Friday, August 23, 2013

The Ferocious Kitty


 Poor Lou, wait till he sees the lions and gorillas he will be up against in the jungle when he and Abbott take a trek to the dark continent in "Africa Screams"! ( 1949 ).

4 comments:

  1. Shemp Howard is in this as well. And this was after Shemp re-joined the Stooges. I've read that Moe was jealous of A&C because he thought they were stealing the Stooges' routines...I wonder how Moe felt about Shemp appearing in this film.

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  2. Now that's interesting. I can't say that Abbott & Costello's routines resemble the Stooges all that much..unless he was counting the face-slapping, you're-an-idiot schtick. But we'd say that's pretty much public domain material. After all, everybody treats their favorite schmo that way once in awhile. Shemp is the only one of the Stooges that could really make a stand-out appearance in a film independently from the other two, no doubt because of that handsome face of his.

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  3. Moe believed that Lou swiped a lot from brother Curly: notably, the overgrown patsy persona that frequently becomes child-like (a lot of Lou's squeals of frustration are similar to Curly's). But Bud & Lou had been doing that since burlesque and vaudeville, though...I think what Moe was really envious about was that Abbott & Costello were doing a similar kind of lowbrow, knockabout humor (though Bud & Lou differed greatly from the Stooges in that many of their routines involved wordplay) in feature films and making big money while Moe, Larry and Curly were getting peanuts for those two-reel comedies.

    Shemp's no stranger to Abbott & Costello movies, though -- he's also in Buck Privates, In the Navy, Hold That Ghost and It Ain't Hay. I have a feeling Shemp's presence in this one can be explained that he just liked working with the duo. Interestingly, his replacement in the Stooges -- Joe Besser -- is also in the cast ("My tent is on fire!").

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    Replies
    1. You are right Ivan, I had forgotten how many appearances Shemp had made in the A&C pics. He had a great little spot in "Hold That Ghost" as the soda jerk serving Richard Carlson "fresh-squeezed" orange juice.

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