Fri 18 Jun 2010
A Movie Review by David L. Vineyard: ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS (1940).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[14] Comments
ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS. Universal Pictures, 1940. Allan Jones, Nancy Kelly, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Robert Cummings, Mary Boland, Peggy Moran, William Frawley, Leo Carillo. Screenplay: Gertrude Pursell, Charles Grayson, John Grant (uncredited), adapted by Kathryn Scolla & Francis Martin from the novel Love Insurance, by Earl Derr Biggers. Songs by Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein & Dorothy Fields. Director: A. Edward Sutherland
This was the film debut of Abbott and Costello (Lou Costello had appeared in some silent films in bit parts) and it leaves you wanting more of them and less of almost everything else in the film save for Robert Cummings and Peggy Moran, including the forgettable Kern, Hammerstein, and Fields songs Allan Jones regularly breaks into.
That to one side, it’s a pretty good screwball romantic comedy that benefits from an expert cast.
Robert Cummings is Steve Harper, a less than bright playboy who has fallen in love with Cynthia Merrick (Nancy Kelly), but who finds his way to true love opposed on two fronts — first by a series of mishaps with Cynthia’s Aunt Kitty (Mary Boland) and secondly by his ex-girlfriend, Mickey Fitzgerald (Peggy Moran), who isn’t planning on letting him get away.
Enter Steve’s old pal Lucky Moore (Allan Jones, father of singer Jack Jones). Lucky is an insurance man par excellence, and has a bright idea — he’ll sell Steve a $1 million dollar policy guaranteeing that Steve and Cynthia end up together. It’s a cinch. Love insurance — why didn’t anyone think of it before?
Lucky’s father isn’t so sure about that so he makes Lucky find an underwriter for the ‘sure thing’ policy — nightclub owner William Frawley, who assigns two lunkheads in his employ to make sure things don’t go wrong — Bud and Lou …
Abbott: Put that out. There’s no smoking in here.
Costello: What makes you think I’m smokin’?
Abbott: You’ve got a cigar in your mouth!
Costello: I’ve got shoes on… don’t mean I’m walkin’.
Obviously just about everyone in the film is suffering from a serious lack of good judgment. It’s one of those plots where if anyone listened or paused to think, the whole facade would crumble. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for the characters, no one even thinks about having a rational thought for the span of the film.
Earl Derr Biggers’ novel was filmed before in 1919 and 1924, like his highly famous Seven Keys to Baldpate and The Agony Column, both highly popular works and filmed multiple times. (Readers here hardly need reminding Biggers was also the creator of Charlie Chan.)
As Mickey schemes to get Steve back and Steve tries to win over Aunt Kitty, the problems multiply, and bumbling Bud and Lou don’t help. And when Lucky meets Cynthia he falls head over heels for her and she for him.
Cynthia sails for the Tropics to get away from the mess, and naturally Steve follows with Mickey in tow, Lucky along to sabotage his own best interests, and Bud and Lou dispatched to make sure Steve and Cynthia get together and stay together. Once there Leo Carillo gets thrown in the mix as a Latin Lothario.
Despite the minor songs, the film is bright and funny, and if you fins yourself wishing for more of Bud and Lou or even Cummings and Moran, Allan Jones and Nancy Kelly are attractive leads, and if they can’t quite compete with the zaniness of the others involved, they handle this extremely well. It’s not their fault that Cummings has a thousand times more screen presence than Jones, or that Peggy Moran has all the best lines other than the boys (Bud and Lou).
There is an abbreviated version of ‘Who’s On First?’ on hand and several of the boys routines as well as the usual wise cracks and smart lines:
Abbott: You don’t even know what a husband is.
Costello: A husband is what’s left of a sweetheart after the nerve has been killed.
There is also what may well be the first Humphrey Bogart joke on film:
One Night in the Tropics is a good minor musical that moves fast and features bright players and crackling dialogue. Other than those they did at MGM, production values were somewhat higher than later Abbott and Costello films, and the cast is excellent.
That said, you are bound to wish there had been more of the boys and Cummings and Moran and less of Jones and Kelly.
The boys’ next outing was Buck Privates, and they never took a back seat to anyone again in their own films, though Kathryn Grayson and John Carroll get quite a bit of screen time in Rio Rita where the boys are slipped into an old plot.
Overall this one is bright and funny, and for once the romantic comedy aspect is good enough to hold your attention when the boys are off screen. But it’s a shame Peggy Moran and Robert Cummings weren’t teamed again. They are almost as much fun as Bud and Lou, which you can’t always say about the romantic leads in this kind of film.
