By Steven Suskin
The boys had joined together in 1935, working in burlesque at the Eltinge on 42nd Street. By 1939 they had moved to the Shubert, in the revue The Streets of Paris. That's where Carmen Miranda, who had little to do with Paris, attained stardom with "South American Way." Bud and Lou weren't exactly Parisian either, but this was a Shubert revue so it didn't matter. The newly-minted Broadway stars were immediately snapped up by Hollywood, where they became top box office for ten years. (In 1942, we are told, they were the number one box office attraction.) Their careers more or less collapsed in 1952, hence "The Abbott and Costello Show." The complete series has now been issued in a nine-DVD set from E1 home video. All sorts of extras, too — Lou Costello home movies, anyone? — and a 44-page booklet. Who's on first, anyway?
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We would not be covering such things as The Tooth Fairy [Fox] in this column were it not for the presence of Julie Andrews, here playing the head fairy who drafts a not-very-nice professional hockey player (Dwayne Johnson) and turns him into a tooth fairy, complete with tutu. It's all very realistic, as you can imagine. Anyway he turns into a nice fellow, as is the custom in this sort of film; my kids loved it; and these films do help keep Julie Andrews working, even if she's relegated to offering class to projects with wrestlers-turned-actors playing tooth fairies in tutus.
25 Apr 2010
Back in the days when "I Love Lucy" was just going on the air — and before "The Honeymooners" first honeymooned — burlesque comics Bud Abbott and Lou Costello starred in their own ragtag sitcom, The Abbott and Costello Show [E1 Video]. They filmed 52 episodes over two seasons, starting back in 1952. Even as a child, you might well have realized these shows weren't too good; they were basically a variation on a very simple theme. Still they were slapstick, marginally more cultured than The Three Stooges, and a way to kill a little time in those days when you didn't have more than six or seven television channels, no cable, no Gameboy, no iPod, etc.
THE DVD SHELF: "The Fugitive Kind," "Cocoon," Julie Andrews and More
(Steven Suskin is author of the recently released Updated and Expanded Fourth Edition of "Show Tunes" as well as "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations," "Second Act Trouble" and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com.)
