Review of Africa Screams (1949) by Kevin N — 25 May 2011

One of the Least Convincing Jungles in Movie History.

As it happens, I was born not far from where a lot of jungle scenes were filmed around the same time as this movie was made. Johnny Weissmuller swung through the trees. Apparently, there were even Giant Leeches there, which I had not realized. And the [i]Fantasy Island[/i] building was still there, when I was a kid, and probably is even now. It's been Burma, Devil's Island, and India. And let's face it, if the [i]Giant Leeches[/i] people could afford to film there, it wasn't exactly pricey. And since Stan and Ollie were there in '44, Bud and Lou could have filmed there in '49. However, they didn't. They filmed in the studio. Completely. And man, does it show. I grant you that the Los Angeles County Arboretum does not [i]much[/i] resemble, say, Honduras, but it's got to be closer than this. Then again, I could practically mock up a more realistic jungle in parts of this apartment complex.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are Buzz Johnson and Stanley Livington. They work in a department store in New York. They have sold the only copy the store has of some explorer's journal, and Stan claims that he can produce the map which was in it from memory. Though a complicated series of events, this ends with their going on an African expedition with Diana Emerson (Hilary Brooke) and an assortment of real big game hunters playing themselves, Stooges, and boxers. Various things happen. Our Heroes waltz in and out of danger, generally involving wild game and/or cannibal natives. Diana claims she's seeking the elusive Orangutan Gargantua, but there are also diamonds involved somehow. A lot of stuff happens, but it feels like most of it is padding. Stan runs away; Buzz manipulates him and attempts to make money. Really, that part is pretty much every Abbott and Costello movie ever made.

Of course, anyone looking for an orangutan would be better suited to look in Asia, and anyone looking for a lion should be on the savannas, not in the jungle. Stan and Buzz show some confusion about the difference between crocodiles and alligators briefly, but at least that's in character. The fact is, these characters are not in Africa. They are in Mythic African Jungles. We tend to get confused; to a certain mindset, all Africa is either jungle or desert, and all wildlife except camels lives in the desert. The idea that there's wildlife, especially apes, native to other continents sometimes confuses screenwriters, it seems, and anyway the orangutans are people in gorilla suits, so what does it matter where actual orangutans live? Though one might then wonder why they don't just call the mystery creature a gorilla.

Honestly, I suspect that some of the jokes were funnier to audiences of the time. Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck, the big game hunters, are listed as playing themselves, and that was the first I knew that they were people. (I would have recognized the guy from "Catching Trouble," I think, but even there, I'm not sure.) Two of the characters are played by real boxers, and one makes a reference to Joe Louis. Now, I've heard of Joe Louis, but I hadn't heard of Max and Buddy Baer, because I don't care about boxing and [i]really[/i] don't care about boxers of the '40s. I tend to catch a lot more pop culture references from old movies than most people my age. This is in no small part because I'm the sort of person who would spend their Friday night watching a lesser Abbott and Costello movie. However, the hazards topical references create mean that your movie will seem dated in about five years if you make too many of them.

Honestly, I'd much rather spend my evening watching the Marx Brothers, if I had my preference, or the later works of Charlie Chaplin. However, it could be worse; it could be the Ritz Brothers. Though in retrospect, I'm not sure I've ever actually seen a Ritz Brothers movie. I remember them from a Donald Duck cartoon. More obscure pop culture from before my time, you see. However, I will say that this is the only way I have any interest in watching anything with Shemp Howard or Joe Besser, so there's that. Comedy tends to wear less well than drama. The portrayal of the African natives was probably hilarious to large amounts of the film's audience in 1949--though I suspect not all of it--but reliance on things like that is one of the reasons Abbott and Costello are only funny to me in places today. You still can't beat "Who's on First," though.