L'arca di Noè

If for nothing else, this movie can be watched for the most famous of the Abbott and Costello routines: "Who's on First?" It's performed to perfection here, with the 1980's showboat background to add some nostalgia to the mix, as well as great costumes. And watch what poor Lou has to go through when he attempts to sing while Bud is giving stage directions for the scenery!

There's also a routine reminiscent of the famous mirror scene from "Duck Soup", and a scene where Costello's shooting at some ducks that might have inspired the camping trip episode on "I Love Lucy".

There's a familiar face from a now classic Christmas movie, as the showboat captain is played by Henry Travers, known for his role as the angel, Clarence in "It's a Wonderful Life".

There's enough here to hold your interest and keep you laughing.

THE NAUGHTY NINETIES is one of those films of Abbott & Costello that is a favorite with their fans for the skits that are in them: the plot about the trio of gamblers plotting to take the showboat away from good old Captain Sam (Henry Travers) is tolerable, because it can be ignored. We like the old Captain, but we await the sketches involving the boys. In the end they help save the Captain, so they do become his pair of guardian angels - his "Clarences", if you will.

But the sketches are priceless, in particular the rehearsal sketch and the immortal WHO'S ON FIRST.

In another review I compared Bud and Lou with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Bud Abbott's persona is not like Oliver Hardy's, although both try to dominate (Bud, with more success) Lou and Stan. Ollie is quite self-important, but is (actually) as stupid as Stan is. His self-delusion is just added on the cake. But Bud normally is street smarter, and bullies Lou. He barks orders left and right to him, orders that Lou thinks he understands. The orders are in abbreviated form, using slang or short form descriptions that most people will understand, and that is doomed to confuse Lou.

In the rehearsal sketch, Lou is studying a song he wants to sing in the showboat show, and if he does it well Captain Sam will let him sing it. Bud is on stage helping direct the putting up of varying scenery. He is asked for help by Lou to help him, and to shut the little guy up, he half-heartedly agrees to do so. But he is concentrating on that scenery. So we hear Lou start singing "MY BONNIE LIES OVER THE OCEAN", and after awhile he hears Bud yelling "Higher", "HIGHER", "LOWER, etc. Of course Lou is not watching Bud directing the men with the scenery, and Lou raises and lowers his voice accordingly. The vast alterations eventually is too much for Lou, who falls into the orchestra pit while an oblivious Bud walks off stage.

The other sequence is even greater. If you say "Abbott & Costello" to anyone today, the phrase "Who's on First" comes up immediately. No other dialog of theirs is as memorable (not even that delectable skit about Niagara Falls). Indeed, due to the popularity of Baseball, the skit is honored in Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame, and Bud and Lou are members of the Hall of Fame too (without being baseball players). No other comedy team approached such a signature dialog - for instance Groucho and Chico Marx did several fractured English discussions, such as "Why a Duck" in COCONUTS, but the dialog is not central to their reputations. Similarly Laurel & Hardy's use of "two peas in a pod" in THE SONS OF THE DESERT is classic, but not central to their reputation.

"Who's On First" works on the same principle as the rehearsal skit - Lou cannot follow the statements fed him by Bud, and yet Bud is not being intentionally difficult. He starts by explaining the crazy nicknames of the baseball players these days, and Lou never makes the logical connection that the nicknames can be terms like "who", "what", "I don't know", and "I don't care". Once I saw someone rewrite Abbott's description as "Mr. Who is on First base; Mr. What is on Second Base...etc." Actually the effect on Lou would probably be minimal: How many people have surnames like "Who" (this was years before the British Doctor in the futuristic tardis showed up). Moreover, they are nicknames, not proper names like "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, or "Old Hickory" Jackson. So it can't be "Mr. Who" or "Mr. I Don't Care".

Interestingly few people seem to be noting that the nicknames don't say much for these players. "Who", "What", "I Don't Know", "I Don't Care", "Today", "Tomorrow" suggests that each of the players has a failing, like "Who" suggests he is confused at the strategy of the team (who is going to be targeted by his team's pitcher on the opposite team), "What" suggests a lack of understanding orders from the team coach or captain, "I Don't Know" suggests confusion, and "I Don't care (the short stop) doesn't give a damn to be on the scene of where the ball falls when he is needed. Lou's willingness to play on the team, which we accept as his fondness of the game (and his constant image of being childlike) may actually have some merit - he may be a better player than these others.

The highpoint (to me) of the dialog is when, giving up momentarily, trying to comprehend Bud's apparent double-talk, Lou shows he can repeat the line-up's name, and describe a baseball play perfectly. Bud shows his approval of this rational approach - only to hear Lou scream out he doesn't understand what he himself has been talking about. To me that was the perfect conclusion of the great confusion known as "Who's on First".

In recent years stores have offered mechanical representations of political and entertainment figures reciting comments they are supposed to be famous for. There was one pair together: of Bud and Lou in costume from THE NAUGHTY NINETIES (Bud wearing the baseball outfit of non-existent St. Louis Wolves), reciting Who's On First. That is immortality folks.