Note: Thanks to the IMDB website for providing the exact wording of the first two sets of quotes.
June 18th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
As everyone may have noticed, and if not you may be rather puzzled still, but the connection between this first Abbott & Costello movie and a mystery-oriented blog is, I admit, rather tenuous.
A musical comedy based on a story by the man who created Charlie Chan?
Yes sir or ma’am, that’s it.
Now to get down to essentials, I have not watched an Abbott & Costello movie since I was 12, and that was ages ago.
Their movies were hilarious then. Are they still, I wonder? I have been tempted by the existence of the box set of all their movies on DVD (maybe excluding one they did not do for Universal), but so far I’ve resisted.
This review of David’s may be the tipping point, however.
I do NOT think I will buy any DVDs of Francis the Talking Mule, though, nor those of Ma & Pa Kettle.
June 18th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
I watched and enjoyed a lot of their movies when I was young, but even then they were never my favourites. One of the problems is that their characters lack warmth (unilke, say, Laurel and Hardy). I don’t suppose that this really matters in itself, but their films also lack the inspired wackiness of the Bob Hope stuff from this time. I remember a friend/collaborator of the pair saying that they had to be bodily pushed into doing more than simply re-doing their vaudeville routines for the movies. When they were pushed they could be really good, but often they seemed to have settled for the easiest route, which caused their careers to fizzle out,
June 18th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
Steve
For mystery fans there are several good choices of A&C films — WHO DONE IT? is a mystery set at a radio network with the boys would be writers who play private eye when the company president is murdered — Mary Wickes and William Bendix shine with Bendix cop even dumber than Lou: HOLD THAT GHOST adds Joan Davis to the mix as a professional screamer on radio and has Bud and Lou inheriting a haunted road house with Richard Carlson and Evelyn Ankers trapped there with them — add Marc Lawrence and Misha Auer to the list and it’s one of their best: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER is the first of two films with Boris Karloff (who isn’t the killer of the title)as a phony mystic trying to rid himself of bellboy Lou while Bud is the hotel detective with bodies falling out of the closets: RIO RITA the outstanding cast includes Kathryn Grayson, John Carroll, Tom Conway, and Barry Nelson as the boys help Carroll battle Nazi spies at a dude ranch — better songs than usual and good routines: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN one of their cleverest outings has the boys as a pair of private eyes helping boxer Arthur Franz, who has been framed by gangster Sheldon Leonard, with the help of the invisibility formula that is driving Franz insane — state of the art special effects for the time and a clever script — the final visual gag is a delight: ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN either you love it or hate it, but horror purists need to get a life — the monsters are played straight and scary and Bela Lugosi has one of his best roles as Dracula — watch it if only for Lou’s classic exchange with Lon Chaney’s Lawrence Talbot about the wolfman
TALBOT: You don’t understand. When the moon is full I turn into a wolf.
LOU: Yeah, you and twenty million other guys.
Watch (if that’s the word to use) for a cameo by Vincent Price. Even the animated titles are worth watching. This is one of the great ones — Leonard Maltin gives it three and a half stars and for once I agree with him.
Bradstreet
I love Laurel and Hardy, but their later films stink too, so it has nothing to do with warmth, just getting older and running out of new material and decent production values and scripts. Groucho Marx later films aren’t much to brag about either. To be fair, by any standard most of Bud and Lou’s later outings are better than the later films of L&H or Groucho.
The great Buater Keaton ended up in those awful Beach Party pictures. Time and age are not generally kind to comics. Most of Bob Hope’s later pictures are unwatchable (the last half decent one is CAll ME BWANA which may be the first James Bond spoof), Danny Kaye wisely walked away from films for the most part after THE MAN FROM THE DINERS CLUB, and save for THE KING OF COMEDY Jerry Lewis should have stopped after THE NUTTY PROFESSOR (and some think he should never have started). For some reason comedy and comics don’t wear well.
But if you want to see A&C in something good and different that does have real warmth and heart watch THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES with Lou and Marjorie Reynolds a pair of Revolutionary ghosts condemned to haunt an old house for eternity until someone proves they weren’t traitors. Enter modern husband and wife Bud and Gale Sondergard and another couple and Lou and Marjorie see a chance to prove their innocence. Not only one of the boys funniest films, but touching and sentimental without being cloying.
