Scare Up Some Laughs

There are many classic comedians that are still honoured and remembered fondly today. People like the Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are highly regarded funny men, yet the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are, in my opinion, less quickly thought of than those mentioned above.

Despite this, many of their films, which include a mixture of memorable physical comedy and witty dialogue, still hit the funny bone today. Two of my favourites mix comedy with the horror genre: 1941’s Hold That Ghost and 1948’s Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein.

In Hold That Ghost, Abbott and Costello star as Chuck Murray and Ferdinand (aka Ferdy) Jones, two poor wartime friends who work odd jobs together. They start by working as waiters at a fancy, high end nightclub, though their bumbling ways get them fired. They then return to their former jobs as service station attendants, where, by happenstance, they get thrown into an intense police chase while servicing mobster ‘Moose’ Matson’s (William B. Davidson) car. The gangster is killed by the coppers and we soon find out that his last will and testament states that whoever is with him when he dies inherits everything that he owns.

The team discover that the only thing that he owned was an old, dilapidated, back-highway hotel on a little used road. Supposedly the gangster did have money, but when asked where it was, he would always cryptically say that his cash was in his head.

The boys, along with their legal guide, Charlie Smith (Marc Lawrence), book a car-bus to take them out to the rundown locale. As they hit the bumpy highway, sheets of rain start to fall. The driver says the road may be washed out up ahead and he lets them out at an old hotel, which ends up being their inheritance. The driver then takes off, leaving all of the passengers stranded, stealing their luggage in the process.

This leads them into the long since abandoned hotel, along with stranded passengers Dr. Jackson (Richard Carlson), voice actress Camille Brewster (Joan Davis), and Norma Lind (Evelyn Ankers). The group soon realize that the building seems to be haunted. Charlie Smith disappears and other odd occurrences scare the crew, with poor Ferdy always being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are several skits that are more than memorable. The scene where Chuck and Ferdy serve the couple in the nightclub at the beginning of the film is full of comedic lines and great physical comedy that show off the duo’s talents. The ‘oh Chuck’ sketch – where Costello panics and continuously calls for his friend as he spots odd occurrences is more than entertaining, while a spontaneous dance to ‘The Beautiful Blue Danube’ that occurs as the stranded passengers try to enjoy a dinner in the deserted hotel is delightfully engaging.

It must also be mentioned that Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame makes a brief appearance as the Soda Jerk, while war time stars Ted Lewis and the Andrews Sisters perform songs in the film.

In Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the comedy duo (this time playing Chick and Wilbur) are working as freight handlers and are caught up in a horrific plot in which Count Dracula (played by the original great Bela Lugosi for the only other time in his long career) and his aid Sandra Mornay (Lenore Aubert) – who is dating Wilbur, try to trap and use his mind to restore the weakening Frankenstein monster (Glenn Strange – the third time he donned the make-up and bolts). Though one would wonder why on earth they would want the brain of Wilbur for the monster.

Meanwhile, the insurance agency investigating the empty monster crates that were delivered by the duo to McDougal’s House of Horrors, sends another female, Joan Raymond (Jane Randolph) to investigate – and she also seduces the dim-witted Wilbur. On top of that, Lawrence Talbot, more commonly known as the Wolfman (played by original lead Lon Chaney Jr.) arrives from London to foil the Count’s dubious plans. The final scene also includes a vocal appearance from the Invisible Man (legendary horror movie actor Vincent Price) – funnily enough, this comedy boasts a more impressive horror cast than nearly any other scary flick in motion picture history.

The genius of these two movies, and especially the latter, is that they play the funny scenes funny and the scary scenes scary, and when needed they meld the two together flawlessly. The scene where Talbot transforms into the Wolfman is as impressive as the earlier true horror movie. There are also two moments that capture the great timing of the duo, while mixing humour and horror elements together beautifully; one where Wilbur stumbles through a secret passageway and runs into the Frankenstein monster, the second when the two coffins open and the monsters escape with Wilbur being the only one to see it.

Much of the dialogue is also very funny. One of my favourite lines in film history comes when Talbot calls the freight depot (reaching Costello’s Wilbur) to warn them that the monsters are being shipped there, and as he is on the phone he transforms into the Wolfman. He begins to growl and Wilbur angrily states that he has a lot of nerve calling long-distance just for him to talk to his dog.

The comedy duo of Abbott and Costello, along with early comedians like Laurel and Hardy, can be seen as the forerunners of other classic heavy and skinny comedy pairings such as Chris Farley and David Spade, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, or John Candy and Steve Martin, to name a few. One has to wonder what makes this age old comedic formula of pairing two mismatched individuals together work so well. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are a perfect example of two early masters who mixed physical comedy with witty repartee to create side-splitting laughs. Though they are mostly known nowadays for their iconic ‘Whose on First’ sketch, these horror comedy flicks will show that these two men can still have us scared silly.