ABBOTT AND COSTELLO IN THE FOREIGN LEGION
By Ralph Santini - **
In their 26th film
together, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are a couple of Boxing hustlers who lose
one of their fighters, Abdullah (Veteran character heavy 'Wee Willie' Davis) because
he is tired of their promoting methods and decides to back to Algiers. This
becomes a huge problem for the duo because they are threatened to death by a
sadistic loan shark (Marc Lawrence whose most notable nice role is a harmless deaf mute in Henry Hathaway’s color melodrama
The Shepherd Of The Hills) so they decide to do their best to bring back their
North African champ or else.
When they finally arrive in Algiers
they are suddenly perpetrated by a gang of Arabs that belong to the Al-Minya
tribe in which Abdullah happens to pledge allegiance and the constant chase begins.
So what do they do to survive? Well the answer is simple, they accidentally enlist
in the French Army’s Foreign Legion where they are forced to get all the
training they are ordered. All of this leads to many wild goose chases and,
well, what else can I tell you?
I’m afraid this is a very indifferent comedy where Abbott And Costello once again play two losers that, aside from loan sharks, bloodthirsty sheiks and their henchmen, have to face a rather dangerous monster, the treacherous soldier Sergeant Axmann (a rather campy Walter Slezak) who will do anything to kill Abbott and Costello no matter what. It’s also one of the least memorable so-called comedies with the category they dub “Arabs as a subject of ridicule”. I couldn’t even compare this to the far superior “Road To Morrocco” with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
I’m afraid this is a very indifferent comedy where Abbott And Costello once again play two losers that, aside from loan sharks, bloodthirsty sheiks and their henchmen, have to face a rather dangerous monster, the treacherous soldier Sergeant Axmann (a rather campy Walter Slezak) who will do anything to kill Abbott and Costello no matter what. It’s also one of the least memorable so-called comedies with the category they dub “Arabs as a subject of ridicule”. I couldn’t even compare this to the far superior “Road To Morrocco” with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
To be quite fair with this film, the
scenes that enjoy the most is the routine where Abbott & Costello see too
many mirages until they are able to find an Oasis. Another routine I kind of
like is when Costello is assigned to count a large amount of bullets but is
distracted by Abbott talking about many historical dates and many more silly
stuff.
Overall I think this film should be
approached with caution among old movie fans because I don’t see anything
exciting about this Beau Geste-type parody. Granted I haven’t seen The Flying
Deuces yet but I hope its way better than this forgettable vehicle. Then again
you can do a lot worse (maybe Ishtar but I don’t know since I haven’t dared to access
that one, who knows).
