Abbott und Costello auf Safari

I am a big fan of Abbott & Costello. Out of all their movies they only made a couple of duds. "Africa Screams" is not one of them. But it does not belong in their Top 10 either. It is fast moving and mostly funny. It has very little down time. "AS" does not have any musical numbers which is a welcome change of pace for an A&C move. It also features two of the Three Stooges (Shemp Howard and Joe Besser). As you would suspect, they're both funny in this movie. For years I was down on this movie because it was only available on crappy out-of-copyright VHS tapes. There was never any joy watching those tapes. However, my DVD of "Africa Screams" looks great and is a fun watch.

While this isn't the best of the famous comedy duo's films (I personally think that A&C Meet Frankenstein has that honor), this is a decent comedy for fans of the pair. They manage to wring a few laughs out of a jungle theme that I personally feel was overused in films at that time. The actor who makes the film for me, however, is that wonderful "unknown" stooge, Shemp Howard, in a humorous supporting role.

This A&C film is right on par with most of their other work. It has its silly moments (like the opening scene of Lou vs. the kitty cat) and it has some really good moments. One theme in A&C flicks I just have to mention is how poor Lou always gets stuck with the angry-evil-pushy woman - who gets so sick of him that she wants to kill him. He just seems to attract'em like flies. Ah well, it makes good comedy.

Understand, I like Abbott and Costello films. Their two top films (...Meet Frankenstein and The Time of Their Lives) are comedic classics. This, alas, is a minor effort, though other movie comics appear in it.

Possible spoilers in the following.

The film takes a simple story and adds some comedic routines that could be applied to any equivalent film. Costello reacting to animal 'menaces" is usually good, and he's at prime form in this film. However, even in the most comedic situations, I'd have thought that even Lou's character would have noticed all the help he was getting from the gorilla.

In the beginning of the film, the cover story is that an expedition is set up to go to Africa to hunt a legendary ape, Orang-Utan Gigantis. That translates to "great big Orang-Utan." But Orang-Utans aren't found in Africa! The chief of the cannibals mumbles some words, one of which is "ungawa," a Swahili word that means either "beat it," or "let's get moving," depending on context, but which is used as color in this one, having nothing to do with either meaning.

Amusing, but not their top form.

This is a generally enjoyable Abbott and Costello comedy, with a light and often silly feel that nevertheless works well enough. Hillary Brooke adds an elegant presence as their antagonist, and the story makes relatively good use of its comic possibilities.

The plot has the kind of deliberately implausible setup that Bud and Lou usually handled well, as their two characters become part of an African expedition led by the scheming Brooke. Once there, there are plenty of lions and other beasts that get tangled up with the characters. Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty also appear as themselves, although they are mostly only incidental to the story.

Brooke and the Baer brothers, as her henchmen, make their end of things work well, and there are also some good moments from Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. Not all of the comedy ideas are of the same quality, but most of it works well enough as long as you don't take it too seriously.