Buck Privates

A&C Ranked One of my old traditions is to watch an Abbott & Costello film around the New Year. How did this start? I have no real answer, just that I grew up with these two fools, and in my youth I was always awestruck by comedians. I naturally gravitated toward them. I…

Ziglet_mir

Army life is described as the great leveler, an ordeal that makes men of boys. Pressed into service, Bud and Lou show us it is ok to remain boys if we want. Even when Bud is made temporary captain, Lou keeps him tethered to their specific brand of childlike anarchy,…

Sea Lucas

The movie that turned Abbott & Costello into America’s top box-office draws, a loose collection of army-related vignettes. It’s a vaudeville show made barely cinematic. The boys are in top form - like Monty Python after them, their routines can be endlessly reexperienced…

Will Sloan

-You're 40 and in love with this little girl that's 10 years old. You're four times as old as this girl. You couldn't marry her, could you?-Not unless I come from the mountains. 

Genesio De Rosa

Not enough Bud and Lou frankly! Not enough Bud and Lou, although I guess if you're going to watch an Abbott and Costello this is one of the best ones to watch. It's a good movie and it showcases what the boys are all about fairly well.  "Five double malts! Why don't you…

Andrew Augustine

If I wait for that girl she'll pass me up. She'll wind up older than I am. Today's propaganda films simply don't have enough tomfoolery and musical numbers.

Krautsalat

This one would be a solid two star 40's comedy with Abbott and Costello in their prime, before considering that they jammed in genuine shots of world war two action into the middle. It was a feel-good war-time comedy during the initial years of the Second World War, one…

𝕭laze the 𝓐ction 𝕵unkie

Arthur Lubin’s Oscar-nominated comedy musical in which a couple of salesmen running from the law end up accidentally enlisting in the army. Starring Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lee Bowman and Jane Frazee. When two footway salesmen, Slicker Smith (Bud Abbott) and Herbie…

Luke Thorne

The first film with Abbott and Costello as the stars is lots of fun when it focuses on them and their electric chemistry, but the narrative crawls to a halt whenever it cuts to other characters, especially for needlessly long song-and-dance numbers.

Brian Rowe