Very Cool!!!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

In my opinion this is one of the weakest of their films. There are so many other good ones to watch before this. The energy level just kind of seems low here.

As a kid, there were two kinds of movies I always watched - all the ones with Abbott and Costello in them, and anything having to do with wild jungle animals. Catching this one back in the day then was obviously a bonus, how many times could lightning strike like this for a young movie fan! Of course back then, I wouldn't have known too much about all of the supporting players who appear here, so watching it today was a real trip down memory lane. Hillary Brooke of course was a regular on the comedy pair's TV show, usually going by her real name, while Joey Besser also had a fair share of appearances there as a character named 'Stinky' Davis. Besser's former 'Three Stooges' team member also shows up here as a sight challenged safari member named Gunner who gets to do a couple of gimmicks with Lou.Then of course you have the most famous pair of wild animal experts of the era in Clyde Beatty and that 'Bring 'em Back Alive' guy Frank Buck. All but unknown today, they were like household names for me as I did my wild animal research back in the Fifties. On top of all that though, you've got a couple of pro boxing brothers here in the way of Max and Buddy Baer, and even though their connection to the sport isn't specifically mentioned in the story, I got a kick out of Buddy's remark as his character Boots Wilson got into a scrap with Grappler McCoy - "I'll hit you harder than Louis ever did" - a cool reference to Ring Magazine's 1924 Fight of the Year in which Joe Louis beat Max in the fourth round of their heavyweight bout.With all that, the story here is almost superfluous, but filled with plenty of Abbott and Costello's traditional gags, and plenty of wild animals to boot! Interestingly, as straight man Buzz Johnson, Abbott faints dead away at the sight of crocodiles, lions and gorillas, leaving his partner to handle all the double takes and feigned fear of becoming part of the lunch menu. Watching as a kid, that scene of Lou seeing the 'Orangatan Gargantua' just blew me away, something I had forgotten about until that scene played out this time around.

"Africa Screams" (Nassour Studios, released through United Artists, 1949), directed by Charles Barton, is a better than average Abbott and Costello comedy which places the popular team in one of their rare independent productions outside their home base of Universal Pictures. With military themes, ghost stories, college musicals, westerns, murder mysteries and everything else imaginable behind them, it would be a matter of time before Bud and Lou attempted a jungle comedy. The original screenplay by Earl Baldwin doesn't have Bud and Lou meeting Tarzan, Jungle Jim, Bomba the Jungle Boy, King Kong or The African Queen, but do team up with notable animal trainer, Clyde Beatty, and animal hunter, Frank Buck, in guest starring roles playing themselves.The story revolves around a couple of store clerks in the book section at Klopper's Department Store. Stanley Livington (Lou Costello), is approached at the counter by Grappler McCoy (Max Baer) and Boots Wilson (Buddy Baer), a couple of tough looking thugs inquiring about an out of print book, "Dark Safari" by Cuddleford, a notable explorer. The men, who are more interested in the map enclosed in the book, find that Stanley can reproduce the map by memory. They offer him $1,000 with the reproduction at their address later that night. At the same time, Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) inquires about the same book to Stanley's friend and partner, Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott). Knowing Stanley to be more familiar with the book than he, offers his services at her asking price of $2,500, arranging their meeting at her home later that evening. Upon their arrival, Buzz introduces Stanley to Diane as the world's greatest explorer who accompanied Cuddleford on an African expedition, never revealing Stanley has a phobia towards animals. Stanley also gets to meet Diane's present guest, Clyde Beatty, who's hired to lead the safari in search for an orangutan gargantuan (while in actuality seeking for uncut diamonds depicted on the map of the book) . Overhearing Diane offering Beatty $2,000 for the expedition, finding he could obtain more money than offered, convinces Diane to take he and Buzz on the expedition as well, which she does, at the price of the drawn map by Stanley. Once in the jungles of Africa, with the safari crew with Diane's henchmen; Harry (Joe Besser), her cook and butler; Gunner (Shemp Howard), an extremely near-sited sharpshooter as their protector (!); Buzz and Stanley soon realizes their lives are in greater danger with Diane and her thugs than coming face to face with lions, crocodiles, a giant gorilla, and cannibal tribe from the Ubangi territory as Stanley's map turns out not to be quite the one depicted from the book in question.Although its title "Africa Screams" is reportedly depicted from a 1930 documentary,"Africa Speaks," a product made so long ago for 1949 audiences not to even recall, is, what it appears, to be a parody to the Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour "Road to" series of the 1940s, especially the jungle African ventures of ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941) and ROAD TO MOROCCO (1942). In fact, with Bud, Lou and Hillary Brooks doing a Crosby, Hope and Lamour take, minus the song and dance interludes and Hollywood in-jokes, who could ask for anything more when it comes to certain gags and situations that could be just as fun to see with either Hope or Costello clowning in their own individual comedic style.Overlooking the aforementioned ROAD series format, "Africa Screams" is pure 79 minute comedy in the best Abbott and Costello tradition. Aside from Costello's frightful expressions and reactions, he naturally gets the biggest laughs here, especially with his shared sequences with other famed comics as Shemp Howard and Joe Besser (individually part of the Three Stooges comedy team at one point in their careers). Interestingly, both Besser and Hillary Brooke would become semi-regulars on their two-season television series of "The Abbott and Costello Show" (1952-53). Best moments for Costello occur when trying to impress Diane by doing a Clyde Beatty by locking himself inside a cage with a real lion who turns out not to be Buzz in lion costume; unknowingly swimming with a crocodile; and frightful reaction when approached by a giant gorilla, among others.As Costello gets the last laugh, it's his partner Abbott who, in state of confusion, who responds, "I just don't understand it." The audience does. Watch for it.With well thought out gags and some unexpected surprises, it's a wonder why "Africa Screams" has become the least known of all of their comedies combined. Once shown on New York City television (1956-1961) before disappearing from view, "Africa Screams" never became part of New York's television package of Abbott and Costello comedies (1940-1956) commonly shown Sunday morning/afternoons on WPIX, Channel 11 (1971-89). Falling into public domain with some poor reproductive copies, "Africa Screams" resurfaced on television after a long hiatus on cable, public television and independent stations as well as the early stages of home video in the early 1980s. In later years, "Africa Screams" turned up on DVD, and on cable TV's Turner Classic Movies starting in 2006. With availability readily accessible in recent years, "Africa Screams" should be an interesting rediscovery and real treat for anyone familiar with every Abbott and Costello movie ever made but unaware of the existence of this one. Availability in colorized format is quite good. (***)

