Everyone who like me is an old movie addict, has a movie that started their addiction. For me that film was Buck Privates. As a kid I quickly fell in love with this movie. I thought Abbott and Costello were the funniest thing I had ever seen and the songs by The Andrew Sisters' song numbers were so much fun. Since I was a kid, I wasn't too critical about the romantic subplot either. This was pure entertainment of a type I was unfamiliar with before and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with classic films.
Buck Privates marked the first starring feature film for Abbott and Costello. Though they had both appeared in One Night in the Tropics before, that movie had them strictly as part of the supporting cast. Anyone who has seen One Night in the Tropics would completely understand why Abbott and Costello quickly became movie stars. That film featured Abbott and Costello at the top of their game performing some of their best skits and clearly stealing the show from the people who were meant to be the stars. Still even though Buck Privates featured Abbott and Costello as the stars, the two hardly move the plot forward. Their entire arc in the film involves the boys being drafted into the army and having to put up with having a sergeant that already has a grudge against the two. The real story of involves a spoiled rich man (Lee Bowman) who as soon as he gets drafted into the army has only one thought, how to get out. However there is one thing he likes about the army and that is a beautiful hostess played by Jane Frazee. However his former valet (Alan Curtis) has a crush on her as well leading to a love triangle. Even this plot is somewhat slight though as the main appeal of the movie is meant to be Abbott and Costello's comedy skits. Sure enough Bud and Lou are given some of their best material in this film. This material was provided heavily by John Grant. Grant had already worked with Abbott and Costello on burlesque and radio before the duo ever entered movies. A former burlesque comedian himself, John Grant had a near perfect knowledge of all the old vaudeville and burlesque routines, which proved to be perfect for Bud and Lou. Grant would continue to work with the duo until the end of their screen career. Here like in many other films he received the credit "Special material for Abbott and Costello Provided by..." Bud and Lou here are also at the top of their game full of youthful energy and pure comedic expertise. Though the boys would perform some of these skits in later films they rarely did it as well as they did here. In fact multiple takes needed to be made of the marching scene because director Arthur Lubin (the main director of Abbott and Costello's early movies and their second best director behind Charles Barton) kept cracking up. Bud and Lou had been performing these skits on stage for years and with this movie the skits reached comedic perfection.
It was common place in this era for musical numbers to be inserted into the feature films of comedy teams. Though this practice has gotten a lot of flack from old movie fans, when the music is as good as it is in Buck Privates who am I to complain. Just like Bud and Lou, The Andrew Sisters are at the top of their game. This movie quickly made me a fan of their music and why not. These songs (Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Bounce Me Brother With a Solid Four, I'll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time) are all fantastic. This certainly left an impression on audiences of the time, and The Andrew Sisters would appear in the next two Abbott and Costello movies (In the Navy (1941), Hold That Ghost (1941)). Even Jane Frazee receives a delightful song number (I Wish You Were Here). The music would lead this film to receiving its only two Academy Award nominations, for best musical score (Charles Previn) and best song (Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B).
For this film former writer Alex Gottlieb (tell me that name doesn't make any of my fellow movie fans automatically think of A Night at the Opera (1935)) was promoted to a producer. He was not the first chosen to produce this film. In fact Universal executive Milton Field told him he was "the twenty-seventh writer I've talked to. Everyone else turned it down. They all want to be producers, too. But they all said that these are a couple of cheap burlesque comics who will never get anywhere." The reason Gottlieb agreed was that he had seen Bud and Lou preform in person and was very impressed by the effect the had on audiences. Gottlieb would tell Field, "I will be the star producer on your lot, I will make Universal rich, and I will make stars out of Abbott and Costello."
The film was a huge hit out grossing very prestigious movies of the same year such as Citizen Kane, How Green is My Valley, Sargent York and Here Comes Mr. Jordon. Just as Alex Gottlieb predicted Abbott and Costello were now movie stars of the highest order. Many films would copy Buck Privates trying to repeat the success, but none were able to. One of these movies would even star the legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy(Great Guns (1941)).
The following is from an issue of Screenland Magazine, "It's another one of those cases of long standing years of admiration which finally lead to a happy and unbelievable climax. You're seeing the once idolized Jack Mulhall in 'Buck Privates' today because he once was a movie hero to a stage struck high school boy back in Patterson, New Jersey. Jack Mulhall hailed from near Passiac and young Lou Costello felt that that made a particularly logical tie between them, and Lou got the movie bug very, very badly although he had never met Mulhall. In all the years of his struggle to gain recognition as an entertainer he never met the actor he admired above all others. It wasn't until a very few days before 'Buck Privates' was to go into production that he was introduced to Mulhall amid the bustle and rush of an executive's office at his studio. Lou let his bosses know that it had always been a boyhood dream to appear in a picture with Jack. That is the reason you're seeing this one time idol as the doctor in 'Buck Privates.'"
This following page from The Exhibitor has a very special story about what happened during one showing of this movie. If you have any trouble reading click on the page and use your touch screen to zoom in.
Again I love the way theaters advertised movies back in the day and you can see a fine example of that on the following page from The Motion Picture Herald.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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