http://www.abbottandcostello.net/ac_films.html Well here we go again - another comedy team with a large filmography we will be discussing! This time it's Abbott and Costello. I hope you all will enjoy reading these and I'd love to hear your comments, as usual. A brief pre-history before getting into BUCK PRIVATES. Bud and Lou met on the burlesque circuit in 1935, went into radio together a few years later and were signed by Universal in 1940. Their first film, as supporting players, would be ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS. They didn't make their debut until 15 minutes into that film but were used as comedy relief, doing several great routines including their most famous one, "Who's On First?" They went over well enough with audiences to the point where Universal decided to give the team a starring vehicle. This leads us to BUCK PRIVATES.
BUCK PRIVATES will be discussed in two ways. The first way as a 1941 historical artifact and second way as an Abbott and Costello comedy because make no mistake about it, this is film has multiple personalities. BUCK PRIVATES is three things in addition to being a Bud and Lou film. It is a propaganda film, a musical and also a love story.
At the very beginning of the film, even before the credits roll, we are reminded of FDR signing the peacetime draft. Yes, the U.S. government was preparing for World War II at this point and BUCK PRIVATES was no doubt a way to get the public behind the draft. Some of them were still weary from World War I twenty years earlier and until Pearl Harbor, there was a resistance with some to join the war overseas. We do get a sergeant getting a minute's worth of dialogue to his troops he's just meeting really talking up the draft effort, mentioning the tax payer and munition workers and how they are part of a team of everyone working together, so yes, no doubt the film is sending a message. There is also a huge war games scene towards the end used to show off the latest in military technology.
1941 is also smack dab in the middle of the swing era and we get a lot of swing musical numbers as a result. While most of these comedies with musical numbers have some bland studio contract actors handling the music (one of the musical numbers here suffers the same fate) Universal got The Andrews Sisters to handle the majority of the music. They were a legitimate big name and talented act of their day and they still have fans, independent of Bud and Lou, to this day. Look, I'm a guy with a Cliff Burton avatar so swing is not exactly my wheelhouse (my most popular bass cover on YouTube aside, oh, what the Hell, I'll link to it below), but I can see they had real talent and personality and are a breath of fresh air from what we usually get in these kind of moments. "You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith" is a musical number that definitely falls into the propaganda mode.
The love story is typical let's make a man out of a millionaire playboy by putting him into the military stuff. While Bud and Lou have more interaction with the love triangle than Stan and Ollie do in BONNIE SCOTLAND, it's not much more.
As for Bud and Lou themselves, like so many, if not all of these movies, they are simply comic relief in their own film and have very little to do with the main plot. Universal had no idea what to do with these guys yet as making them good film comedians artistically. Commercially, that's another story. While the great film comedy wouldn't really gel until some future films, as skit comedians, Bud and Lou are top notch here. Though the routines feel like much welcome asides, Lou faking his ignorance with dice is a fantastic performance while Bud's never skip a beat straight man spiel in "You're 40, She's 10" and gypping Lou out of fifty dollars is fantastic stuff. Jerry Seinfeld is right, Bud Abbott was the best straight man. For pure physical comedy, Bud acting as Lou's sergeant is a fantastic scene. The comic potential was there, it's just a shame Universal yet didn't know how to make this comedy as part of the story versus an aside.
Oh, and Stooge fans, Lou gets a musical number with Chef Shemp. While Shemp's role is small, he does get a nice salty delivery and some great comic takes taking some flour in the face. Lou's musical number is quite fun and gets interrupted by Nat Pendleton, who does a fine job as the Sarge.
So many of these Bud and Lou films have great comedy routines in not great comic films. BUCK PRIVATES fits that mold but what does it matter? The thing did MAJOR box office in it's day, making $4,000,000 on about a $180,000 - $245,000 (sources vary) budget. I actually overall prefer post WWII features and the TV show best and I'm curious to see if watching these in order changes my mind. So far, no, but we got a ways to go.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AWgbJI495ioWatch me try out as the bass player for The Andrews Sisters in the link above. This is when I played for Glenn Miller.
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