Zwei Sprengstoffverkäufer

Included in the second of Universal's multi-disc DVD sets of Abbott and Costello, LITTLE GIANT is a charming film, full of pathos, and NOT a standard A&C comedy. First, Abbott and Costello are not a team here. It's basically Costello's film, with Abbott in a dual role as both the film's antagonist and the antagonist's cousin, who befriends Costello. Second, the comedy is more physical than is usual for A&C and less verbal. It proves what a fine physical comedian Costello was. Third, the film tries for pathos instead of pure slapstick, and strays into territory more associated with Chaplin or Harry Langdon or even Jerry Lewis (as in Hardly Working, which this film reminded me of). Once again, Costello proves his talent as an actor of quality and depth. I applaud Universal for trying to develop the talents of Abbott and Costello in films such as this one and THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES, which followed it. Interestingly, after these two changes-of-pace for A&C, Universal played it safe by doing a sequel to BUCK PRIVATES, their first solo smash. Abbott does a nice job in both roles (obviously, the "positions" of his toupee were intentional!). A shame he did not get more character roles such as these. With the wide circulation the new DVD boxset will give LITTLE GIANT, I feel it will gain a new and understanding audience who will appreciate the chances the film takes. Finally, the wonderful Elena Verdugo is as charming as ever.

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.

Having just rewatched Laurel & Hardy's Our Relations in which both stars played twin brothers. I then felt the need to then rewatch this one in which Bud Abbott played two roles-a Mr. Morrison and a Mr. Chandler, revealed to be cousins by their mothers being sisters. Oh, and Abbott also posed as the grandmother of them as shown by the portrait hung in Chandler's office. Before I reveal their function in the story, let me first mention that Lou Costello plays Benny Miller, a farm boy who's been listening to correspondence records on being a salesman. So he goes to Los Angeles to meet Mr. Morrison and, well, something goes wrong that I won't reveal here. So Benny then goes to Mr. Chandler's who reveals the backstory I mentioned above. Now when I first watched this in 1980 as a 12-year-old kid watching this on a late Saturday night on "The Abbott & Costello Theatre", I remember being a little confused by the direction of the story since for once, the two stars weren't presented as friends as many others of their movies had done up to then. When I later read bios of Bud & Lou, including Lou's daughter Chris' book "Lou's On First", I found out two things: first, the box office of a couple of their last movies weren't doing as well as before, and second, the two weren't getting as much along as before to the point of avoiding each other when not performing. So a decision was made to change the formula of their movies starting with this one. Their next one, The Time of Their Lives, also dispensed with the usual A & C formula. Actually, at least one routine was reprised here-"7 x 13=28" which they previously did in In the Navy. Also, as a kid watching, I remember not liking so much drama permeating this one, I mean, previously, Lou had some lines meant to provoke feelings but then went back to the comedy, here, it took a while to get back to that. Having now watched this again on YouTube, I actually like this much better now. Also, what a treat to now find Sid Fields, best known as the landlord in the comedy team's TV show, as one of Benny's first customers who gives it to him good concerning his family's health in order to avoid getting sold on anything. Another treat is seeing Fifth Marx Brother Margaret Dumont being the victim of Benny's vacuum cleaner demonstration. She had also appeared with W. C. Fields and Laurel & Hardy during this period. Speaking of L & H, the director here was William A. Seiter who previously helmed Stan & Ollie's Sons of the Desert. Among the fellow salesman Benny associates with is one played by Joe Kirk who was his brother-in-law who, like Fields, also appeared in that TV show as an Italian friend. One more supporting player I have to mention is Chester Conklin, a Sennett veteran who also once worked with W. C. Fields during the late silent era (I only know this because I once read a filmography book on Fields which had pics of the three now lost films he and Conlkin made). Here he's a hotel valet. Okay, so with all that, I'll just say, if you're interested in a different sort of A & C flick, Little Giant is recommended. Oh, and my next review will be Laurel & Hardy's Hog Wild...

While I certainly agree with the other viewer that Little Giant is atypical of the Abbott and Costello oeuvre, it is definitely not their last movie together!

It also had the one singularly saddest scene in my 50+ years of movie-going.

Seemingly failed vacuum-cleaner salesman "Benny Miller" is returning home to the sticks with a little bird in a small wooden cage, a gift for his mom (Mary Gordon, of course). He stops to aid a neighbor whose mule-drawn wagon is stuck in a big muddy patch. He puts his shoulder to the rear of the wagon, the whole ensemble takes off without so much as a "thank you" from the neighbor, "Benny" goes face first into the mud and when he manages to get himself erect, he discovers that the bird has escaped.

He's standing there, covered with mud from eyebrows to knees in his best Sunday suit, holding the empty cage, and says, his lower lip quivering, "M-m-my bird... it was for my Mom.."

This 12-year-old dissolved into tears right there in the fifth row of the Macomb Theater in Mount Clemens, Michigan. Years later I could still well up at the thought of that scene, and when, as an actor, I needed to play a certain value, it was that "sense memory" I called upon.

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.