly. I suppose that one can have the IQ of Wilbur Gray and see that the film mixes traditional horror tropes (the scary music from Frank Skinner's score, the lobotomy plot, the various underground passages) with the idiocy of Lou Costello. The film has some of the cast playing things mostly straight, which in turn allows Bud and Lou to be as outrageous as they can be. 

Yes, that juxtaposition is where the humor comes from. It did not hit me often, but fair is fair to say that it did sometimes land. When Chick flat-out asks Sandra, "What I'd like to know is what's he got that I haven't got?", she replies, "A brain". The double meaning of her response is funny, as is the logic. Sandra is telling Chick the truth, but the pun in Robert Lees, Fredrick I. Rinaldo and John Grant's screenplay has a surprising wit to it. Another scene has Sandra, now under Dracula's total control, attempting to bring Wilbur to the dark side.

"I'll bite," he tells her. "No, I will," she replies. The pun in "bite" with one meaning one thing, the other meaning something else yet both being accurate is amusing. I also must confess that I did find the sight of Lou Costello as Wilbur Gray, this dimwitted but sweet figure, shyly tucking his head on Bela Lugosi rather cute and endearing.

Costello also had a way with the dialogue where the zingers come fast and furious. Complaining about a previous date that Chick had set Wilbur up with, the latter remarks, "Mine had so much bridgework, every time I kissed her, I had to pay toll". Using contemporary slang, both Chick and Wilbur dismiss Talbot's worries about his werewolf transformation given neither believe it. On being informed by Talbot that in a full moon, he turns into a wolf, Costello remarks that so do millions of other guys. 

Costello, despite his stature and girth, has surprising dexterity. A nice bit is when, mistaking the Wolf Man for Chick in a mask, he finally stands up for himself and starts smacking the monster. The mix of Wilbur's courage, even anger, against a menace he is unaware of would bring laughs. 

When Abbott as Chick finally got wise to the goings-on, he too was amusing. He does not catch on until late in the film, as he is the unbelieving figure. However, once he sees that Wilbur and Joan are in danger, he rallies to save them. 

Abbott and Costello's zaniness is countered by everyone else playing it straight. Nowhere does Bela Lugosi behave as though this is a comedy. Curiously, this is the only other time he plays Dracula apart from the original film. However, he is perfectly serious and even menacing, such as when he hypnotizes Sandra. In what I found a daring scene, we can read ecstasy from Aubert's face when she is bitten.  As a side note, I wondered if Hedy Lamarr would have been better in the role, a mix of beauty and brains amidst all the chases.

I was surprised by Chaney, Jr.'s performance. He, to my mind, had not quite decided whether to play it straight or try for a little send-up. It was not a bad performance, but I wasn't completely sold by it. Strange as the Frankenstein monster looked more like Herman Munster than Boris Karloff's version. It was like the film itself: fine. 

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (technically Frankenstein's Monster) ends in an amusing gag. I am still not won over by their antics, but I did think well enough of this jaunt through horror with laughs that I did not end up feeling that I had wasted my time. "This is awful silly stuff", Wilbur observes to himself as he reads the Dracula legend. I think that sums up Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, amusing if not flat-out hilarious, at least to me. 

DECISION: C+

Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man: A Review

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN

I start out by saying I have never found Abbott and Costello funny. The Marx Brothers, I found funny.  Laurel & Hardy, I found funny. The various versions of The Three Stooges, I find funny.  Abbott and Costello, with the exception of their Who's On First routine, I never found funny.  Costello, the eternal man-boy, was always crying "HEY BUDDY!  BUDDY!", usually in terror, while Abbott just pretty much took whatever abuse his dimwitted buddy threw at him when he wasn't doing the actual abusing himself.

It's with that disdain that I wank into Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man, which I figure is another comedy romp where these two find themselves among the Universal Monsters such as when they met Frankenstein and Dracula, the Mummy and the Creature From the Black Lagoon.  Perhaps my resistance to Abbott and Costello is simply too great to overcome, for while I did chuckle a few times during Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man, and many in the audience were laughing uproariously, I still do not get the appeal of these two dimwits.

Recent detective school graduates Bud Alexander (Abbott) and Lou Francis (Costello) find themselves with their first case: that of Tommy Nelson (Arthur Franz), a boxer accused of murdering his manager.  Tommy's on the lam, and Bud and Lou find themselves with him through the strangest and most illogical of circumstances.  Tommy takes our thoroughly unwitting heroes to the home of his girlfriend Helen (Nancy Guild) and her father, scientist Philip (Gavin Muir).  Dr. Gray has been working on an invisibility formula earlier used by John Griffin, who was driven mad by it.

This bit ties Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man with the film The Invisible Man, showing Claude Rains' picture as that of 'Griffin', Rains having the title role in The Invisible Man.

