Comin' Round the Mountain

In my rewatching of the Abbott and Costello series that I loved in my youth, this is by far the worst of the series that I have rewatched. The problem is not in the subject material. The problem is in the script, the execution and the performances. Abbott and Costello have never been more bland and the songs from the Manhatten Hillbilly take up seemingly half of the movie's length. The song about a half an hour in goes on forever. The old granny is fun but isn't allowed to do enough. The "courtship" between Costello and the 14 year old hillbilly girl is ghoulish. Bud Abbott is non-existent and the hillbilly clans do nothing whatsoever. There are a few chuckles and nothing more. The opener and the conclusion are awful. On the bright side, Glenn Strange is great here and Costello's duel with the witch is funny. Costello's "christening" is a gut buster. But that's it. Has a little of the same flavor as The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap but isn't in the same league, much less the same ballpark.

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.

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.

The feud is on between the Wingfields and the McCoys when Bud Abbott discovers his clients, hopeless magician Lou Costello and the Park Avenue hillbilly Dorothy Shay are both McCoys and Costello's inherited concertina holds the secret to a treasure of hidden gold. So off they go to the Appalachins where Costello's arrival sets off the feud that had pretty much died down.

Bud and Lou get themselves a good supporting cast with a group of players used to rustic roles. I'm wondering how the folks at Universal missed getting Judy Canova and Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride in this film. Lou's best scene involves him haggling with a hag played by Margaret Hamilton in her wicked witch makeup over some love potion with each making a voodoo doll of the other to poke holes in.

Dorothy Shay was just about at the end of her peak of popularity which started post World War II. She was a singer with a warm contralto who decided to play up her southern roots. Dorothy made a whole lot of hillbilly ditties popular back in those days and her big hit song, Feudin' a Fussin' and a Fightin' was still selling good in 1951 when Comin' Round the Mountain came out. I have it and also a vinyl record of a Bing Crosby radio show where she sang that song as a trio number with herself, Bing, and Groucho Marx. She did what very few did in Abbott and Costello pictures, hold her own with the boys and not get lost in the supporting cast.

It's not the best of their films, but still enjoyable and just wait till you see the treasure that they do find.

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. (**)