Even by Abbott & Costello standards, 'Africa Screams' is a terrible film with a few amusing moments. There are some items of interest to movie buffs today, such as the casting of two of the Three Stooges, Shemp Howard and Joe Besser, in secondary roles; this was seven years before Besser replaced Shemp as the 'third Stooge.' 'Africa Screams' was a rare independent production for A&C. It was filmed by Nassour Studios, though the team was still under contract to Universal. The previous year had seen Bud and Lou reach the top of the box office after a slump in the mid-forties, with 'Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein,' arguably their best film ever. Whether 'Africa Screams' was planned prior to that success or was a result of it, I don't know. In any event, it was a 'one-off,' as A&C immediately returned to Universal afterward and stayed there until 1955, when they were dropped. They made one more independent film in 1956, 'Dance With Me, Henry', before calling it quits for good. 'Africa Screams' is a hodgepodge of old routines, a few new ones, and an 'African safari' plot that pops up occasionally, mainly to justify the presence of animal trainers Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck. The pro boxing brothers, Max Baer and Buddy Baer, are along for the ride too as a couple of tough henchmen. So we get the obligatory 'lion-taming' sequence from Mr. Beatty, and a punch-out scene with the two Baer brothers. Frank Buck, fortunately, has virtually nothing to do. Joe Besser has one funny moment when he hears one of the others reveal a secret; he punches the guy on the arm and in his best spoiled-brat voice says, "Ooo, you're such a snitch!" Shemp Howard, like Frank Buck, is nowhere to be seen during most of the action and when he is, has nothing amusing to do. As for Abbott & Costello themselves, they resurrect any number of old routines, most of which are not related to the plot at all. It's almost like watching an early television variety show where they come on at intervals, do a sketch, then depart. Abbott does the familiar bit where he thinks Lou has been killed and delivers a long, mournful monologue about what a great guy Lou was and how he, Abbott, is to blame... even though Lou's standing right there. (How many times did A&C AND the Three Stooges use that routine?) My favorite is Lou reprising the 'whispering threat' business from 'Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap' where he challenges the bad guys to a no-holds-barred fight, but from a distance where they can't see him and in a voice so slight they can't hear him. For about three minutes, it's a very funny film. The casting of Besser and Hillary Brooke, as the female lead, foreshadows in fact the Abbott & Costello TV show of the early fifties, as both would be regulars. Production values of 'Africa Screams' are bottom-of-the-barrel, making any of the team's Universal flicks look like 'Gone With The Wind' by comparison. Well, the good news is, there are about 35 other Abbott & Costello films to watch instead.