Bud and Lou (1978)

"Bud and Lou" was made at a time when Hollywood was turning out quite a few biopics of Golden Age personalities, both for theatrical release and television, but this one has to rank as one of the worst. It offers a not-terribly accurate overview of the lives of the comics and their partnership, but renders the characters in blacks and whites. In short, Bud Abbott (played with no distinction by Harvey Korman) is depicted as a meek, go-along guy, and Lou Costello (very poorly played by Buddy Hackett) comes off as a mentally-impaired bully. Meanwhile their business manager, Eddie Sherman (played fairly well by Arte Johnson)is depicted as the sympathetic anchor in their lives. While this is a revisionist take on things, it is not unexpected, since Sherman was a major source for the book upon which the movie is based, Bob Thomas's eponymous "Bud and Lou" (and neither the book nor the movie explains why, if Sherman was looking out for their affairs so well, they both got into such trouble with the IRS). The film covers a good twenty years, yet no one ages or changes in any way; whereas the real Bud Abbott aged and changed greatly from their first film to their last, here he looks exactly the same in every scene. What really sinks it, though, even more so than the character and event inaccuracies, are the painfully unfunny recreations of A&C routines by K&H. Whereas the real guys could do bits like "Who's on First" in their sleep, with unerring timing and delivery, Korman and Hackett sound like they're cold reading the bits for the first time, with no sense of timing, meaning, energy, or performing chemistry. In particular, Hackett's vacant, gaping stare and unbelieving line delivery during these classic routines looks more like Lennie asking George about the rabbits than Costello asking Abbott about the first baseman. Some Hollywood figures were so distinctive that anyone attempting to portray them is automatically at a disadvantage. "Bud and Lou" proves that in spades.

Recently my friend and I had been talking about this pretty awful 1978 telemovie about Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. We hadn't seen it in many years but have always recalled how embarrassingly bad it had been and were dying to see it again, mainly for unintentional laughs at the poor quality of it. Well, a few days ago we managed to find an old VHS tape at a still-functional old time video store, and we rented it and went to my place to watch it. It was worse than we remembered, but it did give us some howls due to its incompetence.First off, the casting is just horrendous. Stand-up comedian Buddy Hackett plays the short, roly-poly Costello, and Harvey Korman plays the slender straight man, Bud Abbott. I have always enjoyed Korman in many things (especially on The Carol Burnett Show), and when Hackett was in his element he could be quite humorous (especially in IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD). But little Buddy makes a lousy Costello, and it's obvious he was not much of an actor as he desperately attempts to do classic routines of Lou's, and especially a pathetically off-timed "Who's On First?", with Hackett's garbled marbles-in-his-mouth voice. It's vomitable watching Buddy staring off to the side and reciting this gag as though he is reading from scripted cue cards; just putrid. And Korman is no better.This movie was based on a book by Bob Thomas, supposedly heavily influenced by the memories of A&C's longtime manager, Eddie Sherman (in the film, Eddie is played by Arte Johnson). One of the biggest objections about this movie is that Sherman was at one time fired and later re-hired, and therefore it is said that he had an axe to grind. As a result of personal animosity, it is so claimed, the portrayal of Hackett's Lou Costello here as a nasty, arrogant, sadistic control freak is supposedly way out of line. Indeed, in this film Costello is made out to be quite a monster. But I have to tell you that while it may be somewhat exaggerated, I am of the opinion that the real-life Lou could sometimes be that bad. I base my opinion on the memories of people who worked with him, and especially the directors. Many filmmakers said that Costello could be a little terror, and that he and Abbott would be deliberately difficult on the movie sets. That they gambled all the time, threw their weight around a lot, made unreasonable demands, and that Costello was known to actually steal props from the films they were currently in the middle of working on.But back to this movie. It's boring. It leaves out many details such as the fact that Lou had daughters, not just the one baby boy who tragically drowned just before his first birthday. Also, the fact that Abbott had a family. Korman and Hackett have zero chemistry together and don't do their roles justice. The way the events zip along you would think that the duo's career only lasted a few years; there is no sense of the passage of decades. And there is no time spent with them on their many movies.In the end, my friend and I had a tremendous and hearty laugh at how ineptly the death of Lou Costello is played here. I won't ruin it for you, but we frequently mimic this "death scene" for endless kicks. Not because the passing of a great comic is truly funny; I'm talking about the overly-dramatic and probably exaggerated execution of the moment. Just unintentionally hilarious. It is the incompetence of this badly made film that keeps me from rating this a complete ZERO. It entertains ever so slightly because it is so bad. *1/2 out of ****

regarding FrankFob's "review", specifically: "I read the book on which this film is based--"Bud and Lou", by Bob Thomas--when it first came out, and it didn't impress me much. It turned out that Thomas had relied for a lot of his information on Eddie Sherman, Abbott & Costello's longtime manager who had been fired by the duo and obviously had a major ax to grind." Ah, the "experts" of the Internet. Sherman was fired in 1948 - and rehired in 1949. There was absolutely no "axe to grind" - Sherman was great friends with and continued to manage the pair, Bud even past Lou's death."Obviously had a major ax to grind..." Honestly. Stick to the negative review, without adding your erroneous $.02.

I first saw this as it was originally presented on TV in 1978. I have not seen it since because I hated it then. Lou Costello, one of the funniest comedians (although underrated) of all time and Bud Abbott, the greatest straight man ever are woefully misrepresented here. According to this, Costello was a monster and Abbott a weak man who knew nothing about anything, even comedy (The way "Who's On Forst?" is done makes it sound like an educational commercial for Mapquest instead of a comedy routine). While it's true that Costello had more push and was the business head of the duo, he was also a man of many sides, including a love for children, that this biopic prefers to erase. Buddy Hackett and Harvey Korman (both funny men in their own right)play the roles of two very interesting men as one-dimensional boobs who couldn't handle any aspect of show business. It's amazing that Buddy Hackett and Harvey Korman, who are comedy pros could come off so antiseptic and lifeless. It's as if they have no feel for comedy. As a matter of fact, Hackett derided the movie as terrible and he was embarrassed by what it represented for Lou Costello. When Lou's daughter wrote a book called "Lou's on First", Hackett wrote a foreword for the book essentially putting down the entire film as a colossal waste and terribly misleading.Instead of watching this film, read the many books of Abbott and Costello. You'll get a much better and more entertaining view of the two men that way!