Zwei Sprengstoffverkäufer

LITTLE GIANT (Universal, 1946), directed by William A. Seiter, from an original story by Paul Jarrico and Richard Collins, became what is categorized as the first of two split-up partnerships of the popular comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Though Abbott still resumes billing over Costello, Costello, in title role, is the basic character from start to finish, almost as if this were Costello's solo effort without the presence of Bud Abbott. What makes LITTLE GIANT so interesting is the fact there is a story to back it up. To make sure their public won't be disappointed, some gags were inserted into proceedings, whether it be Costello with Abbott or Costello with some other character actors. As much as this is classified a comedy, in some ways, it's a comedy/drama where the somber moments falling on Costello's character. Unfortunately Costello wasn't able to endure the same effect in comedy/drama to great effect in the manner of legendary comedian, Charlie Chaplin as he did in for THE KID (1921) and CITY LIGHTS (1931). For much of the 1940s, Abbott and Costello were extremely popular, and made their audiences laugh. For LITTLE GIANT, this time it was something completely different.

The narrative begins on a farm in Cucamonga where Benny Miller (Lou Costello) lives with his beloved mother (Mary Gordon). He is loved by Martha Hill (Elena Verdugo), the girl next door whom he hopes to someday marry. Benny's ambition is to become a successful salesman, and has been studying night and day through his record correspondence school. Upon graduation, Benny leaves the security of his happy home to find his fame and fortune in the outside world. He leaves by train for Los Angeles for the company for which his Uncle Clarence Goodwin (George Cleveland) is employed as bookkeeper under John Morrison (Bud Abbott) for the Hercules Vacuum Cleaning Company. Mistaken for a Hercules male model (George Holmes), and not wanting to be embarrassed, Mr. Morrison offers Benny a job for his company, unaware that he is Clarence's nephew with his strict rule of having no relatives at the firm. What Clarence knows but won't reveal is the fact that Mr. Morrison is secretly married to his secretary, Hazel Temple (Jacqueline De Wit), the advertising manager. Due to his failure as vacuum cleaning salesman, Clarence suggests he be transferred to a smaller branch in Stockton, California. While there, Benny works under Morrison's look-alike cousin, Thomas Chandler (Bud Abbott). Benny continues to fail in his profession, forcing Chandler to have his private secretary, Ruby Burke (Brenda Joyce) to present him his letter of dismissal. Feeling sorry for Benny, she doesn't. While at a saloon, the fellow salesmen build up Benny's confidence as a mind reader, leading Benny to become a top salesman, selling nine vacuum cleaners in a single day. This success brings him back to the corporate office under Mr. Morrison and its president, Van Loon (Pierre Watkin), but an unexpected turn of events leads Benny to a different direction.

Unlike prior Abbott and Costello comedies, LITTLE GIANT doesn't contain song interludes, romantic subplots or an exciting chase finish. It does rank one of their longer features as opposed to 79 minutes or shorter. Minus the formatted material the public has become accustomed to seeing, some burlesque routines were thrown in for assurance. The opening minutes starts off with great promise with yokel farm boy Benny trying his salesman approach on an irate customer, wonderfully played by Sidney Fields (Mr. Fields, the landlord, on television's "The Abbott and Costello Show." in the 1950s). Interestingly, when LITTLE GIANT aired on broadcast television in the 1970s and 80s, this great Costello and Fields segment was cut in order to fit this 91 minute feature with commercial breaks into its usual 90 minute time slot.

Abbott and Costello don't come together until 21 minutes into the start of the story, and only have simply one familiar routine together, their famous 7 X 13 = 28, lifted from their earlier service comedy, IN THE NAVY (1941), being a highlight. Other than that, whatever comedy there is, Costello does it alone or with others like Sid Fields or Donald MacBride in the train sequence segment. Sadly, Groucho Marx's most frequent straight lady of stage and screen, Margaret Dumont (Mrs. Hendrickson), is reduced to only a two-minute bit, making one wish she had much more to do. Brenda Joyce and Jacqueline De Wit make due in their roles, and are properly cast.  

After frequent viewing, LITTLE GIANT is one movie with potential that should have been a worthy departure for Abbott and Costello. The problem was the material, which seems more like something out of director D.W. Griffith silent era days of local boy making good, may not seem suitable for Lou Costello. As much as Costello is capable of being a serious actor, devotees simply refuse to accept him as one. Casting Abbott as two different characters is fine,in fact, excellent. Having Costello in a movie all to himself is satisfactory, yet, like his character, he tries too hard to be both funny and serious at the same time. The mixing of gags with straight story helps, but there are times where it throws it off balance. The problem mainly falls upon its scripting during its second half which should have been better handled. Critics and fans wanted Abbott and Costello in surefire comedy, and didn't seem ready for sentimental pathos on Costello's character. Distributed to video cassette in 1993, LITTLE GIANT has become available onto DVD some years later.

