The Naughty Nineties (1945)

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello are in the 1890's on the showboat River Queen,which is run by Captain Jackson. For twenty years he's been putting on good,clean fun entertainment for people of all ages, and now a trio of cardsharps want to take it over, and big surprise, it's up to Bud and Lou to step in and save the day.The truth is it's a very thin plot, but who cares, it's meant to be. Not many are watching the duo for plot. Abbott and Costello started out with their Vaudevlle acts on stage and this is basically an excuse just to put their style of comedy routines together into some kind of structure, and throw in whatever plot they can to try and link them together.The film is full of laughs. Lou is in a marching band, and can't even see where he's going as he bangs the huge drum in front of him. He demolishes the set around Bud as he tries to perform, and tries his best to stop a baby from crying during his act. He tussles with a grizzly bear thinking it's Bud in disguise. He tries to sing higher and lower as he misinterprets Bud's orders directed at the set designers. He inadvertently bakes feathers into a cake, which causes the guests to cough them up. He keeps throwing a big fish into the river, in hopes of catching an even bigger one. He dreads tucking into the chef's catfish, believing that he's cooked the cats, and all these sight gags build up to the duo's chaotic, and zany defeating of the bad guys.Throw in their famous routines of the switching the poisonous drink, the exchanging money, and the fantastic Who's On First? routine, which I would happily watch on a loop, and you have one of Abbott and Costello's most frenetic-paced, gag packed films. An absolute must for fans of the perfect straight man and buffoon, and maybe newcomers to their work too.

In the 1890s, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello (as Dexter Broadhurst and Sebastian Dinwiddle) are entertainers on a Mississippi River showboat. The captain of "The River Queen" Henry Travers (as Sam Jackson) loses a percentage of his ownership to some unscrupulous gamblers. So, Abbott and Costello lend him their comic hands. Considering the money they were making for Universal, this is a surprisingly slipshod production for the comedy duo. It consists of haphazard routines, tossed in with an irrelevant plot and an ending chase scene. Marx Brothers bits, and even Buster Keaton's "House Falling" scene, are tossed into the mix. The deservedly famous "Who's on First?" stand-up is cheaply dressed; this is not, as touted, their best version of the routine. But, the "Cat Eating" is very well done; helping make the total package medium, if not rare.***** The Naughty Nineties (6/20/45) Jean Yarbrough ~ Lou Costello, Bud Abbott, Alan Curtis, Rita Johnson

THE NAUGHTY NINETIES is one of those films of Abbott & Costello that is a favorite with their fans for the skits that are in them: the plot about the trio of gamblers plotting to take the showboat away from good old Captain Sam (Henry Travers) is tolerable, because it can be ignored. We like the old Captain, but we await the sketches involving the boys. In the end they help save the Captain, so they do become his pair of guardian angels - his "Clarences", if you will.But the sketches are priceless, in particular the rehearsal sketch and the immortal WHO'S ON FIRST.In another review I compared Bud and Lou with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. Bud Abbott's persona is not like Oliver Hardy's, although both try to dominate (Bud, with more success) Lou and Stan. Ollie is quite self-important, but is (actually) as stupid as Stan is. His self-delusion is just added on the cake. But Bud normally is street smarter, and bullies Lou. He barks orders left and right to him, orders that Lou thinks he understands. The orders are in abbreviated form, using slang or short form descriptions that most people will understand, and that is doomed to confuse Lou.In the rehearsal sketch, Lou is studying a song he wants to sing in the showboat show, and if he does it well Captain Sam will let him sing it. Bud is on stage helping direct the putting up of varying scenery. He is asked for help by Lou to help him, and to shut the little guy up, he half-heartedly agrees to do so. But he is concentrating on that scenery. So we hear Lou start singing "MY BONNIE LIES OVER THE OCEAN", and after awhile he hears Bud yelling "Higher", "HIGHER", "LOWER, etc. Of course Lou is not watching Bud directing the men with the scenery, and Lou raises and lowers his voice accordingly. The vast alterations eventually is too much for Lou, who falls into the orchestra pit while an oblivious Bud walks off stage.The other sequence is even greater. If you say "Abbott & Costello" to anyone today, the phrase "Who's on First" comes up immediately. No other dialog of theirs is as memorable (not even that delectable skit about Niagara Falls). Indeed, due to the popularity of Baseball, the skit is honored in Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame, and Bud and Lou are members of the Hall of Fame too (without being baseball players). No other comedy team approached such a signature dialog - for instance Groucho and Chico Marx did several fractured English discussions, such as "Why a Duck" in COCONUTS, but the dialog is not central to their reputations. Similarly Laurel & Hardy's use of "two peas in a pod" in THE SONS OF THE DESERT is classic, but not central to their reputation."Who's On First" works on the same principle as the rehearsal skit - Lou cannot follow the statements fed him by Bud, and yet Bud is not being intentionally difficult. He starts by explaining the crazy nicknames of the baseball players these days, and Lou never makes the logical connection that the nicknames can be terms like "who", "what", "I don't know", and "I don't care". Once I saw someone rewrite Abbott's description as "Mr. Who is on First base; Mr. What is on Second Base...etc." Actually the effect on Lou would probably be minimal: How many people have surnames like "Who" (this was years before the British Doctor in the futuristic tardis showed up). Moreover, they are nicknames, not proper names like "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, or "Old Hickory" Jackson. So it can't be "Mr. Who" or "Mr. I Don't Care".Interestingly few people seem to be noting that the nicknames don't say much for these players. "Who", "What", "I Don't Know", "I Don't Care", "Today", "Tomorrow" suggests that each of the players has a failing, like "Who" suggests he is confused at the strategy of the team (who is going to be targeted by his team's pitcher on the opposite team), "What" suggests a lack of understanding orders from the team coach or captain, "I Don't Know" suggests confusion, and "I Don't care (the short stop) doesn't give a damn to be on the scene of where the ball falls when he is needed. Lou's willingness to play on the team, which we accept as his fondness of the game (and his constant image of being childlike) may actually have some merit - he may be a better player than these others.The highpoint (to me) of the dialog is when, giving up momentarily, trying to comprehend Bud's apparent double-talk, Lou shows he can repeat the line-up's name, and describe a baseball play perfectly. Bud shows his approval of this rational approach - only to hear Lou scream out he doesn't understand what he himself has been talking about. To me that was the perfect conclusion of the great confusion known as "Who's on First".In recent years stores have offered mechanical representations of political and entertainment figures reciting comments they are supposed to be famous for. There was one pair together: of Bud and Lou in costume from THE NAUGHTY NINETIES (Bud wearing the baseball outfit of non-existent St. Louis Wolves), reciting Who's On First. That is immortality folks.

This is a great Abbot and Costello movie in which is the famous "who is on first scene". There is also much more in the movie and there is a lot of slap stick comedy. If you want to laugh with your family all night this is the one to rent.