Such a frustrating disappointment
... View MoreIt's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
... View MoreThrough painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
... View MoreI 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.
... View MoreTwo Weeks to Live... Starring old time radio guys Chester Lauck and Norris Goff, moved to the movie screen. And of course, Frank Pangborn as Mr. Pinkney. They inherit a railroad, and decide that being conductor is more fun than being president of the company. Then they are off to the big city for the wheeling and dealing of running the railroad. Lots of fun puns and quick one and two liners! The sound and picture quality are pretty rough, but these disks were probably copied after the copyright ran out (?). Lots of adventures, gags, fun characters that come and go. There IS a pretty good (if silly) plot line here, but it really doesn't matter... we're just along for the gags, jokes, punchlines. A fun watch, even if you never heard their radio shows back in the old days. Lots of outdoor location shots, and downtown LA. Too bad that as of today, none are listed in Locations on IMDb. Also liberal use of backdrops. Very Beverly Hillbillie-ish, but still a lot of fun. This is interesting, even just for historical reasons. If you haven't heard of them before, check them out at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lum_and_Abner . This is just one of a bunch of films they made in the 1940s.Directed by Malcolm St. Clair, who worked with ALL the biggies - Mack Sennett, Laurel & Hardy, Joan Crawford, Clara Bow.
... View MoreAbner is mistakenly diagnosed as having only two weeks to live.His partner gets the idea that they can make a ton of money by having Abner perform all kinds of dangerous stunts.Very believable plot, right?This is a throwback to a different time and place.If you are a fan of two-reelers for the 40s, you're apt to recognize a few characters who pop up here and there.Overall it's a silly and dumb movie that is OK for a rainy day but won't mesmerize you in any way.The characters are so strange. I guess they worked on the radio but didn't translate so well on film.
... View MoreThis is one of my new favorite movies, for many reasons. One is Abners mispronunciation of words and all around silliness. Another one is Lums some-what know-it-all attitude, and the window washer Mr. Pinkeys "inavisible" dog 'Rover'. It all starts when Abners uncle dies and leave him a railroad, then Lum and Abner, thinking they could build a line right there in Piney Woods, Arkansas, ask everyone to invest in there company. After a trip to Chicago to claim the railroad they discover that it is totally dilapidated. Along the way Abner is incorrectly diagnosed as having "Two weeks to live". The boys lose all there money paying Abners uncle's debt's and get themselves stuck in Chicago. They try lots of things to get enough money to get back home and pay every one back.
... View MoreCute film. I wasn't familiar with the characters of Lum & Abner from radio or film, and my grandmother didn't really remember them, but we had a good time watching this.Two elderly small-town men from Arkansas are playing checkers at a country store when they learn that one of them has inherited a railroad from his deceased uncle. Before they even go talk to the lawyer, they sell $10,000 dollars worth of shares in it to the people in town, in order to raise the money to purchase land for a right-of-way for a spur line into their town.When they go to the city, they find the railroad is not quite what they thought, and Abner slips down a flight of stairs in the lawyer's skyscraper. After a visit to a doctor, and a mix-up of records, they believe Abner has just two weeks to live, and they must also find a way to pay back the townspeople. A helpful rhyming window-washer with an invisible dog suggests various ways to get money for doing high-risk tasks. Most of the time, they don't complete the task, or decide against it. They also unwittingly miss a couple opportunities to get all the money they need for things they've already done.In one scene, the movie oddly echoes Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage (1936). In that film, one infamous scene involves a boy who's unknowingly carrying a time bomb, and the boy is taking longer to get to his destination than he's supposed to take. There's a particularly tense scene on a bus. In this movie, a character unwittingly carries a time bomb, takes longer than he's supposed to to get where he's going, and along the way temporarily hands the disguised bomb to a young boy, and to a young girl on a bus. I wonder if this was coincidental or not.Anyway, my grandmother and I enjoyed watching this.
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