Regardless of its pros and cons, LITTLE GIANT is never really boring. Just different. Though Bud and Lou returned to formula comedies where they belonged, the team worked in one more split comedy again, to much better results, in THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES (1946).(**1/2)

"Little Giant" is a big departure from the usual pairing of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. In most of their films, they operate as a pair. But in this film, they are individuals who meet some time into the film. That is, Lou meets "one" of the But Abbotts - Eddie Morrison, and then he later meets the other Abbott, T.S. Chandler. That's the second unusual pitch of this plot - with Abbott playing two roles.

This is a fine comedy, but it also has a serious side with Costello having center stage throughout. It's interesting that this film was made during the falling out between the two men. During this and the other 1946 film that completed their Universal contract ("The Time of the Their Lives'), they reportedly seldom spoke to one another. Their off-screen lives which had been friendly and close, was likewise strained. Within a couple of years, they would get back together as friends.

This is the film in which Abbott and Costello first do their math skit, "7 times 13= 28." In a discussion about the quota of vacuums that the sales force must sell, Chandler says that with seven salesmen, each man would have to sell four vacuums. But Costello's Benny Miller says that 28 divided by 4 is 13. That leads to Chandler challenging him to multiply and add as well. In each instance, Miller does the math to show the number according to his way of thinking. This is a humorous skit that the two men repeated on their TV program years later.

That is the only real skit between the two comedians. But Costello has several solo scenes or comical scenarios with others. One occurs on an overnight train from Los Angeles to Stockton, California - a distance of just 337 miles by driving on I-5 today, but nearly 500 miles by rail then. On that ride, Costello struggles trying to bed down in an upper berth.

As with many Abbott and Costello films, the supporting cast are mostly little known or lesser known actors of the time. But they all do a good job in this film. The most recognizable is George Chandler who plays the salesman, O'Brien. Chandler has a distinctive face that movie fans will recognize, and he had supporting roles in more than 460 films in a career that lasted more than 50-years (1928-1979). Another familiar face to fans of older films will be Donald MacBride who plays the conductor. He was in more than 160 films, mostly comedies. The most recognizable female performer from the film will most likely be Brenda Joyce who plays Miss Ruby Burke. She was known for playing the role of Jane in five Tarzan films of the 1940s. She made 27 films over 10 years, but walked away from Hollywood after "Tarzan's Magic Fountain" of 1949.

This is an Abbott and Costello film that comedy fans should enjoy. Only, be prepared for a different "look" than the usual Bud and Lou pairing.

Here are some favorite lines form the film.

Benny Miller, "I feel like a tin can with a dog's tail tied to it."

T.S. Chandler, "Did you ever go to school, stupid?" Benny Miller, "Yes, sir, and I came out the same way."

Miss Ruby Burke, "What's the trouble, Benny? You're lower than a caterpillar with fallen arches."

Benny Miller, "I penetrate people's brains and leave my mind blank."

Hazel Temple Morrison, "Oh, you shouldn't choke." Benny Miller, "How do I not choke?"

A countrified Costello goes to the city to sell vacuum cleaners and ends up a mind reader.

It's a departure for A&C, more scripted with a structured storyline than previous entries. That's understandable since the war is over and audiences are looking for more than simple escapism. Actually, the entry is more a curiosity than a straightforward comedy. Abbott plays multiple parts, showing a talent for the occasionally sinister and low-down, while Costello plays something of a lovable Chaplin-like simpleton. There're a couple of funny routines and a few gag lines, but fewer than usual, plus a pacing that lacks needed snap.

I liked the 7x13=28 routine, which shows a lot of amusing ingenuity. There's also Costello's extended seduction routine where the statuesque deWit hovers above him in a drop-dead sexy gown. But, I'm sort of surprised the screenplay doesn't make more of the comedic potential of a door-to-door salesman since that could lead to a whole series of funny situations. Instead, we get only one sales set-up, a really funny one with Margaret Dumont and her poor besieged carpet.

Anyway, this move toward a more serious and structured storyline appears not to have been very successful since the boys soon turned to the highly successful A&C Meet… series of straightforward comedies. After seeing this rather tame effort, I can understand why.

Little Giant is the most unusual Abbott&Costello film ever made with Bud and Lou not functioning as a team per se. They did one other film like that for Universal at the time. According to the Bob Thomas book on the team the two were close to breaking up at the time and it was decided to treat them separately. Eventually things were patched up.

