1h 22min | Comedy, Crime, Music | 2 June 1943
Directors: Charles Lamont, Erle C. Kenton (uncredited)
Stars: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Ginny Simms, Sheldon Leonard.
Harry Losee ... staged by: ice skating number
I must admit: I like this one as a comedy. It might be that I like my comedy frozen, since The Road to Utopia ('46) and The Gold Rush ('25) are favorites of mine, with Utopia being my fave Hope&Crosby film. Something about heavily clothed men meeting a bear in the wild? (That happens in all 3.) I don't remember Chaplin having a dog sled (but he did have a stray dog); the other 2 did. And they all have larger bad guys pursuing them.
Let's see if I can recall the plot here. Photogs A&C (why do these 2 always share a job?) run into a pal from the old neighborhood. He's a doctor, and they look for him in the hospital after a brief ambulance episode. While searching for him, they enter the room of a bank robber who has falsified his illness to establish an alibi for robbing the bank across the street. He mistakes them for Detroit gunmen he hired to assist the robbery (don't think the real gunsels ever showed). A&C are mistaken as the robbers, so they tag along with their doctor pal in his relocation to Sun Valley to start his new practice. The robbers also go to SV to evade the heat of the law, and to pursue A&C who supposedly have a photo of them at the bank during the robbery, but A&C are really in search of the $$ from the robbery to clear their names. Or something like that.
So how does this get to be a musical? The doctor got hooked up to SV by another old neighborhood pal who is now a bandleader with a long-term (permanent?) gig at SV. So the band and vocalists give us 4 songs along the way.
Just looked back at other A&C films I've watched. Gave one a 7-, and it had the Condos Bros dancing. Another got a 6+, which I didn't explain too well, but Allan Jones was the lead, and I adore him. So this might be the first A&C flic I'm giving 6+ on its own comedic merits.
Universal, dir. Lamont & Kenton; 6+
