Bonus Reviews: Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy

Horror Bulletin Bonus for Week 182

For this week’s bonus films, we’ll look two more funny horror films. We'll start with "Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" from 1953 and then follow-up with "Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy" from 1955.

Don’t forget, the first week of each month, we publish ALL our reviews, including the bonus content, in our monthly “Horror Bulletin” print magazine (also available as an ebook). If you don’t have time to read the website or email, here’s one more option for you! The new issue is out now!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JN2WBJ8

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953)

• Directed by Charles Lamont

• Written by Lee Loeb, John Frant, Sid Fields

• Stars Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Boris Karloff, Craig Stevens

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 16 Minutes

• Trailer:

Synopsis

A man walks down the street and soon picks up a tail- a man hiding his face beneath his cloak. The man in the cloak growls and kills the other man. The victim is Dr. Poole, which is announced in all the newspapers with the headline, “Monster Strikes Again.”

For some reason, two men on the street talk about whether or not they believe in women’s voting rights. There’s a whole suffrage band playing in the park. As they talk about the plight of downtrodden women they all do a can-can dance and flirt with the men in the audience. Bruce Adams, a reporter, gives Vicky, one of the women, his address, but he doesn’t care about the voting. Before long, everyone gets into a brawl.

Slim and Tubby (Abbott & Costello), two cops, arrive to stop the fight. After some hijinks, several people are arrested. Bruce and Vicky get closer in their cell. For some reason, Slim and Tubbs are arrested as well. They are American imports who have disgraced Scotland Yard and are fired.

Dr. Henry Jekyll posts bail for Vicky and the others. Bruce horns in on Jekyll and Vicky, much to Jekyll’s annoyance. Jekyll talks about the two sides of man: Good and Evil. He wants to help those people who can’t control their animal instincts. Jekyll explains that violence, bloodshed, and even war might be abolished if those urges could be controlled.

Jekyll goes home and rushes to his secret lab behind a secret door. He talks to the servant Batley. He admits that he killed Poole; no he didn’t– it was Hyde. He just can’t find the right balance for his serum. He’s also in love with Vicky, and he hates Bruce already. He injects himself with the serum, knowing that Mr. Hyde will kill Bruce. He transforms, using the same kinds of tricks used in Wolfman transformations.

Vicky’s doing another stage show as Bruce watches. They kiss backstage; they haven’t wasted any time. Hyde watches them through the window. Slim and Tubby spot Hyde climbing up the wall and think that if they catch “the burglar” that they’ll get back on the police force. There’s some "Hyde”-and-Seek in the theater. Tubby sees an actor in a mask, a part of the show, and mistakenly thinks he’s “The Monster” killer. Tubby soon finds Hyde for real. Hyde escapes, but Bruce, Slim, and Tubby pursue him across the rooftops. They have to stop and rescue Tubby as Hyde gets away for good.

Hyde hides out in a wax museum, right next to Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. Tubby winds up locked inside an iron maiden. Tubby actually ends up catching Hyde inside the wax museum’s jail cell, but by the time he gets Slim and the police inspector, they see that it’s just Dr. Jekyll. The two idiots walk Dr. Jekyll home. Jekyll asks the two to spend the night and protect him from the Monster.

Tubby insists that Jekyll is the monster, but Slim doesn’t see how that’s possible. The creepy servant Batley follows Tubby around the house, terrifying him. Tubby ends up finding the secret lab. He finds a vicious bunny, a dog who meows, and a monkey that sounds like a cow. Batley attacks Tubby, but Tubby gets away.

Jekyll is honest about the secret lab and shows the two men downstairs, but denies that Batkey is even real. Tubby drinks something he shouldn’t while Jekyll prepares an injection in the next room. Tubby turns into a big mouse-faced thing who goes into the pub and orders cheese. There’s comedy when everyone sees the mouse except Slim– until he does. Then Tubby sees himself, and they both faint. Tubby soon turns back into himself.

The two go to the inspector and tell him everything. They’re absolutely correct, but the story isn’t exactly believable the way they tell it.

Slim, Tubby, Bruce, and Vicky all confront Jekyll at his home. He takes them all down into the lab, except it’s not a lab any more, it now looks like a wine cellar. Slim finds a bottle of “Mouselle” wine, and thinks that’s what turned Tubby into a mouse. Tubby then drinks the whole thing, which simply gets him drunk. He hallucinates that Slim is a mouse now. Upstairs, Bruce apologizes to Jekyll for his curiosity.

Bruce asks Jekyll if he can marry Vicky, and Jekyll has no choice in the matter. Jekyll reveals to her how he feels, but she thinks he’s insane. He injects himself, by accident this time, and turns into the monster right in front of Vicky. She faints. Bruce already left, so it’s up to Slim and Tubby to rescue her. Tubby also gets injected. The men chase Hyde outside as Tubby turns into someone who looks like Mr. Hyde. Slim and Bruce start chasing him instead. Vicky tells the inspector everything.

Tubby-Hyde crashes another Suffrage group, causing all the women to scream and run away. The police get calls about people seeing the monster– in two different places! The two Hydes terrorize the whole town and evetually climb up the outside of a building. Bruce and Slim track both Hydes to the same rooftop. Tubby-Hyde knocks himself out on a clothesline and is captured.

