Abbott And Costello In The Foreign Legion (1950)

 

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO IN THE FOREIGN LEGION

By Ralph Santini - **

In their 26^th 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.

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).