Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion

Moviecut—Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion

When Bud and Lou, a couple of 'fight promoters', go to Algiers in search of a missing wrestler, their antics provoke considerable hostility from the locals. They decide to seek sanctuary - and end up in the Foreign Legion! But after destroying the forces of a villainous sheikh, the boys are given an honourable discharge. Standard A & C farce, which means fun, fast-paced mayhem with some good gags like the fish with the dentures. That's a really funny scene. The mirage sketch is really amusing. It's an entertaining fun entry, which doesn't falter from its routine. It's business as usual and the business is good, plus you get Raven-haired siren, Patricia Medina starring as a spy. What a beauty. Walter Slezak is the duplicitous heel, a role he has done a number of times.

Not much going on in this film that is going to amuse anyone over the age of 8. The gags are very simple and it is obvious that most of the movie was shot in a studio, but still the film retains a silly juvenile charm. The best parts occur when A & C are lost in the desert and Lou is seeing mirages of a malt shop and of an oasis. A great gag occurs when he hallucinates that a newsboy is selling newspapers in the desert. When Lou asks him how he got there, the newsboy answers that he got stuck with a bad corner. The rest of the film has the usual slapstick nonsense and tired old gags about oil Sheiks and harems. On the whole only worth seeing if your brain is stuck in idle (or stupid).

Abbott & Costello play Bud Jones & Lou Hotchkiss, two wrestling promoters who try to track down their wayward Arabian wrestler, who has gone back home to Algiers. Upon arrival, they are tricked by a rival sheik into joining the Foreign Legion, where their lives are threatened, yet many comedic mishaps ensue, including an extended sequence of being lost in the desert, desperate for water, and seeing mirages, including an oasis of fresh water. Or is it a mirage, and will these guys make it out alive? Mediocre film in which the desert mirage sequence is by far the highlight. Otherwise, this is very familiar stuff that just isn't so funny this time around.

Okayish piece of nonsense wherein Bud and Lou are on the case of a wrestler in Algiers. Not their greatest work (or their worst). Some laughs, some groans but hey, did anyone ever have the pathos of poor old Lou? Some funny stuff when the dynamicless duo are lost in the desert. Few cornball gags and some really really crappy production effects. It was obviously shot principally in a studio and it shows! Next please!

You've see it before, because other movies copy a lot of its gags. From the comedy team lost in desert, one short & fat, and one skinny & at times mean, it's like seeing R2D2 and C3PO before they ever existed. Then there's the fight scene in which get chaotic and next thing you know everyone is fighting. And Costello, he's trying to make out with every girl he can. These scenes are very clean, yet suggest that he's up to no good in the best way. If you like watching old movies that get copied over and over then you'll like this one.

This Abbott and Costello movie is pretty good. Abbott and Costello was good as always! It was cool to see William 'Wee Willie' Davis as Abdullah! The film is funny! If you like Abbott and Costello then see Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion!

"Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" never quite manages to approach the level of "brilliant", but at least it manages to stay fairly consistently on the level of "mildly funny". The best bits include the opening sequence (kind of surprising to see a 1950 movie so openly admitting that pro-wrestling is scripted), the mirages in the desert, and the "Oui" - "We" puns (the French lady: "O-U-I means Yes". Lou: "What does I-O-U mean? No?"). And, thankfully, there are no unnecessary songs to bog down the action. I would describe the film as a pleasant time-passer, but there is one troubling aspect: too many people (Legionnaires as well as Arabs) get killed - not graphically, of course, and mostly off-screen, but still....(**1/2)

Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they discover Axmann's collaboration with the nasty Sheik Hamud El Khalid. The plots of the various movies don't really matter one way or the other. What really matters are the gags. I felt like the gags in this one fell a bit short. The centerpiece is a scene concerning a mirage, which never really hit its peak. And the verbal banter that these two are best at is absent, and that is disappointing. The movie does work as sort of a cultural artifact about what Americans (or Hollywood) thought of the Middle East in 1950. While not outright offensive in any way, some of it seems surprisingly ignorant. But then again, I could probably argue that the situation has not improved in the last 60 years.

Not bad at all in my opinion. Two wrestler promoters with scripts for the match (gee I guess they are rigged, maybe?) are trying to set up a fake match between two wrestlers, one of which is an Arab who belongs to a rather aggressive tribe. For whatever reason he decides to go back to Africa. Bud and Lou must go after him or die. Looking for him ends up with both of them in the French Foreign Legion through the machinations of a corrupt Legion sergeant who is working with the rebel tribe. There is a French intelligence agent who is trying to dig up evidence about the rebels. Man is she cute. Anyway the movie runs through the standard Abbott and Costello routines with a couple of variations. There is the fish scene at the oasis and the harem scene at the end of the the movie. This is another funny movie by the duo.