IMDb.com states Rebel Randall is a basketball player in HERE COME THE CO-EDS, yet I identify her as the first lady in the ballroom scene Lou proposes not to dance with and Richard Lane mistakes as his wife. While doing my Stooge lady public service announcement, the lady in the same scene who punches Lou for mistakingly thinking he’s a home wrecker is Dorothy Granger.
We have a two week streak here of good Abbott and Costello films. HERE COME THE CO-EDS is another film that I could pretty much watch the whole way through, no fast forwarding necessary. The few musical numbers that do grate on my nerves go by pretty fast and enough of them are entertaining. The plot itself is pretty light, nothing too deep yet enough to move the comedy along - really one of the better films we’ve discussed so far in that respect. There is one musical number where a bunch of ladies are in a choir are singing some morose piece in harmony about twenty four minutes into the film. Before that, it was a straight forward Bud and Lou comedy. Not a bad length for one of these features before we get to extracurricular stuff.
The music and dance itself for the most part is fine. There is the one number I don’t care for mentioned above and the big production where they are raising money for the school is kind of boring, but the rest is fine. Nothing Dorsey band kick ass fine, but some good stuff. I enjoyed the Evelyn the violinist stuff because I’m a string player instrumentalist myself and I appreciate a good virtuoso. For the record, speaking of kicking ass, she kicks mine. Peggy Ryan is awesome. She’s very cute, has a vivacious personality and just the right mix of dork in her, making her the ideal Lou Costello on screen girlfriend, which she plays here. I like her little pep rally number at the half time show and I especially like her little musical number with Lou Costello. If any of you guys watch Wheeler and Woolley comedies, you’ll know Bert Wheeler did lots of musical numbers like this with Dorothy Lee. Makes me wonder why they didn’t do this more often with Lou. It’s much better seeing a romantic song having comic value and involving one of the comedians themselves. A really fun little moment there.
Lots of good comedy here. The aforementioned ballroom scene is excellent with poor Lou getting knocked to the ground into plants based on Richard Lane being unable to identify his wife due to near sightedness. A nice mistaken identity bit where Bud of course only sees Lou knocked to the ground and blames poor Lou for his predicament. A classic Bud and Lou set up there. We get the infamous oyster soup gag with Lou, like Curly, does a fine job of. Even before the oyster enters the gag I really dig the way Lou can’t even get the broth of the soup to stay on his spoon long enough to swallow it. I laughed a lot during this scene. I’ve also always appreciated the Jonah the whale routine. Lou’s frustrated reactions are great but to me this has always been a Bud straight man highlight. Love the way he constantly interrupts Lou to get more details out of Lou’s story and keeps the same demeanor the whole time. Really an excellent job by Bud here and the gag does take a nice twist when Lou interrupts his own story before Bud gets a chance to do so! I enjoy the wrestling match a lot as well. The chase at the end is OK, nothing offensive but again, talking big studio era chases have never been my favorites as you know because I’ve been spoiled by the silent masters. I really need to work on that! Also love the kitchen scene where Lou gets his foot caught in the dough. I love extended scenes like this and am so used to seeing Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges do this kind of thing. Up to this point, we haven’t seen much of it from Bud and Lou, but they do it here and shine. I also love Bud getting angry at Lou for clearing a full trash can so Lou can make room and throw the little bit he just swept up into the trash.
Let’s see, what else? Any true blood comedy fan has got to love Lou’s name - Oliver Quackenbush. A wonderful Oliver Hardy/Groucho Marx mash up. Whether it was intended to be or not I don’t know. Gotta love Bixby College. An all girls school sporting hundreds of young females, and everyone of them, without exception, is a knock out. That can only mean one thing - we’re in Hollywood. Also interesting to see Lon Chaney, Jr. playing the heavy here; he does a fine job. Being a horror nerd myself, Chaney was starring in b features in the Inner Sanctum series and playing various monsters in other films, but taken outside of horror, Universal used him sixth billed in a comic support role. Even Bela Lugosi at this time only starred in poverty row films and usually played second banana at Paramount or RKO, sadly. It was really only Boris Karloff of the horror stars in the forties who was truly billed as a star no matter what. Ah, but we’ll get to those actors more at a later date when they enter the Abbott and Costello story more prominently.
So yes, second week in a row, another good film. I read reviews online where so many people swear by the earlier films, but I really think Bud and Lou movies got better as the years went on, even if the box office receipts say otherwise. Anyway, I really enjoyed this one, hoping the next few stay the same level.
