Comin' Round the Mountain

Having just watched Stan Laurel go to a haunted house in order to get his inheritance in The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, I then felt the need to see Lou Costello also try to get his share in Comin' Round the Mountain. Here, he finds out he's a descendant of "Squeezebox" McCoy and a cousin to singer Dorothy McCoy (Dorothy Shay). Their agent Al (Bud Abbott) agrees to go with them to Dorothy's homestead where we meet her hillbilly family. During this period, Bud & Lou's studio, Universal-International, was also making money with a series of Ma and Pa Kettle movies which also had that down home humor represented here. So, yes, we get treated to a shooting contest, a man's engagement to a young teen girl, and a family feud. As stereotypical as some of the characters are, they seem harmless enough. Among the supporting cast, Joe Sawyer-previously in The Naughty Nineties with A & C-provides some amusement, Glenn Strange-who was the Frankenstein monster in A & C Meet Frankenstein-gets some laughs every time he shouts Costello's character's name "Wilbert!", and Margaret Hamilton-best known as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz-is hilarious every time she and Lou stick pins in each other's voodoo dolls! Oh, and I also liked seeing Lou's brother-in-law Joe Kirk as a hot dog vendor at the county fair trying to sell Costello a hot dog. If you remember Bud & Lou's "Mustard" routine in One Night in the Tropics, you'll get some of Lou's reactions concerning hot dogs and mustard! This was another funny A & C flick especially the surprise ending. So that's a recommendation of Comin' Round the Mountain. So now my next review will be the silent Laurel & Hardy short From Soup to Nuts.

Comin' Round the Mountain (1951)

** (out of 4)

Wilbert Smith (Lou Costello) meets a female country singer (Dorothy Shay) and soon realizes that he's a long lost relative to a famous redneck in Kentucky who rumor has it has a buried treasure. Their agent Al Stewart (Bud Abbott) decides they should all go back to the sticks to get the money but soon a bloody rivalry starts back up.

Abbott and Costello made several Western spoofs including the highly entertaining THE WISFUL WIDOW OF WAGON GAP but sadly this film isn't in the same league and on the whole it ranks near the bottom of the duo's films. That's not to say this is an awful movie because it isn't. There are several funny moments scattered throughout the film but there's just not enough to keep it fully entertaining and the musical numbers are all rather bland.

In fact, why on Earth would you start your movie off with Shay singing? This was an Abbott and Costello movie yet they open with Shay and then we get the duo doing a small gag before going back to the singer. I'm really not sure if they were just trying to force Shay into some sort of stardom but her songs here are rather lame and, to be honest, the skit from the boys isn't all that funny. There are a few funny moments scattered throughout but the highlight is the math game of a 40-year-old man falling in love with a 10-year-old girl and needing her age to catch up with his.

Both Abbott and Costello are in good form here but I think even they realized that the material wasn't all that great. Shay delivers a decent performance but the songs are forgettable. Joe Sawyer adds some nice support as does Glenn Strange and Margaret Hamilton steals the film in her sequence as a witch. Her and Costello's voodoo match being another highlight of the picture. COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN isn't one of the boy's best pictures but fans will still find a little humor in it.

I'm very suspicious to talk about the duo comic Budd Abbott and Lou Costello, aside they lived in another era, however watching them on the seventies I've been hooked by them forever, including having a small collection from these two fabulous guys, sadly this picture never came out in Brazil in any format.

This turn ours heroes going into the hills track down a buried gold with a right to get a spell to reach nearby of this treasure, funny adventure at hillbillies mountain, as usually my favorite comic one Lou Costello stolen the show, a fine print on dubbed classic version at our friend to every hours Youtube.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 7.

The feud is on between the Wingfields and the McCoys when Bud Abbott discovers his clients, hopeless magician Lou Costello and the Park Avenue hillbilly Dorothy Shay are both McCoys and Costello's inherited concertina holds the secret to a treasure of hidden gold. So off they go to the Appalachins where Costello's arrival sets off the feud that had pretty much died down.

Bud and Lou get themselves a good supporting cast with a group of players used to rustic roles. I'm wondering how the folks at Universal missed getting Judy Canova and Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride in this film. Lou's best scene involves him haggling with a hag played by Margaret Hamilton in her wicked witch makeup over some love potion with each making a voodoo doll of the other to poke holes in.

Dorothy Shay was just about at the end of her peak of popularity which started post World War II. She was a singer with a warm contralto who decided to play up her southern roots. Dorothy made a whole lot of hillbilly ditties popular back in those days and her big hit song, Feudin' a Fussin' and a Fightin' was still selling good in 1951 when Comin' Round the Mountain came out. I have it and also a vinyl record of a Bing Crosby radio show where she sang that song as a trio number with herself, Bing, and Groucho Marx. She did what very few did in Abbott and Costello pictures, hold her own with the boys and not get lost in the supporting cast.

It's not the best of their films, but still enjoyable and just wait till you see the treasure that they do find.

In "Comin' Round the Mountain" a 14-year-old girl (actually the actress who plays her looks about 25, but that's beside the point) has the hots for Lou Costello, and after they both drink a love potion Lou falls in love with her and she gets the hots for Bud Abbott! At another point Lou says "You can't marry a 10-year-old girl...unless you come from these hills". And I thought these films were supposed to be clean, wholesome entertainment!

The comedy never gets beyond the mildly amusing, the portrayal of the "country hicks" is totally stereotypical, and although Dorothy Shay is quite beautiful, her singing takes up too much screen time. The ending (which I won't spoil here) is by far the cleverest part - it has the kind of absurdist inspiration that the film needed more of. (**)