Ultimately, Abbott and Costello quickly went back to work on their radio show and filmed their next movie, Lost in a Harem, in the spring for MGM. Because of the humorous nature in which some of the teachings of Islam were treated, the film was banned in some Middle Eastern countries and had to be severely edited before being shown in others. Even in the United States, it was panned by critics and failed to live up to the reputation the two had for comedy.
Their next movie, In Society (1944), which they filmed on location at the Jewett Estate in Pasadena, California for Universal, was actually released first. The studio was anxious to reintroduce their star to the public after his long absence, and critics were kind, with one writing, “The comedy team of Abbott and Costello has come back to the screen after a year's absence and if Costello's recent illness has caused any slackening in their mad antics it isn't readily observable…But despite these old faithfuls from all the cinecomedies of all the world, Abbott and Costello, for the most part, keep the picture rolling along uproariously through their own efforts.” They may have still been almost as good as ever, but in 1944, Abbott and Costello fell from the third to the eighth most popular box office draw in America.
Their next movie, Here Come the Co-Eds (1945), gave Costello a chance to show the world that he was indeed fully recovered from his illness. Though 40 years old, he performed most of his basketball moves himself, including a number of trick shots that he perfected as a younger man. The critics praised the movie, with one writing, “Maybe it is just that Lou Costello has more and funnier scenes in which to play, or maybe thanks are due to Universal for taking some real productive pains. Anyhow, the latest picture in which Bud Abbott and his plump sidekick are starred is plainly the most diverting burlesque that they have tossed in a number of tries.”
Their subsequent film, The Naughty Nineties (1945), was not as well received, despite the special attention given to their “Who’s on First?” routine, which was featured in the film. The complaints may have stemmed from the fact that “Who’s on First?” and many of the other routines featured in the film were taken from past acts that either Abbott and Costello or other comedians put on. As The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote, “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello have either run out of comedy routines or they have such affection for their old ones that they figure it is fair to repeat. In either case their latest picture, ‘The Naughty Nineties,’ … is literally a musty archive of old gags and acts that they have played before…They even pull their prize chestnut - that old baseball duologue about ‘Who's on First’ - which is so completely ancient that the boys should really hide their eyes and blush.”
A picture of Abbott and Costello performing “Who’s on First?”
The pair’s final film released that year was Abbott and Costello in Hollywood (1945), which was also the first movie that featured their names in the title and the last one they made for MGM. The reviews were mixed, but at least one critic blamed their material rather than the men themselves for their problems: “Abbott and Costello still have a lot of friends, people who laugh so long and heartily at their slapstick antics that oftentimes running gags are drowned by gales of mirth before they're half finished…A change of producers—in this instance they are being sponsored by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer instead of Universal—has not affected their style any. They are still clowning all over the screen, knocking each other around verbally and physically and burning up energy at a terrific pace. If only the script writers would meet them half way, everything would be just dandy.”
Chapter 6: The First Crack in the Team
“They liked me so long as the liquor flowed at my house, but I haven't seen any of them around lately.” – Bud Abbott
Without question, part of the problem lay with Abbott and Costello themselves. The two men were no longer getting along as well as they once did, for many reasons. One of the most important reasons was that Costello understandably changed after the death of his son; according to friend Maxine Andrews, with whom he had worked for years, "He didn't seem as fun-loving and as warm...He seemed to anger easily...there was a difference in his attitude." Costello became less interested in making movies and more interested in philanthropy, specifically as it related to his foundation.
Likewise, Abbott was changing as well. He had been suffering from epilepsy for years, and with only limited treatments available, he found it increasingly difficult to cope with. One of the ways he dealt with his fear of having a seizure was by drinking more, and according to Costello, by 1945 the situation had reached a crisis point: “Bud was a dandy, a real sharp dresser. Easy going kind of guy. Me, I’m a worrier. I worried about Bud for 22 years. Would he be there for rehearsal? Would we make it to the airport on time? Did he know the new material? We split up first back in 1945. I fired a maid, he hired her, we had words, and that was that. We had been booked into the Roxy for a couple of weeks and the Roxy said OK, they’d take me alone - for $35,000. When Bud’s lawyer heard about that, well, Bud showed up at the Roxy. We only spoke when we were on.”
There were only two things that the men could still work together on: their jobs and the Costello Foundation. As it turned out, these would be enough to keep them together for the next 10 years. In 1946, the two appeared in two movies as separate characters rather than a pair, but neither Little Giant (1946) nor The Time of Their Lives (1946) did well at the box office. The one distinction in the latter is that Abbott had to learn to drive for his role, something that would later become a problem for him. Meanwhile, tensions between the two were so high on the set that at one point Costello refused to come back to work unless he was given Abbott’s part instead of his own. In the end, he finally came around so filming could be completed.
Perhaps hoping to recapture the camaraderie they had enjoyed before, the pair teamed up to do a re-make of Buck Privates. The Return of the Buck Privates (1947) earned each man almost $200,000 and was the most expensive movie they ever produced for Universal, but the men’s popularity continued to slide. They were the 16th highest box office draw in 1947, a sharp decline from previous years.
