Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (1953)
The least believable thing in this movie is that Scotland Yard would ever hire Abbott and Costello to be bobbies in some kind of pilot program testing out how well Americans do in British law enforcement. I'm not sure what the point of this program was or even how Bud and Lou got selected for this gig, but this dopey project is just the excuse we need to get our boys overseas so that they can mix it up with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This time around Bud and Lou go by the names of Slim and Tubby (I'll leave it to you to puzzle out who's who) and they do about as well policing the mean streets of London as you expect them to. Just what sort of heinous crimes are they trying to halt while on duty?
Well, it just so happens that a bunch of British women are staging a protest because they want the right to vote. Slim and Tubby find themselves embroiled in a riot when the women begin fighting with the men (who while being able to vote apparently don't have day jobs). Also caught up in all this hoopla is the requisite nosy reporter portrayed by TV's Peter Gunn. His name is Bruce and he usually is only nosy about cool stuff like murders and Diana gossip, but since there is this good looking chick named Vicky (obviously an American by her good looks) singing and dancing and lifting up her dress about how sweet it would be if she could vote, Bruce hangs out to get the real story on these crazy dames.
The fight involves a lot of getting bashed on the head (there's a ton of that in this movie) and Tubby falling into a hole (not nearly enough of that though). Eventually, things get all sorted out and Slim and Tubby end up in jail along with Bruce and Vicky. Bruce and Vicky get bailed out by that pillar of the community Dr. Jekyll, but Slim and Tubby aren't. Later Slim and Tubby appear before their captain and are booted off the force or put on suspension or are only three days away from retirement or something along those lines. Whatever it was, Slim and Tubby are bound and determined to catch this monster that's been on the loose, so that they can get back on the force and proudly wear the name of bobbies again.
Monster terrorizes city? City under siege by beast? Monster strikes again? No, you aren't reading the headlines of the London Times that whiz past us at the beginning of the film, I'm just trying to fill you in on what goes on while the police are busting Susan B. Anthony's head. But who is this monster and what is his problem?
The most notable thing about him is that he always dresses in a hat and tails which is nice because it takes the attention away from the fact that his face looks like a warthog's. Coincidentally, whenever we see Dr. Jekyll he is also wearing a hat and tails. Add to this that he looks suspiciously like Boris Karloff and it's amazing that he wasn't hauled in for questioning a lot sooner regarding this case.
One aspect of this movie that seems to be woefully underplayed is the fact that Vicky is some type of exotic (for the 1890s) dancer. In fact we only get to see her work once, leading the viewer to wonder how much better this movie would have been if it involved a hideous monster stalking a strip club instead of stalking Slim and Tubby. In any event, you get Vicky getting dropped off at work and Bruce being a man's man (in spite of his name) deciding that he'd like to check out what these "gentleman's clubs" are all about. Obviously concerned that if Bruce gets a gander at Vicky while she's working, Bruce will think less of her, Jekyll gets himself all shot up with his Hyde juice and goes out to kill Bruce.
Slim and Tubby just happen to be walking around this part of London (as you watch this movie, you'll notice that London looks like it consists of about two square blocks, what with all the characters running into each other all the time) and spot Hyde running around. Thinking that he is a mere burglar, they follow him into the place where Vicky is dancing and this leads to a lot of Slim and Tubby walking around almost running into the monster but not quite. You get the monster grabbing for Tubby and just barely missing, you get mistaken identities when Tubby sees another guy dressed up in a monster costume (what kind of strip club is this?), and you get lots of people conked on the heads with bats, boards, and whatever isn't nailed down. None of it is terribly inspired or more importantly, funny. You expect A&C to repeat the gags they've used since their vaudeville days in the 1600s, but everything going on in this scene seemed toothless and lazy.
