Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff ** (1949, Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff) – Classic Movie Review 5589

Director Charles T Barton’s 1955 comedy is a less lively Bud Abbott and Lou Costello movie series episode, with good support actors, a rather unexpected plot and few decent jokes.

In this follow-up to the Universal monsters parody Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Bud Abbott (aged 54) plays a house detective called Casey Edwards and Costello (aged 43) plays a goofy bellboy (or bellhop) named Freddie Phillips in a secluded hotel called Lost Caverns, where they try to solve a murder, whose number one suspect is the bellboy.

There are plenty of possibilities for lively fun here, but, thank to a lack of fresh inspiration in the writing, it is a bumpy comedy whodunit, in which the funniest thing is Boris Karloff playing a fake swami with a turban, Swami Talpur, who tries to hypnotise Freddie (Costello) into into confessing to the murder and bumping himself off.

[Spoiler alert} Swami can’t work his evil wiles because Freddie is an idiot. So instead, Inspector Wellman, played by James Flavin, uses Freddie to trap the killer. The film’s title lies, by the way, but at least uniquely it gets Boris Karloff’s name in there on it. It is so far the only Hollywood film with three actors’ names in the title.

Karloff followed the game plan of accepting all the work that came his way, whatever it was, and thus always kept in work and in demand. But there was one exception – he chucked in doing his most famous role the Frankenstein Monster, and Glenn Strange took over for House of Frankenstein (1944), House of Dracula (1945) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Also in the cast are Gar Moore, Lenore Aubert, Alan Mowbray, Donna Martell, Roland Winters, Nicholas Joy, Mikel Conrad, Morgan Farley, Victoria Horne, Percy Helton, and Claire Du Brey.

It is written by Hugh Wedlock Jr, Howard Snyder and John Grant.

Karloff returned for Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1953 and Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) followed.

The script Easy Does It was intended for Bob Hope, but Universal got it rewritten for Abbott and Costello as Abbott and Costello Meet the Killers after their Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) was a hit. Karloff’s swami role was written as a female character named Madame Switzer but five days before shooting, Karloff was hired, the character was changed to Swami Talpur and his name was in the title to attract more movie goers.

The scene where corpses play cards caused it to be banned in Denmark.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5589

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