Here Comes Trouble

In the final series of Ames and Doubleday, the two of them are now civilians, Doubleday working as a reporter for newspaper publisher Emory Parnell and Ames now on the police force. Joe Sawyer and William Tracy continue their series of misadventures. Despite them being in the army as well as Abbott&Costello the Allies actually won the war.

Hal Roach being the producer with great insight into comedy decided to team William Tracy and Joe Sawyer as a team and sadly they seem to have been forgotten. This is only the second of their films I've seen and I'd certainly like to have seen more.

They seem to have the best elements of Laurel and Hardy and Abbott and Costello. Tracy as Dodo Doubleday is the innocent who just seems to go through life and he seems to stumble into heroism. Sawyer as Ames is a wiseguy know it all who slaps Tracy around like Abbott used to do to Costello, but like Ollie Hardy always is mired in the fertilizer of his own making.

Parnell, Tracy's prospective father-in-law is looking to expose the gangsters that run his town. But the mob boss is on to him, but he's got a better idea for shutting Parnell's expose down. Use burlesque queen Joan Woodbury for a little blackmail.

The problem is that Woodbury's ready to doublecross the mob. For some considerable cash she'll let Parnell have her diary which gives some mob names and places as well as their little good times.

The whole film ends in an absolutely mad chase sequence in the burlesque house after Woodbury's been murdered. And the audience is oblivious to it all, thinking it's all part of the entertainment.

In the tradition of Laurel, Costello, with a bit of Inspector Clousseau tossed in, Tracy as usual comes up a winner.

Here Comes Trouble is a fast paced comedy with an absolutely hysterical finale. It hasn't even got the touches that Universal gave Abbott and Costello, but it has just as many laughs.