Abbott & Costello

The Golden Age of Hollywood

If I was to start anywhere in my stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood I would be compelled to commence with Abbott & Costello.  In fact they were Top Ten box office 8 times during the years 1941-1951.  Their 36 films from 1940-1956 grossed 2.58 billion in adjusted domestic box office dollars. In 1942 they ranked #1 where their films grossed over 540 million!

Bud and Lou had their beginnings in Vaudeville but their big success began in a film they weren’t even the headliners.  That film was the 1940 One Night in the Tropics. The top billing went to stars Allan Jones (Father of Jack Jones the singer) and Robert Cummings. (‘Love That Bob”) In retrospect the film was forgettable except for the performances of Abbott & Costello, which helped launch them into the highly successful “Buck Privates” the following year in 1941. It featured the great Andrew Sisters and the smash “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B”. The boys after playing homage to the Army were compelled to continue in the same year with “In the Navy” and “Keep ‘em Flying”. Most of the time the supporting players were musical like the aforementioned Andrew Sisters and others like Allan Jones, Kathryn Grayson, John Carroll, Dick Powell and Ted Mack’s orchestra to name but a few. 

However the main attraction was Bud & Lou where they performed many of their famous routines like Who’s on First and Slowly I Turned. But the real magic was the chemistry between the boys. Abbott the straight man knew instinctively how to let Lou go and just as importantly when to reel him in. For his part Lou Costello was a comedic genius and had a real sense of the ad lib and was even paid one of the highest compliments by the Academy Award winning actor Charles Laughton who happily took the back seat to the team in 1952’s “Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd”. Laughton was so anxious to work with the boys that even with the star of his magnitude he had no ego taking second billing. 

In all Abbott & Costello made 36 movies together ending in 1956 with “Dance With Me Henry.” Although Lou made one solo film in 1959 it lacked the punch the boys made together. 

 I could go on ad infinitum here but one of the boys’ most successful films was “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” in 1948. It was such an innovation for Universal Studios wherein they took some of the bygone monster stars like Dracula, The Wolfman and of course Frankenstein and made a comedy.  Stars like Karloff, Glenn Strange and Lon Chaney Jr. played their parts straight and A & C danced a comedic rhythm heretofore that never existed.   Interestingly the part of Frankenstein originally played by Boris Karloff in 1931 feigned interest because he thought it just wasn’t a good idea to mix monsters with the mayhem of Abbott & Costello. He couldn’t have been more wrong and when he witnessed the success A & C were having with that celluloid gem he signed on in earnest the following year with “Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff”.  

The boys for two seasons, 1952 and 1953 took the small screen when they filmed 52 episodes of The Abbott & Costello Show” in which they reprised many of their routines from their movies but without the constraints of a rigid plot. The team could ‘run wild’ and if you get a chance take a look at these shows available on You tube if you haven’t already because these early television comedies were in many cases funnier in my opinion than any of their movies on the big screen. 

Next month I’ll feature William Powell.