Lou can't make it clear to Bud that the guy they went with to the house IS Tommy Nelson, but once Bud 'figures it out for himself', he's eager to get the reward money.  The police arrive, but they literally don't see Tommy.  He's injected himself with the invisibility formula and disappears in front of a disbelieving and shocked Lou.

After Bud twice tries to pull a fast one and get Tommy locked up, Tommy gets them to help him solve the murder.  The real murderers are gangsters who are angry that Tommy didn't throw a fight.  Morgan (Sheldon Leonard), the main gangster, still wants Tommy found, dead or alive.

Our heroes now decide to do undercover work by having Lou go into the ring as a boxing mastermind and Bud is his manager.  The reason 'Lou the Looper' is so fast is simple: Tommy is the one doing the actual boxing, but since no one can see him, everyone credits Lou.

The night before the big fight, a femme fatale named Boots Marsden (Adele Jergens) attempts to seduce our man-child Lou the Looper, but as much as he'd like to get seduced, either Bud or Tommy are there to prevent it.  Further complicating things is Tommy's excessive drinking, which neither Lou or Bud appear able and/or willing to stop.

Morgan leans on Bud to get Lou the Looper to take a dive in the fifth, and he's more than willing, but Tommy yet again thwarts Bud's latest get-rich-quick scheme.  Into the ring poor Lou goes, causing all sorts of mayhem, down to accidentally knocking Tommy out in a pique of hubris.  To his surprise and Bud's dismay, Lou wins the fight.

Bud is especially distressed because now he's going to be the one iced, but fortunately, the main detective in charge, Roberts (William Frawley), gets there in time to save them.  In the fracas however, Tommy is shot and injured.  His name cleared, he's rushed to the hospital where Lou gives him a blood transfusion that brings him back to visibility.  Unfortunately, Lou becomes temporarily invisible himself, causing some mischief with the pretty nurses.  That invisibility doesn't last long, and Lou finds himself desperately trying to cover up his slowly visible nudity while also trying to figure out how his legs got backwards.

What surprised me about Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man is that Abbott can be just as moronic as Costello.  As he prattles on about the Tommy Nelson case, he is thoroughly and completely incapable of figuring out that THE Tommy Nelson just happened to wander into his and Lou's office.

It's pretty clear from the onset that Lou is the bigger moron: he has a hard time walking towards the stage at the graduation, proceeds to fall off the small stage when the graduates sit, then is told by Bud that Lou managed to graduate because Bud paid the school off.  I guess a lot of the comedy comes from this roly-poly figure, easily frightened, could possibly pass himself off as a boxer.  His idiocy knows no bounds, as he manages to drive the police psychiatrist crazy, down to accidentally hypnotizing him and everyone else who wanders into the psychiatrist's office without meaning to.

It's also pretty clear that Abbott and Costello were in on the joke, for I noticed a lot of winking at the camera if not downright mugging to us, especially by Costello.  The film is full of sight gags and moments where it's clear that these two are playing up to the camera.  Perhaps that self-awareness is a reason I don't like Abbott and Costello.  It isn't as if the Marx Brothers couldn't on occasion do that kind of shtick, but Bud and Lou seem to build their whole careers on it.

They also didn't have the Marx Brothers' witticisms to go along with the lunacy and idiocy.

It's not as if Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man isn't without some merits.  A routine where Costello, dumb as he is, keeps managing to take money away from his more cantankerous straight man is amusing, and Costello has a surprising ability for some physical shtick in the boxing match.  When Lou shoots someone with a water pistol, he says, "I'm a little squirt," and I confess to chuckling at this.

However, a lot of Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man seems either rushed or a drag.  The subplot with our temptress doesn't add much and Boots Marsden doesn't have much to do.  Same goes for the second-rate love story between Guild and Franz, both stuck in poorly-written roles with little do to as well.  They're all just plot devices to set up another Bud and Lou routine.

For the most part, however, I still don't get their appeal of Abbott and Costello.  Some people don't get what makes the Marx Brothers funny, and it's a cliche that women don't find The Three Stooges funny and wonder why men do.

For me, the mystery of the straight man Abbott, who is always trying to pull a fast one, and his little buddy Costello, the dimwitted boob who is easily scared, are similarly mystifying to me.

I probably will given Abbott and Costello one more chance should the moment arrive.  I know many in the audience were in stitches, and there were good moments, particularly near the end when Bud and Lou are trying to fight off Morgan and doing a right-mess of it.

Costello tries to handle a gun while still wearing his boxing gloves, and even after managing to get them off still is too stupid for his own good.  When Bud tells Lou to 'let (Morgan) have it', he meekly gives Morgan the gun and 'lets him have it'.

I still don't find Abbott and Costello funny.  It's really the audience reaction that makes me given even the slightest positive rating I can.  I truly hope that Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man is on the lower end of their comedic prowess.  If it's near the top, then I'll be the man who will be invisible whenever their movies are show.

DECISION: C+