Wednesday, November 3, 2010

ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE KILLER, BORIS KARLOFF - Milton Schwarzwald - "There's Been A Murder" (1949)

WTF?! What The Hey? Why is "Abbott & Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff" not like the other 'Abbott & Costello Meet Somebody' movies? It's said this movie was written as a vehicle for Bob Hope, but because of the success of "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein" they rewrote it for Bud and Lou!! Also, Boris Karloff's role was originally written for a woman, and guess what, I hate to give it away after 61 years, but he's not even the killer!! How do you like those apples?

I would have really liked to play or at least to have seen some of the "Lost Cavern Golf Club," I'll bet that place was a kick in the pants!!

You've seen this movie, right? Lou Costello is Freddie Phillips, the bellhop at The Lost Caverns Hotel, and he's witnessed a murder! Bud Abbott is Casey Edwards, the hotel dick! Alan Mowbray in the middle is Mr. Melton the Boss!

They are trying to keep the whole murder thing low key, but Freddie says the wrong thing and sends the maid into a screaming tizzy!

At least nobody looks suspicious!!

Boris Karloff has the role of Swami Talpur, the hypnotist! Boris always looks cool, no matter what, even in a turban that would look silly on most folks! It's very frustrating for Swami Talpur, because Freddie is almost too stupid to be hypnotized!

The cops suspect Freddie of the murder, so they hold him in the Hotel, so while he's there, he takes full advantage of the facilities, since the Feds are picking up the tab!!

The music, what little there is of it, was composed by a cat that's hard to find out much info on, a Mr. Milton Schwarzwald! Milton only composed the music for 7 films like "Arctic Manhunt," "The Story Of Molly X," and "Ma And Pa Kettle Go To Town," but he directed 80 comedic shorts from 1933-1939, and he also worked in the music department or as writer on a slew of other titles. Milton passed away back in 1950, he was only 58! The remainder of the soundtrack is stock music from a minimum of seven other uncredited composers!

The fantastic 40's femme fatale Lenore Aubert is Angela Gordon!

Although not the killer, the swami does try to get Freddie to kill himself, first unsuccessfully by hanging!

Then he gives Freddie a knife, and tells him to kill the guy in the mirror, unfortunately it backfires, because Freddie is not looking directly into the mirror and sees the swami's reflection instead!!

A dead body is not something you ever really want to find hanging in your closet!

Nice shot of the whole ensemble!

The duel of the claws!

The old whodunnit of amping up the temperature in the steam bath gag!

Finally the Lost Caverns come into play, and it looks pretty cool down there in what appears to be Dante's Inferno!!!

First Freddie comes in contact with an owl, then he meets up with the real Killer!!

Useless signs is an industry still going strong today! Our motto: If you can't fix something, put up a warning sign instead!

Special effects artiste David S. Horsley cut his teeth on films like "Bride Of Frankenstein" and "Werewolf Of London," and worked on 4 other Abbott & Costello movies, some Francis the Talking Mule, and Ma & Pa Kettle flicks, and at the end of his career was doing special photography for movies like "This Island Earth!"

This shot just ain't right!!!

2 comments:

TABONGA! said...

wtf?..

Anonymous said...

I love this movie. I was born 35 years after this movie was released. It has both comedy and drama in it.

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