Search - The Best of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Vol. 1 on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 2004 DVD Release: 02/10/2004 Format: DVD - Black and White Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 2 Number of Discs: 2 Run Time: 11 hrs 1 mins Studio: Universal Studios Members Wishing: 19 Genres: Comedy, Musical, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Musical Comedy

The third film version of Earl Derr Biggers' novel Love Insurance, One Night in the Tropics stars Allan Jones as a hotshot insurance salesman who sells a policy to his best pal Robert Cummings. Cummings will earn $1 million if he fails to marry his fiance Nancy Kelly. Half of the policy is underwritten by tough gambling-house owner William Frawley, who panics when Cummings heads for a Caribbean isle in pursuit of Peggy Moran. As for Kelly, she wants no part of Cummings once she finds out she's a pawn in his policy. Well, who cares? The real attraction of One Night in the Tropics is the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, here making their feature film debut in the roles of Frawley's flunkeys. Though they never get in the way of the plot (worse luck!), Abbott and Costello have plenty of time to perform several of their best routines, including "Mustard," "Jonah and the Whale," and a tantalizingly brief excerpt of "Who's on First?" Outside of A&C's contributions, the film boasts several pleasant if forgettable tunes by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields. Though not a big box-office success, One Night in the Tropics garnered such positive reviews for Abbott and Costello that the team was rewarded with its own vehicle, the 1941 cash cow Buck Privates. Note: many TV prints of Tropics are struck from the 69-minute reissue of the late 1940s, in which the "straight" plot was pared to down to give more emphasis to Abbott and Costello. The original 82 minute version was recently restored for videocassette release. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Bud Abbott - Abbott
Allan Jones - Jim Moore
Nancy Kelly - Cynthia
Lou Costello - Costello
Robert Cummings - Steve Harper

The films of Abbott and Costello have undergone a major upgrade for the first time in decades on =The Best of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Vol. 1. A handful of their movies, including Buck Privates and In the Navy, were previously available early in the DVD era from Image Entertainment as direct conversions of their old laserdisc masters, with the same dirt, occasional missing frames, bad splices, and other flaws that prevailed on the laser editions. (Just to show how much DVD consumer economics have changed since 1999, at that time the Image edition of Buck Privates by itself cost as much as this set of eight movies.)

This two-disc set contains the eight feature films that Abbott and Costello made in their first two years in Hollywood: One Night in the Tropics (1940), Buck Privates (1941), In the Navy (1941), Hold That Ghost (1941), Keep 'em Flying (1941), Ride 'em Cowboy (1942), Pardon My Sarong (1942), and Who Done It? (1942). The movies that overlap with the earlier Image discs have all been transferred anew from distinctly cleaner, sharper sources, although there are still small flaws, such as a hair visible on the lower-left-hand corner of the screen in the opening credits for Hold That Ghost, which otherwise looks beautiful. The full-frame (1.33:1) transfers are as sharp as the technology will allow, at the practical limits of resolution so that they shimmer on shots of striped garments. Each movie has been given a detailed production and release history, and all but one (Pardon My Sarong) come with trailers (principally reissue trailers from Realart), which are usually a little on the scratchy side. One surprise, however, is the trailer for Keep 'em Flying, which was prepared in conjunction with a government-sponsored "Keep 'em Flying Week" intended to attract volunteers, and which runs a full nine minutes. Each film looks as good as has likely been seen over the past 40 years, be it in broadcast, on laserdisc, or theater screens. All come with 18 chapters (except for Buck Privates, which gets 19) and optional French and Spanish subtitles and English captions, and all four disc sides open automatically to a menu that goes three layers deep. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide