User reviews

Since this independent Abbott & Costello comedy wasn't produced by Universal or MGM it comes off less slick than some of their other films, yet still emerges as pretty funny and is worth a look for fans of the team. Bud and Lou are joined by sometime-Stooges Shemp Howard and Joe Besser, and also lovely Hillary Brooke, who would later join them for their regular weekly television show.

Brooke is a crime boss looking for a certain map that's in A&C's possession, so she and the boys (including Shemp and Joe) journey to the jungles of darkest Africa to search for what the men think is a rare type of orangutan gargantua gorilla (or some sort of nonsense); but actually, Hillary's only hunting for a secret treasure trove of precious diamonds. When Abbott finds out what's really going on, he becomes quite the self-centered businessman and is really funny and more mean than usual (which always works for me in these comedies).

Some jokes include Costello getting locked in a cage with a lion, the humorous "I Lost My Pal" routine, and Lou tangling with cannibals. Real-life lion tamer/big game hunters Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty are also on hand to do their stuff if you go for that sort of thing. **1/2 out of ****

Hi, Everyone, I have a theory that any movie scene will get better if you put a gorilla into the mix. It works better if the gorilla is big.

There is a reason to spend the one dollar you might have to cough up for this film. There is a Crosley in the movie. Most people have never seen a Crosley. Most people do not know what a Crosley is. The Crosley was a small somewhat popular car that was built shortly after World War 2 (by a refrigerator manufacturer). If you watch this movie until the end you will see Lou getting out of a Crosley station wagon.

This is also a pleasant romp through the wild jungle with Bud and Lou and some ex champion boxers, famous wild animal tamers, one pretty girl and a couple of stooges. The scenes with Clyde Beatty and his lions are obviously real. He was an actual lion tamer. The scene with Lou in the cage with the lion looks very real even though it had to be a blue screen or matte job.

One oddity I noticed here was that Lou Costello is playing the part of Stanley Livington (no "s"). First name Stan and last initial "L." I wonder if that was a tribute to Stan Laurel? The gorilla is very well played. The gorilla suits used in many of the movies of the 1940s and 50s looked much better than the Chew Baca and other more modern gorillas.

Worth a look.

Tom Willett

Wow! The usually frumpy Costello looks positively dapper in his snazzy salesman's suit at movie's start. Superior A&C comedy with good routines, productive premise, and unusual cast. The boys get to chase around the wilds of a Hollywood sound stage pretending (not very hard) to be adventuring in darkest Africa. Of course, Lou gets to do his slow-to-catch- on routine as crocodiles, gorillas, and other assorted man-eating critters nuzzle up in humorously menacing fashion. I love it, though, when that savage-looking kitten scares the be-Jesus out of him in a downtown department store, no less.

And whose great idea was it to load up the cast with some real characters. Take the giant Baer brothers, Max and Buddy, for example. Together they look like they could tear down the Empire State building without a wreaking ball. Not exactly, your usual movie types, and when they start scuffling, you can almost feel the ground shake. Then too, what an inspiration to stick coke-bottle glasses on Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame and turn him into a nearly blind big-game hunter! So, better hide the house pets. But I really am curious how little, fat comedian Joe Besser snuck on set when the movie already had a little, fat comedian who's a lot funnier. Add real life adventurers Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck, along with the always regal Hillary Brooke who glitters, as usual, but never gets in on the fun, and it all adds up to a lively and entertaining bunch of characters.

Perhaps best of all, A&C are still looking fresh in their roles, and if some of the routines wheeze a bit, the boys are still able to give them the needed lift, something they did not do in the last few years before the final 1956 break-up. Sure, this kind of nonsense is not everyone's cup of tea. But I defy even the sourest sour-puss not to surrender a few chuckles as the boys bumble along Africa-style.

"Africa Screams" was Abbott and Costello's independent production for 1949, filmed at Nassour Studios. A&C are booksellers who find themselves on an African expedition; the leader of the expedition (lovely Hillary Brooke) is after diamonds. Hilarity ensues as A&C dodge lions and gorillas; Will A&C get their share of the diamonds?

"Africa Screams" boasts one of the finest supporting casts A&C worked with. In addition to Hillary Brooke (who later co-starred on their TV show), the movie is aided greatly by the appearances of legendary funnymen Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. An air of authenticity is given with the appearances of Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty. The tough-guy roles are nicely handled by boxers Max and Buddy Baer.

Bud is given more to do in this film, and he shines - he shows again that he would have made a wonderful character actor. He stands up to Hillary Brooke and her goons, and cuts deals for himself. Although he takes advantage of Lou once again, I can report that Bud does get his in the end! (How, I won't reveal. Watch for yourself and see.)

What prevents me from giving this film a higher rating than "6" are the low-budget sets at Nassour. Bud and Lou never had a big-budget film at Universal, but this film looks paltry by comparison. What also hampers the enjoyment of the film is the fact that it appears to still be in public domain; low-grade, scratchy prints are usually what can be found in the bargain section of the video store. All in all, though, a fun film. 6 out of 10.

I am a big fan of Abbott & Costello. Out of all their movies they only made a couple of duds. "Africa Screams" is not one of them. But it does not belong in their Top 10 either. It is fast moving and mostly funny. It has very little down time. "AS" does not have any musical numbers which is a welcome change of pace for an A&C move. It also features two of the Three Stooges (Shemp Howard and Joe Besser). As you would suspect, they're both funny in this movie. For years I was down on this movie because it was only available on crappy out-of-copyright VHS tapes. There was never any joy watching those tapes. However, my DVD of "Africa Screams" looks great and is a fun watch.

Understand, I like Abbott and Costello films. Their two top films (...Meet Frankenstein and The Time of Their Lives) are comedic classics. This, alas, is a minor effort, though other movie comics appear in it.

Possible spoilers in the following.

The film takes a simple story and adds some comedic routines that could be applied to any equivalent film. Costello reacting to animal 'menaces" is usually good, and he's at prime form in this film. However, even in the most comedic situations, I'd have thought that even Lou's character would have noticed all the help he was getting from the gorilla.

In the beginning of the film, the cover story is that an expedition is set up to go to Africa to hunt a legendary ape, Orang-Utan Gigantis. That translates to "great big Orang-Utan." But Orang-Utans aren't found in Africa! The chief of the cannibals mumbles some words, one of which is "ungawa," a Swahili word that means either "beat it," or "let's get moving," depending on context, but which is used as color in this one, having nothing to do with either meaning.

Amusing, but not their top form.

While this isn't the best of the famous comedy duo's films (I personally think that A&C Meet Frankenstein has that honor), this is a decent comedy for fans of the pair. They manage to wring a few laughs out of a jungle theme that I personally feel was overused in films at that time. The actor who makes the film for me, however, is that wonderful "unknown" stooge, Shemp Howard, in a humorous supporting role.

If one can ignore the racism of the scenes set in Africa, or at least accept that this was a staple of Hollywood at the time, and can't be changed, then there's a lot to enjoy in "Africa Screams." It's not Abbott and Costello's best film, but it is one of their better later ones, with Lou contributing a very energetic performance, which can't always be said of post-"A&C Meet Frankenstein" films from the team. There isn't really a story here, just a premise, in which Abbott and Costello are drawn into a shady African expedition because the person in charge, played by Hillary Brooke, thinks Costello has memorized a map from a book that will lead her to a diamond mine. The transition from New York to Africa and back again is done in the finest "Well, here we are on the moon!" style employed in radio comedy shows, and of course, the jungle sets are patently phony, but it hardly matters. This is really a burlesque show without the strippers, careening from one barely-related, but often very funny, routine to another. The Baer brothers, Max and Buddy, are the heavies (Lon Chaney, Jr., must have been busy that month) and Stooges Shemp Howard and Joe Besser act as something of a secondary team, with Shemp playing a visually-impaired thug while Joe, doing his usual sissy routine, is forced to act as his guide-dog. Animal trainers Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck are there, too, because...well because they could be. There is one funny scene of Beatty doing his lion taming act while Costello, who is also trapped in the cage, desperately crawls around underneath a wicker stand trying to escape. There are also people in gorilla suits, rubber crocodiles, and those unfortunate bone-in-the-nose cannibals, one of whom oddly sports a skipper's hat. A&C's best director, Charles Barton, keeps everything moving to an absurd end, but the point is not to take any of this seriously.

I've always been a fan of Abbott and Costello. The first time I saw this movie it became my instant favorite. Why? Lots of reasons ... The plot is fun, its put together well, it flows, it has the type of humor you'd expect from this duo, the sets work, the sound is good, the continuity is OK, but most importantly ... The REAL reason its my favorite Abbott and Costello flick ... TA DA! The CAST! Aside from Bud and Lou: Clyde Beatty! Geeze, a childhood hero of mine! Frank Buck! OMG, another one! Brothers Max and Buddy Baer, two of my favorites in whatever they did. Wait a minute, is that? YES! Shemp Howard! Wait yet again! Joe Besser? Yes again! Two of the six Three Stooges! And behind the camera, over there and off to the side, never seen but heard by extension, its Norman Abbott. Bud's Nephew and the dialog director for this flick. Norman Abbott is worth a little study of his own, having had one heck of a career! ALL of this, and its funny too!

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello search for diamonds in Africa, along the way meeting a visually-impaired gunner, a hungry lion, and a tribe of cannibals...

