Dance with Me, Henry

the marx brothers and laurel and hardy and their fans suffered thru mediocre final films and Abboott & Costello were no different.

DANCE WITH ME, HENRY (title and tune based upon an early Etta James cover of a hank Ballard tune) has none of those records' energy but it is certainly more energetic - and better - than the critics have said it was.

number one: the story, although overly sentimental, is fun (Lou is a kind of local "pied piper" and protector of "lost" kids, always ducking and dodging the local social workers) but our heros get a chance to do a little more *acting* (Bud is effective as a real down and outer, not the usual conniver).

directed by SUPERMAN (TV) Director Charles Barton. and if U R a fan of the Danny Thomas Show, you'll see Rusty Hamer, a year or so before it premiered!

I am writing this for the fans who have not yet seen it. Made in '56, The boys show their age as they did from 1953. It opens with a shot of Costello running down the road to the ophanage to reclaim his foster son Duffer after some sort of falling out. Once they make up, in walks Abbott. They do an exchange which isn't really funny and makes you yearn for the days when Lou's facial expressions alone could send you into hysterics. It turns out that one of the rides in Costello's fun fair, kiddyland has malfunctioned and Abbott doesn't know how to stop the machine. All it requires is for Costello to throw the switch (which for some reason is hidden behind a trap door.) And so it goes on. Miss Mayberry who represents the welfare board wants to take Lou's foster children back into care, Abbott's gambling debts have got into trouble with local hood 'Big Frank' and now he has been ordered to carry marked money to Chicago. When Abbott tells Costello this, Costello phones up the D.A and asks to meet one of their men in kiddyland late, thinking that this will help with his case with the welfare board. Big Frank arranges Abbott to meet with one of his men also in Kiddyland.(Do these guys not use their hideout?) The gangster and the D.A arrive at the same time and the D.A gets shot. Abbott naturally manipulates the converstion with the police and subsequentely Costello gets the blame for the murder and is arrested even though when the police turn up, Abbott is holding a hammer. After Costello is released, he is kidnapped and with Abbott, forced to go to Kiddyland to locate the money. It all concludes with a homealone style finale with loads of kids, who, at the drop of a hat manage to sneak away from home, helping the boys out and eventually catching the crooks. Alls well that ends well.

This old fashioned film wasn't quite as bad as one of their other films. When you think of all the 'trendy' films Martin and Lewis made during the last 6 years one wonders why A+C didn't try to branch out further. Lou Costello was once the funniest man on the earth - no doubt about that. Tragically, due to ill health his vitality was robbed and this was the end product. It would of been better played straight. Abbott had all the best lines and I thought he was rather good. Though gone are the days of Rio Rita, Hold that Ghost and Buck Privates, the (reportedly)sixty one year old comedian gave a better performance than in recent vehicles. Costello who for some reason had not been given any funny lines at all, seems to try and impress the audiences by shaking his head while looking down at a telephone and repeating the phrase'Oh my!' The gangsters who played it straight somehow turn 'lite' and manage to fall victim to the children's pranks. One of them gets whacked in the shins, one of them gets tripped up, one of them gets squirted by a water pistol etc...

It's known for their worst, which I disagree. ...Go to mars was worse than this. This film is, obviously of more interest to the fans who wish to see how this once great comedy team came to close their motion picture curtain. Tragic.

In 1955 after Abbott&Costello Meet The Mummy, Bud and Lou finished their long stint with Universal Pictures. They did one more film, an independent released by United Artists titled Dance With Me Henry.

The title comes from a hit song of the time that her nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs had a hit record of. It's heard instrumentally at some points in the film. The film has a role reversal of sorts, Bud is a shiftless gambler who owes some big money to gangster Ted DeCorsia because of some bad bets and Lou is the owner of a small amusement park, beloved by the kids especially the orphans from a home run by Father Frank Wilcox. Lou being the good hearted soul that he is takes Bud in.

But the gangsters want their money from Bud and if not they want him to go to work for them on some jobs like a bank heist they pulled just recently. Lou arranges to meet the District Attorney Robert Shayne and tell him what he knows. But then at the amusement park the DA is killed by DeCorsia's chief henchman Richard Reeves and Reeves also hides the loot from the job because he's planning a double cross.

It's quite a jackpot the boys have themselves in, but there's a providence that watches out over innocents in films. And in Dance With Me Henry, Lou is almost Stan Laurel like in his innocence.

That's what's missing in Dance With Me Henry. The old burlesque routines that one expects from an Abbott&Costello film just aren't here for their fans to savor. Abbott who's usually a sharpie and always putting stuff over on Costello is the idiot here and it doesn't wear well on him. He's also put on a lot of pounds and he's almost as rotund as Costello. Lou's character is something new, as if he was trying to explore new vistas.

The film didn't go over so good and the boys split up the following year. And Lou would do one solo feature film before his demise two years later. Dance With Me Henry is not a horrible film, but it just isn't what I and other fans came to expect from Bud and Lou. They deserved something better as a farewell.

It seemed to me that this was essentially a children's film. While A and C made films that children could watch and enjoy, I think this and "Jack and the Beanstalk" were the only two films they made which were explicitly for children.

The beginning ten minutes (good set-up of a potentially funny situation) and the last ten (imagine "Home-alone" with twenty kids) are fine, but the middle is quite flabby. There are no memorable routines and very few (about ten) funny lines.

Actually, I do not know if the producers had it in mind, but the movie works well as a pilot for a T.V. series. One can imagine all sorts of great sitcom possibilities with Lou as a bachelor trying to raise two kids while owning and operating a "Kiddie land" amusement park. When this was made, Danny Thomas's "Make Room for Daddy" had been a hit show running for three years and "Bachelor Father" was about to begin its run, so a "raising kids" comedies were the type of thing a network might buy. I suppose if it had done well as a movie, it could have been developed into a television series. So, I believe that it was rather a smart career choice for A and C.

Sherry Alberoni as Boopsi and Rusty Hamer are the two stand-out kid performers. Sherry is Shirley Temple cute trying to convince the cops that she witnessed a murder and Rusty Hamer is the nicest and sincerest boy actor of that period (Ron Howard did steal his crown a few years later).

A and C fans will savor a few well done moments,(the visit of the nasty welfare worker at the beginning, for example) but on the whole only their fans will be able to sit through it.

The last shot of the movie with Costello playing the pied-piper is delightful and cute. If the rest of the movie had been so, this movie would have revived A and C's careers and fortunes.

Abbott & Costello's swansong was a reasonable farewell, playing like a fifties sitcom with a rather subdued Lou who in a plot reminiscent of Norman Wisdom gets involved with cute kids and mean adults.