BUD AND LOU

US, 1978, 98 minutes, Colour.
Harvey Korman, Buddy Hackett, Michelle Lee.
Directed by Robert C. Thompson.

Bud and Lou will be of interest to those who remember the comic team of Abbott and Costello. It also shows aspects of entertainment in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, from burlesque to radio to film. The film presents a rather unsympathetic portrait of the team, especially in the portrait of Lou Costello and his driving ambition and his alienating himself from friend and wife. Bud Abbott is presented unsympathetically at first, but is much more congenial at the end. The film echoes the squabbles and the tantrums of celebrities and their prima donna turns. They turn themselves into figures of pathos in real life, despite their success with audiences.

Harvey Korman is effective as Bud Abbott but Buddy Hackett does an excellent job as Lou Costello. Michelle Lee is sympathetic as Costello's wife. (They appeared together in The Love Bug.) The film also reprises some of the team's radio comedy styles and programmes and their particularly American appeal. Abbott and Costello had a successful film career in the '40s but they worked for the widest audience possible, relied on timing but their comedy routines were not particularly subtle and have not lasted so well.

1. Interesting and enjoyable telemovie? Re-creation of a period, the history of American show business? The blend of show business history and biography?

2. The re-creation of period and style? Pace? Drama, comedy? The musical score?

3. Appreciation of the film by fans of Abbott and Costello? How important for audiences whether they knew the comedy team or not? The depiction of characters? Routines: radio and film, burlesque? Insight into the development of American comedians?

4. The moralising of the film: the ambition and drive for success, modest beginnings, success and the changing of personality, tantrums and prima donna attitudes leading to cruelty and suffering, the shattering of personality and friendships? The sadness of the film?

5. Abbott and Costello's style of comedy: patter, jokes, the effect of the straight man, of the comic? The devising of routines from the period of burlesque and the theatre audience? The importance of timing and humour? The risque aspects of humour? The particularly American styles?

6. Abbott as the straight man, his partners, routines, his epileptic background and losing his partners, the solidity of friendship with Costello, his inadequacy and his drinking, his friendship with Ann and her marrying Lou? The growing success? His caution about going to the legitimate theatre? The caution about radio and film? His decision to go ahead for Lou's sake? The risk of the radio routine and their making a success of it? His growing more modest as the years went on? The alienation from Lou? The sadness of the child's death and his emotional radio programme after it? The separation? His drinking and ruining the Las Vegas performance? Tax problems? The portrait of a lonely man in the comic world?

7. The contrast with Lou Costello: background, dreams and drive, his love for Ann and their happiness together, his jokes, the hard edge with his discussion about contracts and advertising? Skill in burlesque, moving to theatre, to radio? His desperate need for radio success? His being impressed by the comments on his quality of pathos? His wanting to go into films, the arrival in Los Angeles, his gradual change, moods, eccentric and greedy demands e.g. the caravan? The build up to the birth of the child, his happiness, the death and his blaming of Anne? His becoming impossible? The alienation from Ann and her drinking? The taxes and his problems? Las Vegas and Bud Abbott's ruining the show? His death? The collapse of a sad man in a comic world?

8. The manager and his help, his push and support?

9. Ann and her love for Lou, delight in his success, continued support, Los Angeles and the house, the birth? The possibilities for happiness and then the death, blame and humiliation, drinking?

10. The world of show business ? agents, manager, radio station proprietors? The producer and the director in Hollywood and their laying down the law, their being pushed around by Costello?

11. The impression of show business and its harshness? Career?

12. A sour glimpse of the American dream for success and its personal ruin?