I love the baby lion and the grown lion later on. Maybe they were not treated well by the studio (that seems to be common) but it made this all the better. Sure, the gorilla suit and snapping crocodiles are nice, but it is hard to beat a living animal -- lions!

This is slightly less witty than their other work, the films with Universal. Some of the cracks are amusing, but it does not seem to be on the same level as "meet Frankenstein" or "meet the Killer". Is this because of the studio or the writing? I have no idea. Fans should still see it... besides, it has Shemp Howard!

So it goes. There's always going to be that inevitable time when a person just runs out of ideas, and this film seems to be that moment for Abbott & Costello. The whole of this film seems to me, just a bunch of their old routines and gags run together in order to fill up the running time of a feature film. This is why it's so very difficult, even for veterans like A&C, to keep a film moving, especially at feature length. Difficult for the writers first of all, to keep a story together and include comedic bits without it all seeming to be just a patch quilt of non-related ideas. They all went through this at one time or another, i.e. Chaplin, Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, etc. That isn't to say that this is a totally bad film, just parts of it. The giant "kong like" ape that's being searched for, for instance, is just too much. Good comedy exaggerates the realistic but never should it traverse into the "Twilight Zone" just for effect. Something that's interesting about this film is that there appears a current "Stooge" with a future "stooge", namely Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. Joe Besser was not, in my opinion "stooge material" but here with A&C and Shemp, he's an actual riot. Ironic. This is certainly not one of the better A&C films but worth watching, maybe as a double feature with "A&C Meet Frankenstein".

This is a generally enjoyable Abbott and Costello comedy, with a light and often silly feel that nevertheless works well enough. Hillary Brooke adds an elegant presence as their antagonist, and the story makes relatively good use of its comic possibilities.

The plot has the kind of deliberately implausible setup that Bud and Lou usually handled well, as their two characters become part of an African expedition led by the scheming Brooke. Once there, there are plenty of lions and other beasts that get tangled up with the characters. Frank Buck and Clyde Beatty also appear as themselves, although they are mostly only incidental to the story.

Brooke and the Baer brothers, as her henchmen, make their end of things work well, and there are also some good moments from Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. Not all of the comedy ideas are of the same quality, but most of it works well enough as long as you don't take it too seriously.

Of all the Abbot and Costello films, Africa Screams has always been one of my favorites. With the added supporting help of soon to be stooges Joe Besser and Shemp Howard, the laughs are fast and furious. The main problem is that the movie, for some inexplicable reason, fell into the public domain. The good part is there is no lack of exposure for this film. The bad part is the versions that make it to DVD are simply horrible transfers. I think it is a terrible shame that so many classic comedies, like Afirca Screams, Morgy and Shoo in Chatanooga Shoo Shoo and The Stooges handful of short subjects like Disorder in the Court, Malice in the Palice, etc seem to get short-changed because some suit in the copyright-renewal office fell asleep at the wheel. I hope Africa Screams someday gets the remastered restoration it deserves.

"Africa Screams" (Nassour Studios, released through United Artists, 1949), directed by Charles Barton, is a better than average Abbott and Costello comedy which places the popular team in one of their rare independent productions outside their home base of Universal Pictures. With military themes, ghost stories, college musicals, westerns, murder mysteries and everything else imaginable behind them, it would be a matter of time before Bud and Lou attempted a jungle comedy. The original screenplay by Earl Baldwin doesn't have Bud and Lou meeting Tarzan, Jungle Jim, Bomba the Jungle Boy, King Kong or The African Queen, but do team up with notable animal trainer, Clyde Beatty, and animal hunter, Frank Buck, in guest starring roles playing themselves.

The story revolves around a couple of store clerks in the book section at Klopper's Department Store. Stanley Livington (Lou Costello), is approached at the counter by Grappler McCoy (Max Baer) and Boots Wilson (Buddy Baer), a couple of tough looking thugs inquiring about an out of print book, "Dark Safari" by Cuddleford, a notable explorer. The men, who are more interested in the map enclosed in the book, find that Stanley can reproduce the map by memory. They offer him $1,000 with the reproduction at their address later that night. At the same time, Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) inquires about the same book to Stanley's friend and partner, Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott). Knowing Stanley to be more familiar with the book than he, offers his services at her asking price of $2,500, arranging their meeting at her home later that evening. Upon their arrival, Buzz introduces Stanley to Diane as the world's greatest explorer who accompanied Cuddleford on an African expedition, never revealing Stanley has a phobia towards animals. Stanley also gets to meet Diane's present guest, Clyde Beatty, who's hired to lead the safari in search for an orangutan gargantuan (while in actuality seeking for uncut diamonds depicted on the map of the book) . Overhearing Diane offering Beatty $2,000 for the expedition, finding he could obtain more money than offered, convinces Diane to take he and Buzz on the expedition as well, which she does, at the price of the drawn map by Stanley. Once in the jungles of Africa, with the safari crew with Diane's henchmen; Harry (Joe Besser), her cook and butler; Gunner (Shemp Howard), an extremely near-sited sharpshooter as their protector (!); Buzz and Stanley soon realizes their lives are in greater danger with Diane and her thugs than coming face to face with lions, crocodiles, a giant gorilla, and cannibal tribe from the Ubangi territory as Stanley's map turns out not to be quite the one depicted from the book in question.

