Product Description

AFRICA SCREAMS Abbott & Costello on the Silliest Safari Ever! America’s favorite dim-witted duo hits the jungle trail in this journey into hilarity from director Charles Barton, whose nine films with Bud and Lou include the classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Bookseller Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott) persuades the lovely but villainous Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) that Stanley Livington (Lou Costello), who’s even afraid of a housecat, is a wild game hunter. Diana claims she wants to capture a rare orangutan, but she’s really searching for diamonds, and she doesn’t mind subjecting the boys to lions, hungry cannibals, and even a giant ape to get them. Featuring real-life animal experts Clyde Beatty and Frank "Bring ‘Em Back Alive" Buck as themselves, plus two of the immortal Three Stooges (Shemp Howard and Joe Besser), this is the silliest safari ever! NASSOUR STUDIOS PRESENTS A HUNTINGTON HARTFORD PRODUCTION Directed by CHARLES BARTON Produced by EDWARD NASSOUR Original Story and Screenplay by EARL BALDWIN Cast BUD ABBOTT & LOU COSTELLO CLYDE BEATTY * FRANK BUCK * MAX BAER * BUDDY BAER HILLARY BROOKE * SHEMP HOWARD * JOE BESSER Approximately 79 minutes Black & White

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #59102 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-05-15
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 79 minutes

From the Back Cover
America's favorite dimwitted duo hits the jungle trail in this journey into hilarity from director Charles Barton, whose nine films with Bud and Lou include the classic Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstien. Bookseller Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott) persuades the lovely but villainous Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) that Stanley Livington (Lou Costello), who's even afraid of a housecat, is a wild game hunter. Diana claims she wants to capture a rare orangutan, but she's really searching for diamonds, and she doesn't mind subjecting the boys to lions, hungry cannibals, and even a giant ape to get them. Featuring real-life animal experts Clyde Beatty and Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck as themselves, plus two of the immortal Three Stooges (Shemp Howard and Joe Besser), this is the silliest safari ever!

Customer Reviews

The Image Entertainment/Hal Roach DVD is the BEST version of this title!
Many cheapie companies offer this title at a lower price. Pass up those horrible copies and buy this excellent IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT / HAL ROACH STUDIOS DVD mastered from the original 35mm NITRATE NEGATIVE!

This is the same excellent master film used by Image for their Laserdisc release. The only thing missing here is the Bloopers & Out-takes that were on the Laserdisc.

This movie is the best of the five independent films that Abbott & Costello made in my opinion. And it stands up better than most of their 1950's Universal films. Where else will you see Bud & Lou teamed up with some of the THREE STOOGES? Shemp Howerd and Joe Besser join Abbott & Costello's safari to add to the laughs!
Besser would later join Bud & Lou for their 1950's TV show as "Stinky" before becoming a Stooge!

ONE OF ABBOTT & COSTELLO'S BEST FEATURES
A classic A & C film. The boys play two employees of a NY department store. Lou's claim that he can draw a map from a famous big game hunter's book, gets them involved with an unscrupoulous gang of fortune hunters who are organizing a safari to Africa, to hunt for diamonds. Two of the film's BEST highlights are the team's encounters with then famous big game hunters Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck. The film also teams them with Hillary Brook (who co-starred with them in the film "ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD", and later co-starred with them in the first season of their TV series "THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO SHOW"), and Joe Besser and Shemp Howard ( of "THE THREE STOOGES". Howard co-starred with the team in their films "BUCK PRIVATES", "IN THE NAVY", and "IT AIN'T HAY". Besser co-starred with them in their TV series "THE ABBOTT & COSTELLO SHOW" playing the part of 'STINKY').

BEST VERSION OUT THERE
AFRICA SCREAMS has been in the public domain for years. This dusted-off version looks and sounds the best of a-n-y version I've seen. This is the first version I've seen with the Nassour Studios logo opening the film and it has closed-captioning, as well. I skip the colorized version, as I oppose that sort of thing. However, Legend Films has made this one worth the wait. The scene where the tribal chief is scared white by the giant gorilla is here intact, as well, whereas I've often seen it where his face has been blurred over with darkness. I've found this to be a fine film of the team's, as opposed to, say, MEXICAN HAYRIDE or LITTLE GIANT. If you're still hunting a fine print of AFRICA SCREAMS for your A & C collection ... well, here it is.