ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS

One Night in the Tropics was a trial run for the boys after success in theater. Throughout the brisk running time, Universal kept them on the side, so if their vaudeville routines didn’t translate well to film, the picture still wouldn’t be a total loss. Bud and Lou are marginally involved in the story but their routines (most of them ported over from the stage) exist in blocks of their own. This was much the same treatment Laurel & Hardy got at M-G-M when they were used as guest stars in the long-lost The Rogue Song.

            Surprisingly, One Night in the Tropics turned out funnier and brighter than the bulk of Abbott and Costello’s work. Ironically, this was in part due precisely to the very design of the picture. Universal’s investment was in the songs and the love story, not Bud and Lou, and so treated its chief assets with care, nurturing the material into an agreeable screwball comedy of mix-ups.

            Two socialites (Allan Jones and Robert Cummings) chase two girls to San Marcos, a fictional nation in South America. Incidentally, Woody Allen would name his own imaginary Latin American country San Marco in Bananas, suggesting that Abbott and Costello’s legacy may reach farther than is often acknowledged. Cummings loves a Park Avenue girl named Cynthia (Nancy Kelly) but his engagement to her is put in jeopardy when an old flame by the name of Mickey (Peggy Moran), shows up and forces Cummings into an adulterous act to chase off Cynthia.

            Cummings’s pal Lucky (Jones), a slick insurance salesman, cheers up his heartbroken buddy with a unique policy. If Cynthia doesn’t marry him by that Saturday, Cummings will collect $1 million. Jones has a lot invested in their marriage as does Roscoe (William Frawley), a burly nightclub owner of dubious ethics who underwrites the policy. Misunderstandings and a race against time lead them all on a boat bound for the South Seas where complications thicken as Jones develops a soft spot for Cynthia, though the movie never does make clear why Cummings should marry Mickey. Of course, the movie throws in the dashing toreador who comes into this romantic web like Romero in The Sun Also Rises.

            Jerome Kern’s songs (which weren’t even written for this picture but for a shelved 30s musical) do the movie no favors, except for the lively “Farandola”, a Latin dance sung like a Bohemian opera at the climax. Production values consisted of standard stock footage (this time of bullfights) and projected backdrops, but they are elaborate enough to give the film’s look a personality of its own.

 But what makes One Night in the Tropics sail is that the screwball isn’t complicated to the point of contrivance. Thanks to the added care given to the writing, even the leads have fun. Notably, Jones is far removed from the stiff he appeared playing opposite the Marx Brothers. Peggy Moran has the thankless role of the rough other girl, but holds her own against the comedians with endearing sass. Frawley plays the burly kingpin with a delightful growl. Maybe it’s because of his reputation as a boorish man to work with, but we take him seriously when he muscles the wedding ceremony through with a gun.

            As Frawley’s henchmen Bud and Lou fit into all of this only loosely but their material is in no way treated as an off-the-cuff sideshow attraction. Much of it is vintage stuff, relying heavily on verbal vaudeville routines. Two typical but funny routines end up with Abbott duping the hapless Costello out of money. The first, set in the seedy club, is amusing but short lived. Then, however, just watch Abbott cheat his pal out of wages. This kind of dishonesty from the wiser half of a comedy team was fairly common, but Bud and Lou’s were distinct in that Costello knew when he was being taken for a ride and often reacted to the fact. But his intellect ends at the realization. Not knowing exactly how he was scammed he resorts to screeching.

            Their rapid fire exchanges don’t work so well in two other sequences, once in which Bud ruins Lou’s joke about Jonah and the whale, ultimately killing the punchline, and their old “all because you don’t like mustard” battle, but Costello’s frustration is a delight even with weaker material.

            Before the boys depart for the tropics they break out into a shortened version of their crowning achievement, the “who’s on first” word battle. Here it doesn’t reach the heat it did in The Naughty Nineties or their television show, but it’s such a beautifully written piece and the boys take to it so naturally under all circumstances that it doesn’t really feel like an abridgement.

            One Night in the Tropics suggests how much of an influence Curly Howard must have been on Lou Costello. Both tubby boys played excitable fellows, given to high-pitched shrieks when they suspected foul play before the straight opposite (Moe to Curly and Abbott to Costello) put them back in their place. Of course, Costello would develop his character further as the team’s stardom grew until their style became so distinct that Universal assigned them to a director, Charles Barton, who got a hang of their technique.

            By the time Abbott and Costello came to the movies the films of their predecessors (Laurel & hardy, the Marx Brothers, etc.) were being padded with musical and romantic interludes for studios to justify the allotted budget and insure box office returns at the cost of gag development. One Night in the Tropics reversed the formula and pushes the comedians to the side. Accidentally on the studio’s part, this works for the better here. One Night in the Tropics is remembered today as the first movie in which Abbott and Costello appeared together, but all around it works like a charm.