Although its title "Africa Screams" is reportedly depicted from a 1930 documentary,"Africa Speaks," a product made so long ago for 1949 audiences not to even recall, is, what it appears, to be a parody to the Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour "Road to" series of the 1940s, especially the jungle African ventures of ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941) and ROAD TO MOROCCO (1942). In fact, with Bud, Lou and Hillary Brooks doing a Crosby, Hope and Lamour take, minus the song and dance interludes and Hollywood in-jokes, who could ask for anything more when it comes to certain gags and situations that could be just as fun to see with either Hope or Costello clowning in their own individual comedic style.

Overlooking the aforementioned ROAD series format, "Africa Screams" is pure 79 minute comedy in the best Abbott and Costello tradition. Aside from Costello's frightful expressions and reactions, he naturally gets the biggest laughs here, especially with his shared sequences with other famed comics as Shemp Howard and Joe Besser (individually part of the Three Stooges comedy team at one point in their careers). Interestingly, both Besser and Hillary Brooke would become semi-regulars on their two-season television series of "The Abbott and Costello Show" (1952-53). Best moments for Costello occur when trying to impress Diane by doing a Clyde Beatty by locking himself inside a cage with a real lion who turns out not to be Buzz in lion costume; unknowingly swimming with a crocodile; and frightful reaction when approached by a giant gorilla, among others.As Costello gets the last laugh, it's his partner Abbott who, in state of confusion, who responds, "I just don't understand it." The audience does. Watch for it.

With well thought out gags and some unexpected surprises, it's a wonder why "Africa Screams" has become the least known of all of their comedies combined. Once shown on New York City television (1956-1961) before disappearing from view, "Africa Screams" never became part of New York's television package of Abbott and Costello comedies (1940-1956) commonly shown Sunday morning/afternoons on WPIX, Channel 11 (1971-89). Falling into public domain with some poor reproductive copies, "Africa Screams" resurfaced on television after a long hiatus on cable, public television and independent stations as well as the early stages of home video in the early 1980s. In later years, "Africa Screams" turned up on DVD, and on cable TV's Turner Classic Movies starting in 2006. With availability readily accessible in recent years, "Africa Screams" should be an interesting rediscovery and real treat for anyone familiar with every Abbott and Costello movie ever made but unaware of the existence of this one. Availability in colorized format is quite good. (***)

I got this movie about 10 years ago along with Jack and the Beanstalk on the same VHS. To me, this is the worse of the two.

Best Scene: The lion cage...

I give it 4 out of 10.

Africa Screams, one of the least seen of Abbott&Costello's films was an independent production that was released through United Artists. The thin plot has Hillary Brooke believing Costello has the map to a hidden territory that is rich with diamonds. Bud and Lou go to Africa at her behest with her two companions, the fighting Baer Brothers. Of course the payoff she has in mind is different than the one boys are expecting.

Not that Universal studios exactly invested Abbott&Costello's films with much in the way of productions values, but this one is really really bad in that department. What budget they had they must have spent on getting both Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck to do guest appearances playing themselves.

On the plus side the boys do have some amusing moments, especially Costello in the cage with one of Clyde Beatty's lions which he thinks is just Abbott in a lion costume. Joe Besser and Shemp Howard also provide for some additional laughs.

My favorite moment in the film however is with the Baer brothers, Max and Buddy, both of them having fought Joe Louis and coming out on the short end, in Buddy's case twice, falling out and starting to fight as Max says he'll hit Buddy harder than Joe Louis ever did.

The film could have been a lot better, the boys are fine, but the production values give the film a look like something Ed Wood might have created.

This Abbott and Costello movie is decent. The duo is always great! The Baer brothers were good! What really makes this film interesting is the fact that two members of the legendary Three Stooges, (who were not with each other at the time mind you) Shemp Howard and Joe Besser are in the movie together! Joe has bigger part than Shemp does and I was disappointed about this because Shemp was an incredibly talented individual! The music was very good! Africa Screams is funny film and if you wanted to see Abbott and Costello meet two of the Stooges & and to see how they are in Africa then see Africa Screams!