Comin' Round the Mountain

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.