It's not surprising that Abbott and Costello eventually got to do a movie on a showboat. Remember it was only 8 years earlier that Universal Studios did their classic version of Showboat and I'm sure that Carl Laemmle, Jr. wanted to take advantage of the set that was still there.
The Naughty Nineties in fact take whole characters from the Showboat plot. Henry Travers's character of Captain Sam is a total ripoff of Captain Andy and Alan Curtis and Lois Collier make a passable nonsinging Gaylord Ravenal and Magnolia Hawkes. Collier sings, but there are no classic duets like in Showboat. And Curtis's character is a riverboat gambler like Ravenal.
That being said the plot such as it is involves Rita Johnson and her two associates, Curtis and Joe Sawyer, gaining possession of Henry Travers's showboat with which they then set up some crooked gambling to make a quick profitable kill.
Abbott and Costello are part of the Showboat crew. Abbott is an actor in the Victorian tradition and Costello is as usual a lovable all around klutz that Travers must be keeping around for laughs.
If it's laughs Travers wants, he's made a sound investment because the boys do provide the public with plenty of that. The Naughty Nineties is famous as the film they did their classic Who's on First baseball routine. It had been done previously in their debut film, One Night in the Tropics, but in an abbreviated form.
Actually there is one routine involving poor Lou as he thinks he's eating a cat, I mean the feline type cat.
Joe Sawyer joins a list of otherwise serious actors like Douglass Dumbrille, Lionel Atwill, and Lon Chaney, Jr., who got in on the comedy with the boys. Sawyer does his own version of the famous Niagara Falls routine involving him sleepwalking and he looks like he's having a ball doing it. Sawyer makes a perfect foil for Bud and Lou's monkeyshines.
And I think the audience will enjoy it as much as Joe Sawyer.
The Naughty Nineties in fact take whole characters from the Showboat plot. Henry Travers's character of Captain Sam is a total ripoff of Captain Andy and Alan Curtis and Lois Collier make a passable nonsinging Gaylord Ravenal and Magnolia Hawkes. Collier sings, but there are no classic duets like in Showboat. And Curtis's character is a riverboat gambler like Ravenal.
That being said the plot such as it is involves Rita Johnson and her two associates, Curtis and Joe Sawyer, gaining possession of Henry Travers's showboat with which they then set up some crooked gambling to make a quick profitable kill.
Abbott and Costello are part of the Showboat crew. Abbott is an actor in the Victorian tradition and Costello is as usual a lovable all around klutz that Travers must be keeping around for laughs.
If it's laughs Travers wants, he's made a sound investment because the boys do provide the public with plenty of that. The Naughty Nineties is famous as the film they did their classic Who's on First baseball routine. It had been done previously in their debut film, One Night in the Tropics, but in an abbreviated form.
Actually there is one routine involving poor Lou as he thinks he's eating a cat, I mean the feline type cat.
Joe Sawyer joins a list of otherwise serious actors like Douglass Dumbrille, Lionel Atwill, and Lon Chaney, Jr., who got in on the comedy with the boys. Sawyer does his own version of the famous Niagara Falls routine involving him sleepwalking and he looks like he's having a ball doing it. Sawyer makes a perfect foil for Bud and Lou's monkeyshines.
And I think the audience will enjoy it as much as Joe Sawyer.