Although not critically acclaimed as one of the team's best, Abbott and Costello use some of their best loved and remember skits in this film. The movie is worth watching for the "Who's On First?" skit alone. Good, clean, fun for the entire family.

In order to really appreciate Abbott and Costello, one needs to understand where their careers fell on the timeline. Bud and Lou's careers actually can be broken down into, at least, four different eras, which is a lot when you think about it, since their partnership only lasted about 20 years total. You can break them up into the vaudeville era (1936-1940), the glory years (1940-1945), the tough years (1945-1948), the resurgence (1948-1953) and the end (1953-1956).

This film falls at a moment when they were starting to loose their audience. Unfortunately, Bud and Lou's biggest success came during World War II. A nation needing to be cheered up and needing a morale boost fell for Abbott and Costello during those four horrible years. They were the morale boosters in chief and they became the most popular and the most rich actors in Hollywood during those years. But, as the war began to wind down, so did the popularity of the boys. They needed to start making changes and you see this happening in a lot of their films moving forward into the 1950s.

When this film was released in 1945, Germany had already surrendered a few months before and Japan was just a few months away from surrendering. The war was over and the feelings and attitudes of a post-war America were beginning to change. Also, television was just on the horizon. People were looking towards other things to do or see.

As this film opens up, Dexter and Sabastian (Bud and Lou), get work on a showboat named the River Queen. Dexter is an actor and Sabastian is his trusted "assistant". The owner of the River Queen, Captain Sam Jackson (Henry Travers), falls into the scheme of a handful of con artists, who are bent on getting the showboat for themselves, so they can run their illegal gambling casino. This is something Sam wants nothing to do with. It takes the help of the boys to come help save the Captain and his daughter, Caroline (Lois Collier), from these dastardly criminals.

What sets this film apart from a lot of Abbott and Costello's films from the same time period is this one features a smorgasbord of their different and classic acts, including their best, "Who's on First". Another thing a person needs to know about Abbott and Costello is their talent, their act and all their skits grew out of the vaudeville era. Working in vaudeville meant you were working with everybody. All the talent shared their acts, jokes and skits with each other. It was part of the vaudeville culture. So, when you see the Three Stooges, or Wheeler and Woolsey or even Martin and Lewis, do the same joke or skit that Bud and Lou did, that shouldn't be considered a negative. It's how things were.

It is true this film is not a great one. There are moments that seem sloppy in their design. It makes you wonder if the whole process was becoming stale to whoever was involved in the film or was it just becoming overly repetitious. This is most evident during the "duck shoot" skit. We may be laughing at the absurdity of it all, but we also aren't buying that any of this could possibly fool anyone. What was interesting about all of this, is watching this tired, formulaic development, that would eventually become Abbott and Costello's main direction once they get to television in the 1950s. Foreshadowing maybe?

This film is still worth a watch. It has some rough edges and might seem a little plastic in its design, but overall is a delight to see. They give us one skit after another. They intertwine all of that with a little story and textbook characters (for this kind of a romp), that get us to the end, but adults might seem slightly robbed, because there is a childish nature to some of the performances that happen in the film. But, who cares? It's Abbott and Costello, who were legends of their day. They didn't need to answer to nobody. They were the richest guys in Hollywood. You don't do that when you are making bad stuff. Plus, anything with "Who's on First", is a gold mine.

6.2 (D+ MyGrade) = 6 IMDB.

This is the film to see if you're fairly new to Abbott and Costello, or if you just want to see a whole bunch of their best routines strung together for merry fun and entertainment! It's an easy 76 minute ride on a cheerful riverboat as Bud plays a ham actor and Lou is his zany assistant. The boat's captain is none other than dear old Henry Travers, best known from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. When the kind-hearted Captain Jack gets swindled by a trio of crooked card sharks, they gain three quarters' possession of his ship and try to turn it into a rigged gambling operation. It's then up to Abbott and Costello to help Jack get it back.

It's nice to see A&C in a costume "period picture", and the setting on the traveling riverboat is perfect. Lois Collier makes a beautiful vixen, and Joe Sawyer (who starred with the comedy team in other films) makes the quintessential mean guy who keeps getting foiled by the boys. There are a few little songs, but this time they fit nicely into the air of the proceedings and are never overlong.

But best of all, THE NAUGHTY NINETIES packs more funny routines into its short running time than you can count: Lou tangles with a real bear thinking it's only Bud in costume; Costello mimics Joe Sawyer as a mirror while Sawyer tries to shave; Lou becomes a punching bag during Sawyer's violent nightmare; Costello keeps throwing back every fish he catches to snag an even bigger fish; and on and on they go. But two of the very best gags of all are incorporated into this film -- the first is a classic bit of business where Costello misinterprets stage directions from Abbott, as he tries to sing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean", and the grand highlight is the famous "Who's On First" routine - complete and perfectly rendered in this outing. It was reportedly done in two takes because the crew could not keep from laughing. Listen closely and you can hear them trying not to break up. ***1/2 out of ****