On top of that, tragedy struck Costello again in 1947. While working on The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap (1948), he and Abbott took time on May 3 to officially open and dedicate the Lou Costello Jr. Youth Center, and for at least a brief moment, it was just like old times, with the two men actually in sync with each other again. They even performed one of their best renditions of the classic “Who’s On First?” routine. Costello’s father, Sebastian, had traveled to Palm Springs for the event, but a few days later, Sebastian got into a heated argument with Eddie Sherman, Abbott and Costello’s long time agent. The next morning, on May 9, Sebastian died of a sudden heart attack. Heartbroken and looking for someone to blame, Costello fired Sherman for upsetting his father, but the team would hire him back two years later. The Youth Center provided the backdrop for the documentary 10,000 Kids and a Cop (1948), which Costello himself produced to raise money for the project, and both Abbott and Costello appeared as themselves in the movie.
When The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap was released in February 1948, St. John Publishing released a comic book version of the movie to go with it. There would be a total of 40 “Abbott and Costello” comics published over the next eight years, but the others were stand-alone stories that had nothing to do with their movies. Part of the reason for the comic book series was that the two now hosted a weekly radio show for children, The Abbott and Costello Children’s Show, which aired for 30 minutes each Saturday morning. It was only fitting that they performed for kids, because by this time, Costello had three daughters (Christine having been born in August 1947), and Abbott would soon have a new daughter, Vicki, whom he and Jenny adopted in 1949.
The men also branched out into producing for their next film, The Noose Hangs High (1948). They bought the rights from Universal and made it at an old studio on Poverty Row, the low-end section of Hollywood, but the movie did not fare well at the box office, nor did Mexican Hay
ride (1948), which neither of them had even wanted to make. Abbott did not like the script, and Costello did not like the cast. They were both suspended for failing to cooperate, causing the filming to be delayed for two days. As it turned out, the critics did not like the movie any more than they did. One complained, “As surely as corned beef goes with cabbage—or Bud Abbott goes with Lou Costello yet—a good deal of fated bull-throwing goes with any farce set in Mexico. And that's what you get in abundance—and in a variety of forms—in the new Abbott-Costello slapstick, ‘Mexican Hayride’…If Bud, the inevitable con-man, isn't fogging the air with wily words as a fugitive oil-stock salesman, he is flinging deceits in plain dumb-show. And if Lou, the corpulent comic, isn't beefing all over the place as a nondescript victim-accomplice, he is actually in a bull-ring with a bull. Indeed, the latter encounter, with which the film comes to a close, is the ultimate slapstick situation toward which all the others slowly tend…And that, in itself, is the standard of a conspicuously substandard film.”
Abbott and Costello spent the last few months of 1948 filming Africa Screams (1949), their first independent production. One scene, in which Costello was pursued by a lovesick gorilla, was changed because the censors felt that there was an implied bestiality in the story, and in the end, critics were not impressed. One wrote, “Abbott and Costello are remarkable fellows, indeed. With each picture they seem to become more silly and less funny. Even with a lush jungle to romp around in, such as the Nassour Studios provided for ‘Africa Screams,’ the thin man and his rotund buddy have come up with a pretty feeble comedy in the picture…there is quite a bit going on most of the time in ‘Africa Screams,’ but there just isn't much comic point to all the hustle and bustle.”
Costello and Hillary Brooks in Africa Screams
As it turned out, it would take being pursued by things worse than gorillas for the duo to make their way back to the top of the movie rankings.
Chapter 7: Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters
“They were losing faith in Abbott and Costello and had to pair them off with Frankenstein and Dracula and the others. As a result, dad was not too keen on doing it. In fact, when I was interviewing the director of the film for my book, he told how Lou used to come into his office screaming ‘My daughter could write a better script than this!’ So, he went into it not really wanting to do it. I guess, at the premiere, my grandmother went up to the producer of the film and said ‘This is one of the best Abbott and Costello movies ever made’, and my dad was so pissed off at her that he didn’t talk to her for a month.” - Chris Costello
In 1947, Abbott and Costello were approached with a new concept for the movies: comedic horror, but Costello rejected the first script, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), complaining that one of his young daughters could have written a better treatment. Nevertheless, he subsequently came around and actually started to like the subject. He also respected the three actors hired to play the monsters in the movie: Glenn Strange, Bella Lugosi and Lon Chaney. The other great horror actor, Boris Karloff, agreed to help promote the movie but initially refused to see it. It was not until later that Karloff came to like the genre, and he would subsequently co-star with Abbott and Costello in future films.
As it turned out, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein marked the beginning of a revival of their careers. According to one critic, “Costello, the roly-poly and completely susceptible one, shudders and shakes in standard terror to behold the assembly of ghouls—which includes not only the monster but Count Dracula and the Wolfman. Abbott, prevented from seeing the creatures until near the end, scoffs and snorts at his partner from behaving so curiously. After a thorough exhaustion of this play on frustration and fright, the story is brought to a climax with the intended transference of a brain. Whose brain is tagged for what monster we leave you to surmise.” Today, the movie Lou Costello did not originally want to make is on the American Film Institute’s List of 100 Funniest Movies.