Back at the house, Jekyll-Hyde kidnaps Vicky. He ends up falling out a window and turning back into Jekyll right in front of the policemen.

Slim comes to the inspector claiming to have caught the monster. He brings in a monster who promptly turns into Tubby. All the policemen then turn into Hydes, and the duo run away at high speed.

Commentary

The sets are good, the makeup on Hyde is good, the acting is about what you’d expect from an Abbott and Costello movie. Boris Karloff played Dr. Jekyll, but Mr. Hyde was a different actor. Jekyll claims to have altruistic motives, but he actually hopes that Hyde will kill Bruce, so he’s not as good as he pretends. Hyde here (both of them) seem more like dumb monsters than the usual portrayal of a hedonistic murderer.

Vicky was supposed to be Jekyll’s ward but she didn’t know about the lab in the basement or anything else. Bud Abbott usually plays the straight man, but this time, he’s almost as dumb as Tubby.

Abbott And Costello Meet The Mummy (1955)

• Directed by Charles Lamont

• Written by John Grant, Lee Loeb

• Stars Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Marie Windsor, Michael Ansara

• Run Time: 1 Hour, 19 Minutes

• Trailer:

Synopsis

We begin in Egypt, where two bold adventurers watch a stage show, Pete and Freddie. Elsewhere, Dr. Zoomer, the Egyptologist, claims that he has found Klaris the mummy. Now he needs to find someone to accompany the mummy back to the States.

Elsewhere, Madame Rontru orders Charlie and Josef to get that mummy! Thugs kidnap Zoomer just before Fredie and Pete arrive. They argue over whether a mummy can be male. The thugs open the sarcophagus, and we see a living mummy inside. Freddie narrowly avoids being killed by the thugs, but he does see the mummy!

The thugs get the mummy, but his sacred medallion is missing. Freddie finds the corpse of Dr. Zoomer several times, but keeps losing him. Finally, Pete finds him as well. They take some pictures of the body for proof. Charlie and Josef overhear Freddie talking about “shooting” Dr. Zoomer.

The thugs still can’t find the medallion, but they take Klaris to Semu, their leader. Semu and his group watch an Egyptian dance troupe. Semu tells Hetsut and Iben to find the missing amulet or die.

The newspaper comes out, and Pete’s in the pictures too, which makes him the prime suspect. They have to hide from the police, which leads Freddie to dress up like a snake charmer and get scared by a snake. There’s snake charmer and rope climbing gags at this point.

Rontru, Charlie, and Josef go to Zoomer’s to look for the medallion. Freddie and Pete go as well, hoping the murderer returns. Freddie finds the medallion, and the goons chase after them. Pete takes the medallion to the pawn shop, but the pawnbroker is terrified of the thing. Madame Rontru comes in and offers to buy it from them at six o’clock, but there’s still time for yet another snake-charmer joke.

We then get a song from someone who’s not actually a character in this story. Pete and Freddie come into the place to meet Madame Rontru. The waiter says that the medallion they have “means death.” The two then make some poor attempts to get rid of the amulet.

Rontru shows up and tries to get the amulet from Freddie, who has managed to swallow it. She takes him to the doctor’s to get a fluoroscope to verify his story. At least they now have a picture of the hieroglyphics. Semu comes in, and Rontru meets him for the first time. Semu looks at the picture, and he can read the words. Semu offers to be their guide through the desert tomorrow morning.

Semu talks to his religious followers and tells them to prepare for the Feast of Klaris. Rontru only cares about the jewels and other treasures. Meanwhile, Freddie encounters all manner of scary things in the crypt. Freddie ends up sitting down right next to Klaris’s sarcophagus. After some more hijinks, Pete believes in the mummy now too. The mummy squeezes the amulet out of Freddy. Freddy and Pete tell Rontru, Charlie, and Josef about Semu and his gang.

Rontru pulls a gun on Semu to take him as a hostage. Freddie and Pete fall inside the pyramid through a secret door. Rotru dresses up Charlie to look like Klaris. Charlie knocks out Klaris and trades places with him just as Freddie and Pete come in; they knock him out and plan to bury him. Pete finds bandages and wraps himself up to look like Klaris.

Before long, Pete, Charlie, and Klaris, who all look like mummies, stagger into the pyramid. Confusion ensues and Rontru and Josef plant explosives. Madame Rontru ends up fighting the mummy, who ends up carrying a lit bundle of dynamite. Boom! No more mummy.

Pete decides to open “Cafe Klaris,” where all the band is dressed up like mummies. We get one more snake-charmer bit before it’s all over, but this one goes differently, at least for Pete.

Commentary

The characters are named Freddy and Pete, but they regularly address each other as Bud and Lou. The character names only appear in the credits.

The humor here is repetitious and often drags out for far too long, although the “shovel and pick” routine was pretty good.

It’s not clear for a long time that Semu and Rontru are opponents, not partners.

We end up with three mummies running around, just like the two Hydes at the end of “Abbott And Costello Meet Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1953). It works fine, but we’ve definitely seen it before.

The mummy doesn’t get a great deal of screen time, and most of the drama comes from Semu and Rontru and their plotting.

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