Synopsis
A double-barrelled fun birst!
When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.
1945 Directed by S. Sylvan Simon
When two bumbling barbers act as agents for a talented but unknown singer, they stage a phony murder in order to get him a plum role.
Bud Abbott Lou Costello Frances Rafferty Bob Haymes Jean Porter Warner Anderson Rags Ragland Mike Mazurki Carleton G. Young Donald MacBride Edgar Dearing Marion Martin Arthur Space William Phillips Fred Aldrich Richard Alexander Joe Bacon King Baggot William Bailey Lucille Ball Edward Biby Marie Blake Betty Blythe Karin Booth Helen Boyce Chet Brandenburg George Calliga Wheaton Chambers Naomi Childers Show All…
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Look, if you cut me, there's gonna be plenty of blood, and it's all gonna be yours!
Wait a minute, if this is the only one in Hollywood, where did Abbott and Costello shoot all their other pictures?
All three of the MGM Abbott and Costello movies are better than at least half of their Universal output. But where Rio Rita recycled a lot of their usual gags, just with higher production values, and Lost in a Harem borrowed gags made famous by other performers, In Hollywood is about as fresh a collection of routines that I've ever seen from them - and I'm saying this after watching all of their Universal output already. The boys are in rare form here. In Hollywood has a couple classic barber shop routines, one where Costello pretends to be a prop dummy, and "insomnia", a new favorite of mine, in which Abbott helps Costello get to sleep. It ends with a…
A reasonably fun time perhaps not my favourite Abbott & Costello but it was enjoyable enough. Like most people seeing Costello act like a stun dummy and be tossed off a balcony was probably the highlight for me too. I just think the film needed a little something more for me to bump this up and higher than it is.
Exceptionally dumb and disappointing Abbott and Costello comedy has plenty of cameos and a few funny moments but is a waste of an opportunity to have Bud and Lou truly lampoon Hollywood. There is one standout sequence where wannabe barber Costello gives an unorthodox shave to veteran comedian Rags Garland (playing himself) and another where Lou is mistaken for a stunt dummy but other than that this is a pretty weak Abbott and Costello feature with especially bland romantic leads, tideous songs, and too few laughs.
"Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood" is an okay effort from Bud & Lou. There are quite a few funny moments in this movie but it ends up wearing out its welcome after a while. I'm a big fan of Abbott and Costello but I'm never really in the mood for "...in Hollywood". Their other movies are a lot better.
Costello's stable of weird noises and Abbott saying things like "now don't get excited" or "certainly not!" are the sounds of my childhood. Still, I'm aware enough of nostalgia's limitations to know a truly bad A&C flick to a decent one, and this one's just fine. I know I've seen it several times but there's such a threadbare story there, I can never remember what happens in it aside from the dummy gag.
Aside from having essentially no plot, the issue is that the bulk of the movie comes from really drawn out sequences - Rags Ragland getting a shave, the dummy scene, the insomnia scene, the finale. I think they all start off funny, but with the exception of…
Some of the gags are really dated, the story line is sketchy at best, but it is a good vehicle for some classic comedy.
A tour de force by Costello. Shaking fish out of his sleeves, crashing through pool tables, there’s nothing this guy can’t do. A decent chunk of the film is spent separate from Abbott, so he doesn’t get as much chance to shine.
The story is actually serviceable, and offers gags along the way. A much more cohesive film than some of their Universal romps.
Oh, no she's not going to break it. She has a date with my girlfriend. And someday, I hope to have a date with my girlfriend.
There's like a solid five minutes or so where Lou pretends to be a dummy in a movie to evade the cops and proceeds to get the shit kicked out of him in various ways and then there's an extended fight on a rollercoaster where gravity can go fuck itself and it's all just so wonderful. Really fun watch, also Jean Porter was a babe.
There's not much of a story in this one. We get a very thin story that involves Bud & Lou framing a man for murder just to get someone a part in a movie. We also get a painful 10 minute long insomnia bit, an assortment of boring songs, and an anticlimactic climax. - The end result is a comedy that left me more annoyed than entertained.