AFRICA SCREAMS

(1949)
With Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Clyde Beatty, Frank Buck, Max Baer, Buddy Baer, Hillary Brooke, Joe Besser, Shemp Howard
Directed by Charles Barton
Black and White
Reviewed by JB

    With a cast featuring A&C, two Stooges, Hillary Brooke, the Baer Brothers and the stunt casting of famed big game hunter Frank Buck and famed lion tamer Clyde Beatty, it would seem to me that AFRICA SCREAMS would be a a much more interesting and entertaining film than it is.  Not that AFRICA SCREAM is not funny at times, but somehow all those intriguing ingredients wound up producing a pretty bland cake.

    Perhaps it was inevitable.  Even as they hit their peak with ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, they were in danger of overexposure.  They ruled the box office for nearly a decade, but Bud and Lou were running out of steam.  Their films, often formulaic, were about to become more so as, in the wake of the Frankenstein encounter, they set about "meeting" this one, and that one, and the other one.  They had run through just about every verbal routine they ever knew, sometimes multiple times, and their films would start featuring less "Who's on First?" brilliance and more "Lou falls down" slapstick. 2½ - JB

CASTING CALL

Joe Besser and Hillary Brooke would be recruited as cast members for Season One of The Abbott and Costello Show in 1951.

Abbott and Costello     The Age of Comedy