Sorry, this movie sucks

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Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

"Ah yes! Has Michael Finn been around lately?" (from W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick") Lou was the master of the comedy "slip and fall". Lou often talked "aside" to the audience, just like "Groucho". Also, he fought back quite well, and was smarter rather than dumber. Very quick with a quip. (Could he talk fast.) Many great routines to recommend, including 'Who's on first". Catching a whale", "Shaving without a mirror"; but a surprisingly weak storyline. Even in the 1890's, most people knew that gambling was a pastime, not a moneymaker. Henry Travers (Clarence the Angel) plays the wryly-old riverboat captain with a big heart, but a weakness for pretty ladies and gambling. He loses the Riverboat Queen to the crooked gamblers and Abbott and Costello try to win it back with chewing gum on the roulette wheel and magnetic crooked dice. A few amusing songs, better than usual. The "slapstick" finish goes on far too long. It's tedious, not that funny. As always, a fast finish and everything turns out quite well. One of the "bad guys" falls for the Captains' daughter, and joins the riverboat. The other crooks go to jail in San Francisco.

Abbott and Costello had either run out of routines by this point or they had such fondness for their already classic ones that they reckoned it was reasonable to rehash them. They even draw their trophy chestnut Who's On First, which by the time this movie came out was so completely ancient it's amazing they don't go red. Indeed, it's acknowledged film trivia that one can hear camera operators struggling to stifle their laughter during the scene. I think there was an audience back then that was far less disdained during the studio era, moviegoers who go to laugh, jump or cry not so much at surprises or fresh revelations but at fulfilled expectations, expectations so particular that they could literally be duplicated from what they'd seen many times before.But regardless, each time I've put myself through this emergency outing, I've laughed hard and frequently. Above and beyond the arbitrary Who's on First? centerpiece, The Naughty Nineties features the too-funny schtick where Costello sings during an audition while Abbott is hollering instructions to the crew to adjust the backdrop curtain. Costello thinks the directions are for him and he follows them, by singing higher or lower, or on one foot. It all relies on Costello's inimitable gift for physical comedy. There's also the scene where one of the wicked gambler's accomplices slips poison into his wine. He catches on, distracts her and swaps their glasses. But she does the same to him, and then they get into bluffing the swap. There is also the sketch where Costello inadvertently bakes feathers into a cake and the pieces are fed to everyone in the tavern. When they all take a bite, they end up coughing up the feathers until the entire bar is overflowing with them. Then there's the old routine where Costello and the villain mirror each other's actions, which can also be seen in the Marx Bros. classic Duck Soup. The scene where Costello tussles with a real bear, thinking that he's wrestling Abbott in a bear suit. Bears were frequently deployed in Abbott and Costello routines.Universal was so eager to keep them in the theaters that they didn't have any principles about what class of material they played. And the one in this case is an emphatic case of floating shipwrecked debris. There are wicked gamblers and a sweet old showboat captain. They are so much superfluous baggage. This is, as usual, just an Abbott & Costello romp, with the boys giving a routine imitation of themselves in their golden days.

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

Considering that the previous film, HERE COME THE CO-EDS was such a bad film, THE NAUGHTY NINETIES couldn't help but look good. Overall, NAUGHTY is a mixed bag--with some good Abbott and Costello routines and some bad. In addition, Universal still insists on following a formula they've used in all but one of their previous films--a bunch of sons and a romantic subplot that has nothing to do with Abbott and Costello. Oddly, when the studio dropped both these conventions in WHO DONE IT, the film was a huge success--more than previous films. Why they went back to this material that distracts from the comedy is beyond me.The film finds Bud and Lou on a riverboat (similar to the one in SHOWBOAT) circa 1890. Bud is an actor (and does a decent job when his routines aren't being ruined by Lou) and Lou is, well, Lou--bumbling about on the ship. A group of crooked gamblers get the ship's captain (Henry Travers) drunk and cheat him out of control of his showboat. As a result, they bring crooked gambling and violence to what had been a family-friendly ship. So, naturally, Bud and Lou try to help out--with very mixed results until the end of the film.Along the way are a bunch of vaudeville-style routines. On the plus side, you get to see the best filmed version of their classic "Who's on First" routine (an abbreviated one was in their first film, ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS). Also, some of Lou's antics that ruin Bud's acting are kind of funny. On the negative side, Universal Pictures really didn't care if any of the routines looked crappy--using very, very fake-looking props and putting little care into the execution of several routines. In the fishing scene, these are the least realistic fish in the history of film. It serves to make the routine look amazingly dumb. In the catfish scene (where Lou thinks he's being served cat), which could have been very funny, there was absolutely no subtlety in its execution...none. In many ways, this stuff looked like Three Stooges routines--but perhaps done with even less subtlety.Overall, a very mixed bag. For fans of the team, they'll enjoy it. For non-fans, I can't see why this film alone would convert you an Abbott and Costello fan.