June 18th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
I’m right with you about THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES. But you notice that it breaks up the usual A&C dynamic. They are two different characters rather than a pair. Equally, the Horror spoofs helped to revitalise their career because they added something new to the mix. MEET FRANKENSTEIN works especially well because it is, essentially, a Horror film with comedy asides. The plot is no more silly than that of HOUSE OF DRACULA, and the production values are an order of magnitude greater.
However, and it is an important point, the boys initially fought against doing it. According to Charles Barton, they just wanted to go back to doing their old routines. When they went on television in the 50s they did this with a venegance. Although their show was on the surface a standard sit-com, it was basically an opportunity for them to rehash the routines again. They were apparently very good, but the truth is that TV uses up material like this very quickly, and the shows quickly ran out of steam.
You are right about Bob Hope’s movie career going downhill after the war, but it’s also true that he enjoyed popularity on TV for years after. This was at least partly because he used a large army of gag writers who could supply him with new(ish) material (when he appeared in the UK, he would even hire British comedians such as Bob Monkhouse to supply him with stuff that would be relevant to his audience). A&C suffered in the long run because their stuff became over exposed. I just get the feeling that it they had been prepared to listen to advice in this matter, their careers might not have fizzled out quite so dramatically in the late 50s.
I don’t suppose that it really matters whether comedians have warmth or not, but I just find that Laurel and Hardy appeal more to me because their characters are more likeable to me.
June 18th, 2010 at 8:11 pm
Bud and Lou came not so much out of vaudeville as burlesque which was even more formula ridden, and if we are to judge stars by what they wanted to do instead of what they did no one comes out looking too good. Clark Gable was being punished with his Oscar winning role in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT and fought tooth and nail to get out of playing Rhett Butler. When John Ford asked John Wayne who should play the Ringo Kid in STAGECOACH, he suggested Gary Cooper … Hitchcock not only didn’t want to make REBECCA he didn’t want to make the film as it finally appeared at all.
I agree the boys fell back on old material, and certainly wouldn’t argue they were innovators, and I don’t think they have the heart of Laurel and Hardy — or some of the other greats — but they did some good films and even among their later work there are some bright moments. Only DANCE WITH ME HENRY, JACK AND THE BEANSTALK, and THE 30 FOOT BRIDE OF ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN are just awful and those were all made for small children, not their standard audience.
And just one question: why should they innovate? The idea that comedy has ever been about innovation just isn’t true. Comedy has always been about repetition — finding your niche and doing that one thing well — you may freshen the routines, but comics always fall back on what they do best. Charlie Chaplin was much funnier when he was the little tramp than later when he was the brilliant innovator and film making genius. What hurt A&C was they lost the energy and the hunger. They got older and ego and other problems got in the way. What hurt them wasn’t that they didn’t innovate, but that they didn’t stay true to their audience or their best efforts.
As for Bob “say it faster they’ll laugh harder” Hope, he did some good movies well into the fifties and even CALL ME BWANA has its moments, but past that the films are grim and frankly while his ratings were fine those Specials ceased being special in the early sixties and were mostly painful to watch later save for a rare good joke in the monologue or a guest Hope had rapport with. I liked Bob, and he could still deliver a line late in his career, but those later specials were more about who he had been than who he was.
As for warmth and comics, as the old joke goes, if you can fake that you have it made.
June 18th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Steve
Forgot to mention this and LOVE INSURANCE are listed in Hubin without so much as a dash in front of them — maybe the novel and earlier film versions have more crime elements — the William Frawley character is something of a gangster type even in this one.
June 19th, 2010 at 12:36 am
Yes, you’re right the book is in Hubin. I hadn’t noticed that before, but I have an idea that he’s wrong about this one.
There’s a review of the book here
http://www.amazon.com/Love-Insurance-Earl-Derr-Biggers/dp/1592241840
and you can read LOVE INSURANCE for yourself online here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=ezVh6y0Ygv8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=biggers+love+insurance&source=bl&ots=aUwABdABqC&sig=CYZYtqXjNEfcL8p3eVnTRe_izKE&hl=en&ei=dlQcTObDBcKKnQfo6un8DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
I’ve skimmed through it, and while some detectives are involved at one point — some missing or misplaced diamonds, perhaps — and there’s some minor blackmail that takes place at the end, no, I can’t see it as a work of crime fiction.
I’ll forward my misgivings on to Al.
— Steve
June 19th, 2010 at 1:35 am
Of the other non Chan books listed by Biggers in Hubin I know one is a WWI spy story and of course SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE is about a mystery writer stumbling into an old dark house mystery with a twist. THE AGONY COLUMN has some crime interest, but as you say other than some very minor elements LOVE INSURANCE doesn’t really seem to have much to say crime wise.