Bud has a dual role as the evil general manager of the Hercules Vacuum Cleaner company who's been skimming off the books to pay for his expensive, but secret wife Jacqueline DeWit. His other roles is as his own cousin and branch manager of the Stockton office of the said company. Bud as the cousin has a girlfriend in secretary Brenda Joyce.

Not enough is said about Bud's acting here in two fairly straight roles because he got lost in the praise for Lou Costello's best show of pathos. Little Giant is the film where he is fairly compared with such silent screen comedians like Charlie Chaplin, Harry Langdon, or Roscoe Arbuckle. If Little Giant had been a silent film, any one of these comic greats could have done the Costello role. Lou measures up to all of them here.

Lou's a simple kid from the farm who's taken a correspondence course in salesmanship and wants to be a vacuum cleaner salesman in the tradition of his uncle George Cleveland. With the best wishes of his mother Mary Gordon, Lou goes off to Los Angeles to get a job with the Hercules Vacuum Cleaner company.

Costello's various adventures both on the job and amorous show him at his best as an innocent. Not even Stan Laurel ever responded to vamping the way Lou does with Jacqueline DeWit.

Today's viewers will not get the joke, but Costello's character Benny Miller coming from Cucamonga was a guaranteed laugh every time the town was mentioned. It took years for the town to live down its reputation as a place for hicks, but that was as a result of the Jack Benny Show and the famous announcement that occurred every so often in one of the broadcasts about a train leaving for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cucamonga. Imagine that with every letter Cucamonga enunciated to the fullest. When you got off at Cucamonga you were in the equivalent of Hooterville. And Costello's very character was a typical Cucamonga resident as the Jack Benny Show told the world.

For the biggest and most successful extension of Lou Costello's range as a comedian, one should view Little Giant.

This is one of Abbott and Costello's most unusual films, as it's the first of two that made where the characters were NOT friends. In addition, Bud Abbott plays dual roles--one a nice enough guy and the other a total scum-bag! Plus, and here's the oddest part, the film is a traditional story in many ways-as both play honest-to-goodness people! As a result, it really isn't a comedy per se--as the film is not built around gags but people. Sure, there are a few laughs here and there, but that is all.

While I know that the film was a bit of a flop and many people disliked its style, I frankly liked it because it was such a departure. You see, by 1946, the team had already made 16 films in only 6 years--and all but one of them (WHO DONE IT!) followed roughly the same formula. With this formula, there was a love story, some Abbott and Costello comedy and lots of singing. As far as the love story goes, this time it actually involves Lou and a girl back home. However, there is no singing and little what anyone would consider comedy.

I think one thing that bothered people is the pathos in the film. Lou plays a nice guy who gets hurt pretty badly at times in the film. You want him to win but time and again, jerks take advantage of him. Near the very end, this hit practically epic proportions, though smartly, the film didn't stay mired too long in pathos--coming to a nice and quick resolution.

The film begins with Lou living on the farm with his Mom. He wants to make good, so he's been taking a correspondence course in salesmanship. Unfortunately, he isn't very good at it and when he goes to the big city to make his mark, he makes a mess of it. He loses his job and gets another job with the same vacuum cleaner company in another town. However, in an odd twist, his co-workers play a joke on him--convincing him he's psychic. The gag works too well, as Lou is convinced it's real. The jokes on them when he turns into an amazing salesman--setting a sales record the very next day.

As for Bud, in Los Angeles, he plays a crooked and thoroughly nasty jerk. He takes pleasure in firing Lou and it's interesting to see them working against each other instead of with each other. In his next job, Lou goes to work for Bud's cousin--played once again by Bud (with a slightly different hairdo). This time, he's more of a normal guy and confides in Lou that he can't stand his stupid cousin in L.A.! It was an interesting acting challenge for Bud--as rarely did any of his characters in other film have any depth. Here, he plays two parts and quite well. In fact, it worked out well enough that they had him do the same in the next film, THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES. Another, more practical reason they did this was because Bud and Lou were having a horrible spat at the time--and they would only play in films where they acted separately!! Fortunately for the team, the managed to patch things up for other films.

One of the only comedy routines in the film was also used in one of the team's earlier films, IN THE NAVY. This is the funny math routine where Lou explains (rather convincingly) that 7x13=21! While it is a retread, it's redone well.

Overall, while this is hated by most people, I liked the film a lot--nearly giving it a 9. Why? Originality and both Bud and Lou stretched themselves--trying new things even if the public wasn't 100% ready for THIS big a change. Maybe much of the reason I respect this film so much is that I have re-seen all the Abbott and Costello films leading up to LITTLE GIANT and it just felt like a breath of fresh air seeing such a completely original film.