BUCK PRIVATES

We first see Bud and Lou in civilian clothes standing on a street corner peddling neck-ties without a license. A cop appears and puts them on the run. This is a set-up for the kind of Abbott and Costello movie we want to see, though Buck Privates was their first starring feature and it was still uncertain how they would fair in the movies. But we know now not to get too cozy with our excitement for this promising opening because Buck Privates will take the boys off the street and as peacetime recruits in an army training camp. Pure undistilled slapstick, which Abbott and Costello resurrected with some modifications as Laurel and Hardy faded, is here confined to service life knockabout.

            For some comedians, notably The Three Stooges (Half Shot Shooters, Boobs in Arms, They Stooge to Conga, Back from the Front, Higher Than a Kite, Dizzy Pilots, The Yoke’s on Me, No Dough Boys, and G.I. Wanna Home) and even some cartoon stars like Donald Duck (in some of Disney’s funniest such as Donald Gets Drafted, The Vanishing Private, Sky Trooper, Fall Out Fall In, and The Old Army Game), Pluto in two of the pup’s best (Private Pluto and The Army Mascot), and M-G-M’s Barney Bear (The Rookie Bear, an admittedly lackluster cartoon that, atleast, begins and ends where we wanted it to stay, in the bear’s home in the Great North Woods), life in uniform provided a fun variation of old gags, but expanded to features, even relatively short ones like Buck Privates, the limited possibilities of army comedy become clear.

            Abbott and Costello were a rising team, however, and even old gags typical of this movie sort (off-beat march and clumsy handling of weaponry) seem rejuvenated here in comparison to Laurel and Hardy’s lugubrious Great Guns, also from 1941 and sharing similarities in plot. WWI spoofs had done some good things for Stan and Ollie in their heyday. With Love and Hisses, an early silent short and parody of the big parades that sent the boys off to war, helped establish their trademarks and hokum in the battlefield provided the first half of Pack Up Your Troubles with vigorous hokum. By the time the noises of WWII became loud in America Laurel and Hardy were all but done while Bud and Lou were moving from radio to screen.

            Fortunately, much of their material here, especially in the first half of the film, has the kind of vitality that was beginning disappear from slapstick. As obvious and limited as many of the gags are, the boys were new enough to make them funny.

            Not surprisingly, the best moments in Buck Privates have little to do with army life, using the camp merely as a backdrop. They could have been used in any of their films and often were. Bud hustling Lou for a loan of $50, which ends up with Lou owing Bud money, is a vintage verbal con game and Abbott fidgeting with a radiator Costello is sitting on to manipulate his weight for his physical examination is a delight. Even a craps game on their way to camp takes an unusual spin. Costello gets the better of Abbott, but not through his wits.

            Even when Buck Privates makes use of life in an army camp as a stage, there are some jovial gags. When they do work, credit is due to Nat Pendleton, the hulking Olympic star turned actor who here makes a fine burly drill sergeant. The boys first met the sergeant when he was working as the cop who put them on the run in the first place. The sergeant’s original gripe was with both of the boys, but once in the camp he develops a particular animosity toward Costello. His patience is tested to the most amusing results during a routine involving the switching off and on of the tent radio, a conflict which Bud uses to amuse himself at the expense of his unwitting chum. But Pendleton brings more sense of humor to the bullying sergeant and in the end, when he cleans the boys out after a game of dice, the natural looking smile on his face indicates how much fun he had playing opposite the boys.

             Because every comedian had to do one, there is an unbalanced boxing match. As expected, Costello enters the ring against a brute from a rival company. It’s not as fanciful as Chaplin’s in City Lights but more imaginative than Laurel and Hardy’s in Any Old Port. There are plenty of good trick gags, but the key is in the build up. At first, Costello sees a puny fighter step up. Thinking this will be his opponent he gets a boost of confidence and brags to his comrades. Meanwhile, the real contestant, a big hairy lug, takes over and we see this exchange before Costello does, anticipating not only the carnage to come but the unforgettable look on Costello’s face.

            Curiously, the most memorable moment is Costello’s little song and dance about harsh army life. It’s a jovial amusing tune featuring Shemp Howard as a crabby camp cook. In Buck Privates, this moment fits like a ruby.

            Of course, the music here belongs to the Andrews Sisters, who would go on to star with Abbott and Costello in In the Navy and Hold That Ghost, both from 1941. For the most part, they jump up the soundtrack with a boogie beat and bring their most famous tune Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy to life. Apple Blossom Time in an artsy Disney sort of way, no surprise they would sing the stories of Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet for Make Mine Music and Little Toot for Melody Time. But the motivation behind their inclusion dampens the picture. Although the attack on Pearl Harbor was months away, the rumble of WWII was beginning to make American cinema quiver. Chaplin took notice the previous year and responded with The Great Dictator. Buck Privates wasn’t so much a national moral booster as a salute to Roosevelt’s 1940 peacetime draft. There is nothing intricately wrong with songs like “You’re a Lucky Fellow Mr. Smith” and talks about the good years in the service do, except that the propagandistic feel mars the comedy.

            The love story involving two soldiers fighting for the same hostess is no worse than the sappy fluff polluting earlier comedies. It’s less simplistic to be sure. An extra angel is present in the romantic triangle. One of the soldiers (Lee Bowman) is a conceited playboy benefiting from his father’s power in Washington. He enlists reluctantly with the hope that his father can pull some strings and get him out of his duty. His attraction to the young hostess (Jane Frazee) would have been enough; the conflict with the dull draftee (Alan Curtis) adds nothing.

            Their rivalry takes over the ending, however, making for a joyless ending. The romantic rivals are forced into a partnership when competing against another company in a mock battle. Make no mistake, the last half of Buck Privates, which intensifies more than a slapstick comedy ever should, belongs to the supporting cast and has virtually nothing to do with Abbott and Costello. Sure, there are some sight gags (Costello is blown away to the top of a tree) but, more than anything, the dismal conclusion leaves us wanting us to get past In the Navy and Buck Privates Come Home and into the glorious world of Abbott and Costello’s monster mashes.