ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY

(1955)
With Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor, Richard Deacon, Michael Ansara, Dan Seymour
Directed by Charles Lamont
Black and White
Reviewed by JB

    Abbott and Costello's final feature for Universal-International is marked by tedious slapstick and half-hearted routines that were showcased much better on The Colgate Comedy Hour and The Abbott and Costello Show.  Bud and Lou go through their motions with a certain "who cares?" attitude, even calling each other "Lou" or "Abbott" even though their actual character names are listed as "Pete Peterson" and "Freddie Franklin".  The story is filled with the usual trappings of an A&C horror-comedy: false doors, dead bodies showing up everywhere they are not expected to be, Lou getting entangled with the monster, etc.  While certainly not the worst Abbott and Costello film, ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY clearly shows the boys running out of anything new or innovative to do in a film.  Universal-International must have recognized this, because they terminated the team's contract with the studio right after this one.

     As a sign of just how formulaic Abbott and Costello's comedies had become, this is was the fifth film in a row whose title began with "Abbott and Costello Meet/Go To...".  Counting ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, 9 out of their last 15 films together fall into the "Meet/Go To" category.

    Finally, although not especially written for this film, "You've Come A Long Way From St. Louis", sung by Peggie King, is one of the best tunes to show up in an Abbott and Costello flick in a long time 3 - JB

Abbott and Costello     The Age of Comedy

BETTER LIVING THROUGH TELEVISION

In ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY, the boys do a routine where they need to get rid of a medallion, and each take turns secretly putting the medallion inside the other one's hamburger.  Eventually, Lou winds up eating the medallion.  Two years before this film, Bud and Lou did this same routine live on The Colgate Comedy Hour, where it worked much better, especially when the sound effects operator overdid the crunching sounds, breaking up Bud and Lou and making a shambles of much of the routine.  If you've ever seen the boys on The Colgate Comedy Hour, you know that when things went wrong, they never, ever panicked.  They just went with the flow, and seemed to revel in chaos.