I haven't bought these on DVD, since I still have a lot of the A&C Show VHS tapes and they're in good condition. I'm a major fan of Bud and Lou, and it happens that I watched "Africa Screams" just a few days ago. We get two Stooges in that one, Shemp and Joe B., but neither of them has much of a part. Joe is a fussy butler, and Shemp plays a Mr. Magoo-type nearsighted big game hunter. Think of his nearsighted dentist in "The Tooth Will Out;" he does basically the same routine here, but not enough of it. Too bad the writers didn't give him a few more scenes, but they didn't. A good solid comedy film overall, in Stooge terms it's worth three out of four pokes.
Addressing the criticism of too many musical numbers in the A&C feature films, maybe that's true, but some of the greatest musical talents of the 1940's appear in them, such as the Andrews Sisters, the Ink Spots, and Ella Fitzgerald. So it's not like the musical interludes are a waste of film, but as with the Marx Brothers, the films without the music are better because the tunes don't interrupt the story and stop it cold. Romantic subplots? It was the 40's, so what film didn't have a romantic subplot? Probably only Army training films and the "industrials" from the Jam Handy Company.
The TV show is a different animal— very low-budget, unlike the Universal productions that cost the studio a fair amount of money ("Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" was the most expensive). It was shot mostly on indoor sets, and you won't see any Hollywood big names co-starring, just the old stalwarts from the Vaudeville stage and radio who'd been working with Bud and Lou for years. Besser is very funny playing opposite Lou, and in fact I like him better as Stinky than I do as a Stooge. I'm also a fan of Sid "Melonhead" Fields, a truly underrated straight man who co-wrote some of the scripts. Gordon Jones as Mike the Cop is the constantly put-upon victim of the boys' schemes (kind of a Vernon Dent role), and there's also Hillary Brooke as the classy, stylish blonde who has an unexplainable attraction to Lou (which in itself, is pretty funny).
There's one A&C film that's very unusual, and it's a favorite of mine: "The Time Of Their Lives." For once, Bud and Lou don't work as a team; instead, their parts are completely separate, and so there's none of their usual back-and-forth wordplay. However, it's a weird comic ghost story with some really clever plot twists, and some special effects that are very impressive for the time.
That ought to get you started... and you won't be disappointed.
