The most remembered sequence in any Abbott & Costello film is in one of their less remembered movies, "The Naughty Nineties." But perhaps the second- and third-most remembered can both be found here, in the comedy team's first starring vehicle.
The first is the famous drill routine, where Bud tries to impart some martial discipline on a directionally challenged Lou. It's a showcase for masterful editing (much of it pulled from cutting-room scraps) as well as A&C's split-second timing, with Bud's imperious whip-cracking and Lou's chronic balking.
"Get your chest out!" Bud yells. "Throw it out!"
"I'm not through with it yet," Lou answers back.
Abbott and Costello don't appear in the other sequence. Here, the Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) perform their hit song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," with Patty singing like Ella and mugging like Satch. It's a scene that showcased a sense of national pride and rhythm as America prepared for the War Years, and like the drill routine, still holds up as sensational entertainment 70 years on.
"Buck Privates" didn't just break Abbott and Costello; it made them overnight sensations and set the template for more than 30 movies to come. It's here you get Bud & Lou mixing their trademark routines, honed in burlesque, with the kind of surreal goofiness that made them nirvana for kids like me discovering them on local television more than a generation later.
Bud tries to smoke Lou at craps just to find Lou knows more than he lets on.
Lou breaks into song while peeling onions, with Shemp Howard as his rumba partner.
Lou goes into the ring to do battle with a tattooed giant, and a ref who tries to count him out with "2-4-6-8-10" because he says he doesn't like odd numbers.
Bud and Lou play the title characters, who become Army recruits while running from the law. Like a lot of later Bud and Lou pictures, they are a pair of conniving if good-hearted fellows. The Army struggles to square them out. The main plot, what there is of it, focuses on two other soldiers, a rich boy and his former valet, who find themselves rivals for the affection of pretty Army hostess Jane Frazee. The rich guy (Lee Bowman) needs a serious attitude adjustment.
Most like me will find this stiffly-acted love triangle to be the fuzzy end of the lollipop, but it frees Bud and Lou from having to carry as much of the story as their later films would require. I think director Arthur Lubin and his team saw it the same way. Here the pair are given room to perform extended routines and fade-out bits that established their unique form of patter comedy, filling most of the time without having to carry the story. If not as magically zany as their next service comedy, "In The Navy," "Buck Privates" leaves you happy and wanting more.
As much as I love Bud and Lou, I think the Andrews Sisters steal much of this film, with great performances of "Bugle Boy" as well as the moving, lilting "(I'll Be With You In) Apple Blossom Time," a slightly bigger hit than "Bugle Boy" in its day. "Bounce Me Brother With A Solid Four" was probably their coolest song on the studded soundtrack. Patty's irrepressible face and the girls' smooth synchronicity in voice and body set a high bar for every musical act that would follow them in Abbott & Costello movies. Few were up to the challenge - including the Andrewses in the next two films.
Wartime was a year away for the United States, and "Buck Privates" set a tone for positive thinking through laughter that feels like the right prescription for victory down the road. That's true even if the Japanese used the film for their own propaganda: Maybe that way a few enemy soldiers saw through their government's hate campaign in getting a chance to laugh along with Bud and Lou. I'd like to think so: Laughter can be a pretty effective weapon.
The first is the famous drill routine, where Bud tries to impart some martial discipline on a directionally challenged Lou. It's a showcase for masterful editing (much of it pulled from cutting-room scraps) as well as A&C's split-second timing, with Bud's imperious whip-cracking and Lou's chronic balking.
"Get your chest out!" Bud yells. "Throw it out!"
"I'm not through with it yet," Lou answers back.
Abbott and Costello don't appear in the other sequence. Here, the Andrews Sisters (Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne) perform their hit song "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," with Patty singing like Ella and mugging like Satch. It's a scene that showcased a sense of national pride and rhythm as America prepared for the War Years, and like the drill routine, still holds up as sensational entertainment 70 years on.
"Buck Privates" didn't just break Abbott and Costello; it made them overnight sensations and set the template for more than 30 movies to come. It's here you get Bud & Lou mixing their trademark routines, honed in burlesque, with the kind of surreal goofiness that made them nirvana for kids like me discovering them on local television more than a generation later.
Bud tries to smoke Lou at craps just to find Lou knows more than he lets on.
Lou breaks into song while peeling onions, with Shemp Howard as his rumba partner.
Lou goes into the ring to do battle with a tattooed giant, and a ref who tries to count him out with "2-4-6-8-10" because he says he doesn't like odd numbers.
Bud and Lou play the title characters, who become Army recruits while running from the law. Like a lot of later Bud and Lou pictures, they are a pair of conniving if good-hearted fellows. The Army struggles to square them out. The main plot, what there is of it, focuses on two other soldiers, a rich boy and his former valet, who find themselves rivals for the affection of pretty Army hostess Jane Frazee. The rich guy (Lee Bowman) needs a serious attitude adjustment.
Most like me will find this stiffly-acted love triangle to be the fuzzy end of the lollipop, but it frees Bud and Lou from having to carry as much of the story as their later films would require. I think director Arthur Lubin and his team saw it the same way. Here the pair are given room to perform extended routines and fade-out bits that established their unique form of patter comedy, filling most of the time without having to carry the story. If not as magically zany as their next service comedy, "In The Navy," "Buck Privates" leaves you happy and wanting more.
As much as I love Bud and Lou, I think the Andrews Sisters steal much of this film, with great performances of "Bugle Boy" as well as the moving, lilting "(I'll Be With You In) Apple Blossom Time," a slightly bigger hit than "Bugle Boy" in its day. "Bounce Me Brother With A Solid Four" was probably their coolest song on the studded soundtrack. Patty's irrepressible face and the girls' smooth synchronicity in voice and body set a high bar for every musical act that would follow them in Abbott & Costello movies. Few were up to the challenge - including the Andrewses in the next two films.
Wartime was a year away for the United States, and "Buck Privates" set a tone for positive thinking through laughter that feels like the right prescription for victory down the road. That's true even if the Japanese used the film for their own propaganda: Maybe that way a few enemy soldiers saw through their government's hate campaign in getting a chance to laugh along with Bud and Lou. I'd like to think so: Laughter can be a pretty effective weapon.