Comin' Round the Mountain

Comin' Round the Mountain (1951)

** (out of 4)

Wilbert Smith (Lou Costello) meets a female country singer (Dorothy Shay) and soon realizes that he's a long lost relative to a famous redneck in Kentucky who rumor has it has a buried treasure. Their agent Al Stewart (Bud Abbott) decides they should all go back to the sticks to get the money but soon a bloody rivalry starts back up.

Abbott and Costello made several Western spoofs including the highly entertaining THE WISFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP but sadly this film isn't in the same league and on the whole it ranks near the bottom of the duo's films. That's not to say this is an awful movie because it isn't. There are several funny moments scattered throughout the film but there's just not enough to keep it fully entertaining and the musical numbers are all rather bland.

In fact, why on Earth would you start your movie off with Shay singing? This was an Abbott and Costello movie yet they open with Shay and then we get the duo doing a small gag before going back to the singer. I'm really not sure if they were just trying to force Shay into some sort of stardom but her songs here are rather lame and, to be honest, the skit from the boys isn't all that funny. There are a few funny moments scattered throughout but the highlight is the math game of a 40-year-old man falling in love with a 10-year-old girl and needing her age to catch up with his.

Both Abbott and Costello are in good form here but I think even they realized that the material wasn't all that great. Shay delivers a decent performance but the songs are forgettable. Joe Sawyer adds some nice support as does Glenn Strange and Margaret Hamilton steals the film in her sequence as a witch. Her and Costello's voodoo match being another highlight of the picture. COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN isn't one of the boy's best pictures but fans will still find a little humor in it.

Having just watched Stan Laurel go to a haunted house in order to get his inheritance in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, I then felt the need to see Lou Costello also try to get his share in Comin' Round the Mountain. Here, he finds out he's a descendant of "Squeezebox" McCoy and a cousin to singer Dorothy McCoy (Dorothy Shay). Their agent Al (Bud Abbott) agrees to go with them to Dorothy's homestead where we meet her hillbilly family. During this period, Bud & Lou's studio, Universal-International, was also making money with a series of Ma and Pa Kettle movies which also had that down home humor represented here. So, yes, we get treated to a shooting contest, a man's engagement to a young teen girl, and a family feud. As stereotypical as some of the characters are, they seem harmless enough. Among the supporting cast, Joe Sawyer-previously in The Naughty Nineties with A & C-provides some amusement, Glenn Strange-who was the Frankenstein monster in A & C Meet Frankenstein-gets some laughs every time he shouts Costello's character's name "Wilbert!", and Margaret Hamilton-best known as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz-is hilarious every time she and Lou stick pins in each other's voodoo dolls! Oh, and I also liked seeing Lou's brother-in-law Joe Kirk as a hot dog vendor at the county fair trying to sell Costello a hot dog. If you remember Bud & Lou's "Mustard" routine in One Night in the Tropics, you'll get some of Lou's reactions concerning hot dogs and mustard! This was another funny A & C flick especially the surprise ending. So that's a recommendation of Comin' Round the Mountain. So now my next review will be the silent Laurel & Hardy short From Soup to Nuts.

There is too little of prime Abbott & Costello in this but there is some crackling dialog when they arrive in Kentucky and Abbott says to Costello "Smell that Kentucky Bluegrass.." Costellos retort to this is by far the best dialog in the film.

The section with Margaret Hamilton is corny but well done. While not their best work, these highlights make it worth viewing. It does not sink as far as Africa Screams, & the music in it is almost as obtrusive as some of their early military comedies. At least Costello clowns around with some corny instruments in some of the jug-band sequences.

I do think it is far from their worst film. If the plot was more centered on the family feud & less on insane romances, it would work a lot better.

Right off the bat I knew this wouldn't be one of Abbott and Costello's better comedies because the movie starts off with Dorothy Shay singing a novelty song that goes on forever. It wouldn't be the last time either. Shay has four or five songs in this movie! Who's the star here? I watch an Abbott and Costello movie for comedy, not forgettable songs. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a song here or there. But this was too much. It felt like they were more concerned with providing a showcase for Shay than worrying about making a good comedy.

The plot centers on Lou discovering he's related to Dorothy. So Kentucky native Shay accompanies the boys to her home. From here, we get a lot of jokes about hillbillies, feuds, and marrying 14 year-old cousins. I don't mind laughing at these types of jokes when they're clever, but this is all pretty tired. Even the presence of Margaret Hamilton can't save it, although that's the best scene.

Let me say that, while I didn't care much for her songs, Shay does have a likable quality about her and she's a perfectly fine singer. She's not bad to look at, either. Just wish there had been less of her singing her corny songs and more focus on comedy. I don't think I laughed more than once and that was during Hamilton's scene. The whole thing plays like one overlong cartoon. I don't know if it's the worst Abbott and Costello movie, but it's one of them.

In "Comin' Round the Mountain" a 14-year-old girl (actually the actress who plays her looks about 25, but that's beside the point) has the hots for Lou Costello, and after they both drink a love potion Lou falls in love with her and she gets the hots for Bud Abbott! At another point Lou says "You can't marry a 10-year-old girl...unless you come from these hills". And I thought these films were supposed to be clean, wholesome entertainment!

The comedy never gets beyond the mildly amusing, the portrayal of the "country hicks" is totally stereotypical, and although Dorothy Shay is quite beautiful, her singing takes up too much screen time. The ending (which I won't spoil here) is by far the cleverest part - it has the kind of absurdist inspiration that the film needed more of. (**)