They know what sells though and somehow Tubby ends up in a wax museum. (London has one on every corner.) As soon as you see Tubby go in here and there are statues of the Frankenstein Monster and Dracula, you know where this one is headed, especially if you've seen Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein . That's not to say that you don't get a few funny moments here. There's a scene where a head falls onto a cat (How'd that get there?) and it runs around with the head on it, scaring the lard right off of Tubby. Tubby encounters Hyde and sees his shadow but pretends not to see it and keeps walking and then tricks Hyde into going into a cage. Of course by the time anyone shows up to help him, Hyde has turned into Jekyll and no one believes that Jekyll could be the monster. (After all, he's just a scientist conducting secret experiments.)
There's no hard feelings though on Dr. Jekyll's part because he offers Slim and Tubby five pounds to come and be his bodyguard for the evening, but what he really wants to do is get them back to his secret lab so he can kill the meddling duo. Once at the doctor's residence, the standard mad scientist stuff starts happening. Tubby somehow ends up in the secret lab where he finds a bunch of animals that do crazy stuff like a bunny rabbit that barks and dog that refuses to hump your leg. He also runs into the big ugly lab assistant that Jekyll keeps in the basement. Eventually Tubby tells Slim all about it and Tubby, Slim, and Jekyll go down there and Jekyll plays it all innocent and the evil assistant is long gone. While they're down there chilling out, Tubby takes a drink of what looks like a glass of water, then comments on the fact that it was funny tasting. Thus begins what is arguably the highlight of the film. (Unless you count all those times that Tubby sits on a needle later on.)
It turns out that that wasn't water at all that he drank, but some weird concoction Jekyll was working on that turns Tubby into a giant rat! Somehow they manage to go to a bar without Slim bothering to look at Tubby and everyone kind of freaks out when a giant rat sits down for a nice cold brew. It all seemed a bit surreal and reminded me of that story I never read about the dude that was a cockroach or something. I think that what Abbott and Costello were trying to say in this scene was that locked inside every man is a giant rat that just wants to get drunk all day long.
After a bunch of guys faint and fall down, Tubby turns back into that fat little dope we love and they try and get the police and the reporter on Jekyll's butt. It doesn't work because Jekyll turns his lab back into a wine cellar before anyone can see his dastardly experiments. Jekyll though isn't always one step ahead of everyone. His little hussy friend Vicky that he fantasizes about whenever he's pouring out his beaker, drops the bomb on him that she and this reporter are going to be married in spite of his name being Bruce. Jekyll spazs out and turns back into the monster and tries to get all over Vicky.
The ensuing action involves Tubby getting turned into another Mr. Hyde and everyone chasing everyone else all over London. With two monsters on the loose, confusion is the order of the day and the highlight has to be when Tubby's Mr. Hyde is hiding in a baby carriage. How big are the babies in London anyway? The ending is poorly written, with Jekyll's Hyde falling off a wall and going splat on the sidewalk below his house and with Slim capturing Tubby's monster only to have Tubby turn back to normal, but not before he bit all these cops and turned them into monsters. Does any of this make any sense. Not really. Does it matter? Not really. The film isn't ever good enough for you to care how it ends, just so long as it does end.
The problem seemed to be that Abbott and Costello had little to do other than get chased around. Beyond that they didn't really seem to be terribly important to the story line as opposed to one of their better efforts like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein . Also, you would think that the atmosphere of fog-shrouded London would lend itself to a lot of scary and/or funny moments, but it is barely used, with most of the action taking place in broad daylight or inside. It made one long for all the moments these two were farting around in ancient tombs or in foreign locales (see for example Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy ).
Even the presence of the usually reliable Boris Karloff can't do anything to resuscitate this moribund comedy-chiller. He plays it straight here and other than being creepily attracted to this young woman, he doesn't evidence much in the way of personality. All in all, this one flops in spite of the assembled parts. After watching Slim and Tubby do little more than run around on rooftops, bicycles, and through bookcases, I wasn't hoping to see something new from Abbott and Costello so much as hoping to at least see some of the old routines, no matter how old or routine they were.