Nothing in the IMDb info on either of the silent film versions leads me to think they were much more criminous than the A&C outing.
SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE was filmed numerous times, probably the best version with Richard Dix, but was even remade with Dezi Arnaz Jr. as THE HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS (and he single handedly sinks a movie that boasts Chris Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price). It was filmed in 1915, 1917, 1925, 1935, and 1947 (and those are just the times the plot wasn’t stolen — I think only ‘The Most Dangerous Game” has been ripped off more often). It was a famous hit on Broadway scripted and produced by George M. Cohan.
There were silent versions of THE AGONY COLUMN, but I don’t know if it was ever made as a talkie. For anyone who doesn’t remember the ‘Agony Column’ was the name given to the personals in the classified ads in the newspaper.
June 19th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Thanks for the kind words about Laurel & Hardy, guys. Oliver Hardy was my uncle Babe, my mother’s brother-in-law.
I have a treasured photo taken on a Halloween a year or so before he had the debilitating stroke that paralyzed and eventually killed him. At five or six. I am Satan, complete with mascara drawn-moustache and goatee, confronting a cowering Oliver Hardy. He was a very kind man.
June 19th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
One of the most underrated of the Abbott & Costello movies is THE NAUGHTY NINETIES which has the best version of “Who’s on first.” plus a very funny bit where Costello is singing on stage while Abbott is giving directions to stagehands about the backdrop which Lou mistakes as directions for him: “Higher” Lou sings higher, “Lower” he sings lower etc until he winds up falling into the orchestra pit. There’s even a variation of the Marx Brothers mirror routine with Lou and Joe Sawyer.
June 19th, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Rick
Thanks for the personal note. It never hurts to be reminded that “legends” like your uncle Babe are really people, too, just like the rest of us.
Everybody
I’ve been convinced. I’ve added the complete DVD set Abbott & Costello on Universal to my Amazon shopping cart. I expect it will be winging its way to me sometime during the middle of next week.
It works out to less than $2.50 a movie, 28 of them for less than $70. An absolute bargain, no matter how you look at it.
— Steve
June 19th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Rick
Your uncle sometimes unfairly was labeled a straight man, instead of the accomplished actor and comic he was, and he may well have been the best reaction and double take comic of all time — his long slow boils until he exploded were masterpieces of comic timing.
He even fared well in the otherwise disappointing FIGHTING KENTUCKIAN where he got a rare chance to play half straight as John Wayne’s pal. He’s easily the best thing about the film.
Steve
I think you will enjoy some of the A&C films quite a lot, others only have good moments, but those are well worth the time. Other than Who’s On First? I like the crap game routine from BUCK PRIVATES and the math routines in ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS and HERE COME THE COEDS.
Save THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES for later, it’s a nice change of pace, and shows the boys could stretch and do characters and not just themselves. A few of the films like THE WISTFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP have slow spots, but try to do something different, and LOST IN A HAREM, while routine had Marilyn Maxwell as a harem girl and one of the better takes of ‘slowly I turned.’
Of the late films both AFRICA SCREAMS and A&C MEET THE MUMMY are very good despite Bosely Crowther’s famous review of the former “And it should.” Even A&C IN THE FOREIGN LEGION has a good mirage routine. Watch for Craig Stevens in A&C MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, an overall disappointment despite Karloff’s presence.
Granted it is often silly low brow humor, but when you want silly low brow humor no one did it better.
June 20th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
I recently purchased a new vehicle which came with a free 90 day sub for XM radio.One of the best stations on it is Greg Bell’s 24hr. old time radio station. Being an OTR fan for quite some time, it wasn’t hard to get me to send in a 2 year sub on my own.All that said, they recently started playing some A&C radio shows from the 40’s & 50’s. When they first came on I immediately changed the station. Like most people reading this blog, I loved the A&C movies growing up but don’t consider myself a fan any more. Well, since then I’ve listened to a handful over the last couple weeks and Surprise, Suprise! They’re pretty darned good!The thing I enjoy the most is their twisting and turning? or alternative meanings of certain words. I don’t think I’ll go out and buy the DVD set like you Steve, but I’m certainly now a fan of their OTR shows. By the way Steve, are you trying to out DVD Walker Martin by any chance? Or are you already there?
June 20th, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Walker has too far a head start, I’m afraid. But slow and steady sometimes wins the race. Ask me again in, say, ten years. Maybe, just maybe.
— Steve
PS. Now tell us about VIC AND SADE.