Hans und die Bohnenstange

I used to watch the "Abbott and Costello" movies a lot when I was younger, particularly the Universal Monster crossovers. For the first time in probably thirty years I watched this one recently - it was a little disappointing, I have to admit.

Whilst reading a story to a boy he's babysitting for, Jack (Lou Costello) leaps into the world of Jack and the Beanstalk. Struggling for food, Jack sell's his family cow to Mr Dinkelpuss (Bud Abbott), the town butcher, in return for some magic beans. Planting the beans, they grow into a massive beanstalk, that reaches all the way up to the castle of the fearsome giant (Buddy Baer) who has been plundering the town and has kidnapped both the Princess (Shaye Cogan) and her betrothed Prince Arthur (James Alexander). Jack and Mr Dinkelpuss climb the stalk, with the aim of getting at the Giant's treasure and rescuing the couple.

I appreciate that it was only ever going to be gentle family-friendly comedy, but even so this feels underneath my recollection of those slapstick farces that I watched in my youth. I'm not sure the colour helps, I get that it's to work as a gentle parody of "The Wizard Of Oz" but the colour work here (at least on the dvd I've seen) was much more gaudy than It needed to be. There's some decent moments, such as the animation integration on the beanstalk scenes - the eggs with gunpowder in them works well and the wordplay is occasionally amusing.

The giant is a disappointment though, I'm not expecting full CGI creatures, but they could have kept him in shadow and superimposed him into scenes, and made him truly a giant. The physical comedy at the end of the film is a bit of an anti-climax and the individual romance songs are poor, though the ensemble ones in the village are a bit better, but there the dancers there are strikingly terrible. The Irish harp too doesn't add much to the plot and could have been dropped.

I need to revisit a few more of their films, but I won't be back to "Jack and the Beanstalk" in a hurry.

Just purchased this film on DVD along with their Africa Screams for $4.99! While it does turn out to be the full 81 minute version it is a very bad print It is still worth having in a collection and a joy to watch. Abbott looks tired though but a surprise to see Costello jumping around and carrying on, although I know a lot of it was stunt work. The disc also has a cute trivia section and BIOS. The above review mentions the giant as Max Baer Sr (Jethro's father) but the IMDb lists him as Buddy Baer, Max's brother. Of course the change from sepia to colour is very reminiscent of Oz and watching it one could almost think it was made around the same time, but it's 1952!

Abbott and Costello's "Jack and the Beanstalk" was the best of the team's fifties features. Shot around the same time as their television show, it represents one of the two color films they made in their career. The original photography was actually in Eastmancolor. The prints were made in the Super Cinecolor 3 strip process was was similar to Technicolor but grainier and difficult to focus due to the dual emulsion print stock. It looks as if the framing devise might have been filmed in Eastmancolor too but printed on B&W sepia toned stock. I used to watch this picture as a child in syndication and found it amusing and even charming. While a far cry from their pre-1948 movies, I give them a lot of credit for trying something different. The supporting players are fun with Buddy Baer (Jethro's dad) having a ball as the giant. The princess is played by Shaye Coogan who later became a pop singer. James Alexander popped up on their TV show too. One of the campy elements of the film is Johnny Conrad and his dancers who often out of synch during the songs. Consumers should be aware that there are three versions of the film put out by different companies due to it public domain statis. The uncut version was taped from a Preview print,contains extra scenes and runs approx. 82 min. It was released on laserdisc with extras. The standard release cut 78 minute version is also on tape. The cut scenes include a sequence of the butcher arguing with ladies in town and extended versions of the song, "Darlene" and "Dreamer's Cloth". It was re-issued by RKO in B&W in 1961 and used to played in syndication that way for many year. Good luck in hunting a complete version.

Abbott and Costello's talents shine in the happily childish version of "Jack and the Beanstalk". The use of sepia tone and colour, the music and choreography, song and dance, the crossing over of players from one role to another, plus various other aspects of this very fine movie make it obvious that techniques and styles used for "The Wizard of Oz" are being toyed with here. And that works right well for our intrepid duo. There are certain other things involved that make this movie a treat for me ... Buddy Baer's, Max Baer Jr. of "The Beverly Hillbillies" uncle, appearance as the cop and the giant. Pat Costello, Lou's brother, having been involved in the writing of the script. These things help make this film fun. It does, however, have it's down side. I do think that the choreography is poorly done. But the cute tunes and accompanying vocals help detract from the rather sloppy dance numbers. Some of the players, the couple in love ( prince and princess ) to be precise, aren't very good at their trade. But these things are a small price to pay for an otherwise throughly enjoyable walk down the yellow brick ... er, I mean ... climb up the beanstalk.

The often-told fable gets amusingly tweaked with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the leads, singing, dancing, and messing with a really nasty ogre. Opening in sepia tone, Bud and Lou somehow walk into a job as babysitters for a problem child; Lou wants a bedtime story read to him, quickly falling asleep and dreaming he and his mother live in a colorful storybook village, growing a magical beanstalk and attempting to rescue a kidnapped princess from a giant. Devised and co-produced by Lou's brother, Pat, this was an independently-financed production from the comedy duo which Warner Bros. distributed. It has some kooky songs and even kookier sequences (such as a masochistic Minuet between Lou and the giant's equally lanky female cook), but it does appear as a paste-up job. Filmed in just over three weeks, some of the scenes are so sloppy, one doesn't know if they were hastily left that way or if the clumsiness was perhaps intentional (the editing, too, is awful, leaving the cook and her cow behind in fantasy limbo). The sets, leftovers from Ingrid Bergman's "Joan of Arc", are fine, but the costumes are atrocious--hopefully, this venture scared Costello away from tights for the remainder of his life! It's kinda cute in a bumbling, ramshackle sort of way, and Lou gets a lot of funny business to do, but it isn't as imaginative as it should have been. ** from ****