Image from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Building on their success with the Frankenstein movie, the guys made Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949), but this time critics were not as impressed. One critic noted, “In this case, most of the humor—if that's what you'd call it—is derived from the slapstick display of the two comedians juggling a couple of very stiff corpses in a hotel. Costello, as an ex-bellboy, is suspected of having killed a guest, so naturally he finds it embarrassing when he has two other bodies dumped on him. Together with Mr. Abbott, who plays a very dull-witted ‘house dick,’ he has quite a gay old time lugging these two extinct persons hither and yon, stuffing them into linen closets and making other sport with them. ‘This ain't funny,’ says the fat comedian at one point—and, believe us, he is right.” However, the movie was still popular with the public and went on to become another box office success.
Just as Abbott and Costello saw their fortunes improve, their future endeavors were delayed when Costello suffered a relapsed of his rheumatic fever during filming, leaving him unable to make another movie for nearly a year. That is why the next film, Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950), was not released until the following year. Though it was not technically another monster movie, it did feature a talking skeleton. Still, their ratings began to slip again, from the third place spot they’d held in 1948 and 1949 to sixth place in 1950.
Universal soon realized that they had a good thing going with the monster movies, and for the remainder of their time together, Abbott and Costello would make a new one every other year. The next one released was Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951). In this film, their characters were named Bud Alexander and Lou Francis, their real first and middle names, but critics didn’t care for the movie. One critic complained, “Bud Abbott and Lou Costello do not lack courage. They are hardworking funsters who will do anything to get a laugh in, and, in ‘Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man,’ they do just about everything. It would be a pleasure to report that we had been rolling in the aisle…but that would be an exaggeration. The boys try hard and, on the whole, they appear to have recaptured a good deal of their old spunk, but their efforts are not always rewarding over the picture's eighty-two minutes running time.”
Next came Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953). Abbott and Costello were shocked to learn that the character of Mr. Hyde had earned the film an X-rating in Great Britain, especially since both men had always prided themselves on the family-friendly nature of their movies. According to Chris Costello, “Bud and Dad always believed that comedy should not be dirty. It shouldn’t be poking fun at other people, but bring the poking back to yourself. They didn’t believe off-color language should be a part of it. They thought that comedy should be enjoyed by everyone, young and old.”
The two made one more monster movie after that one named Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955). Costello’s oldest daughter, Carole, had a small role in the film, and his youngest daughter Chris would later remember visiting the set: “I do remember being on ‘Abbott and Costello Meets the Mummy’. I remember it being a very colorful set on a sound stage and I was sitting on the sound stage with my two cousins, Tony and Joe. The actors were breaking for lunch, the Mummy started walking toward us, and we all let out screams. But, that’s the only monster movie I really remember being on.” This would be Abbott and Costello’s last movie for Universal, which had decided by this point that the comedy team wasn’t good enough as a box office draw.
In addition to making monster movies during this time, Abbott and Costello also made a number of somewhat popular films in other genres, including Lost in Alaska (1952) and Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953). Their most popular non-monster movie was Jack and the Beanstalk, in which their characters found themselves part of the traditional children’s fairy tale. Both fathers themselves, they felt that it was important that the movie be made in color, and when Universal refused, they put together funding and made the film themselves, c
opying the “black and white to color” method used earlier in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The movie was a solid hit and remains one of their more popular films today.
The pair were also doing a bit of television work during this time, including periodically hosting The Colgate Comedy Hour. Chris Costello later noted, “The Colgate Comedy Hour really got them back to their roots, which was on the live stage. All the classic burlesque acts came out, like ‘Who’s on First’, 28 divided by 7 is 13, and all of them. When they did the 52 half hour specials, all their burlesque partners came on. They were very good at supplying work for the burlesque comics who were down on their luck. They supplied jobs for these people.”
In the fall of 1952, the duo premiered The Abbott and Costello Show, although Costello owned the series and Abbott technically worked for him. That show ran for 52 episodes through 1954. They also made one more movie together, Dance With Me, Harry (1956), this time for an independent studio, but it did not do well. Though the men continued to appear together occasionally, it was obvious that the magic was gone, and in 1957, they formally disbanded their partnership. According to Costello, “…in Vegas, we split up permanently. Bud was tired of the whole thing and it showed. I said, ‘Bud, hadn’t we maybe better just go our separate ways from now?’ and he said sure, if that was what I wanted, and I said that was what I wanted.”
Chapter 8: Death and Taxes
Abbott & Costello in the 1950s.
“I’m a wistful little guy, you know what I mean? I’m the underdog, the guy nobody pays much attention to until something happens to him. I’d be way out of place trying to play some guy like a big hero or something like that. I’ve been doing comedy for maybe 30 years now. People know what I look like and what kind of little guy I am. They wouldn’t accept too much different from that, would they?” - Lou Costello
American Legends- Abbott & Costello Page 3