Addio all'esercito

With the war effort in Europe over and done with, the many men enlisted into the military return home as heroes. As most of them return to their previous stations in life, Herbie and Slicker are not overjoyed with this as it involves them becoming hustlers again. This time though they have a reason to better their position as Herbie has smuggled French orphan Evie into the US and is going to struggle to adopt her legally. The pair do come up with some sort of plan but they can only succeed if they manage to evade the clutches of the police (in the form of one Sgt Collins) for long enough.

It has been many decades since I saw Buck Privates and I did want to see it again as I remembered enjoying it. Unfortunately I could not find it so I went with what I could get, which was this sequel, which sees the boys return to their private lives but with as many troubles and challenges as ever. In terms of plotting we are on pretty thin ground here because the only tangible narrative device is a sickly sweet kid (never an easy proposition) and even that is quite uninteresting. The film just about manages to get by because the various comic situations are mostly pretty funny. There aren't really any classic exchanges or situations but it is consistently amusing for those that like this sort of thing.

Abbott and Costello are doing their usual thing but they are far from going through the motions in the way that they would occasionally do in some other films they made. There are some nice in-jokes and Costello is pretty funny with some of his pratfalls and reactions. The overblown car chase at the end isn't them at their best though mainly because it feels like the writers are just looking for something "big" to end on with the hope that the noise will make viewers overlook the fact that it is neither all that clever or funny. Pendleton is pretty good as a fall guy although I did feel for his character a little bit. Brown is so-so, Shawlee is sidelined to the point of being forgettable and Simmons is so sickly that I suspect extras in her scenes developed diabetes.

All told though I quite enjoyed the film. It doesn't have the classic material or the big laughs that their better films produced but it is still an amusing affair that doesn't have too many problems to it and can be easily enjoyed by fans as well as doing an OK job for the casual viewer.

Buck Privates Come Home is directed by Charles Barton and written by John Grant, Frederic I. Rinaldo and Robert Lees. It stars Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Tom Brown, Nat Pendleton, Joan Fulton and Beverly Simmons. Cinematography is by Charles Van Enger and music by Walter Schuman.

Abbott and Costello star as two GI's returning from their service who get involved with much malarkey as they try to adopt a six year old orphan who Herbie (Costello) sneaked back in his duffel bag.

The 19th film in the Abbott and Costello series, Buck Privates Come Home is the sequel to Buck Privates from 1941 and evidently it was produced to return the boys to safe commercial ground. It worked and a year later they would pair up with Frankenstein for the first of their much loved films with the Universal Monsters.

Formula is obviously the same as the boys produce high energy slapstick wrapped around a thin plot line. Pace is never less than brisk and with the pair on fine form a number of scenarios score high on the laugh meter. Highlights include sequences involving a time bomb, a sawhorse (come see-saw) table involving food and the customary pie in face gag, Costello in high clothes line peril, some bang-bang at the bank commotion and the finale is a riot as Costello causes chaos behind the wheel of a midget motor car. Pendleton is excellent as the fall guy, first as the army sergeant and later as a New York cop, and Brown and Fulton provide the lovey dovey axis.

Fun and frothy, just how the best A & C films should be. 7.5/10

This happens extremely rarely but yes, this sequel to the original "Buck Privates" is better. Why? There's more of A&C in this one actually as opposed to the original which has more musical numbers in it and more of a romance subplot. In "Buck Privates Come Home" there's more typical A&C burlesque routines that made them famous in the first place. I'm speaking primarily of the 'ol "Floogle Street Sketch" and the story about Floogle Street and the Susquehannah Hat Company. Either the street name or the name of the hat company sets everyone off whenever Lou mentions them to passing pedestrians. It is pure classic comedy, of which apparently writers forgot how to do nowadays. I highly recommend this flick!

Not sure why others who have commented on this film seem so lukewarm about it. I think this is a really underrated Abbott and Costello comedy and the script (contrary to what others have said) is actually quite good. It is more subtle than some of their earlier films and actually has a lot of pathos in addition to the comedy. It also has an amazing chase sequence for a finale.

Also-- this film does not contain the Susquehanna Hat sequence or the chase footage from "Never Give A Sucker An Even Break" (as is stated in two previous comments). The film they are confusing this with is another Abbott and Costello movie, "In Society."

Abbott and Costello return from the war as buck privates. Although the credits list Abbott as Corporal Slicker Smith, he doesn't have corporal stripes on his shirts. The reference intended probably was that these are the buck privates who went in (form the first film) and now they're coming home. It's a comedy and family film that mixes in America's participation in the war. This is done with newsreel footage from before the start to the victory marches in Europe and the return home parades. With those are insets of Abbot and Costello joining and returning home, before the meat of the story takes place.

The fact that these guys would be coming back - it looks like at whole platoon or more, as buck privates is somewhat curious, and one wonders how funny that may have been to veterans at the time. They all would have had to goof up in some way or have been busted. Costello's dress uniform has six hash marks on the sleeve - indicating three years (six months per hash) of combat duty. But they went into the Army In 1940 and Sgt. Collins comments that they had been together six years.

Although the draft didn't start until Sept. 16, 1940, the Army and Navy had beefed up recruiting early in the year in anticipation of entering the WW II which had officially begun in Oct. 1939. And, with three million Americans in Europe at the end of the war (VE Day was May 8, 1945), home rotations would continue through 1946.

Now that that's settled, on to this fairly funny story of Costello's Herbie Brown smuggling an orphaned French girl aboard ship to get her into the U.S. This becomes a constant chase with their former First Sergeant Collins, trying to apprehend the threesome. He is played by Nat Pendleton who is back on his New York police beat. How Evie, played by Beverly Simmons, gets into the U.S. and escapes being deported is part of the funny early stuff. But when Herbie and Bud Abott's Slicker Smith meet up with Evie's friend and former WAC Sylvia Hunter (played by Joan Shawlee) , they soon find themselves in the midget car racing arena.

This all serves for some wacky car driving and chase scenes - with Herbie behind the wheel, naturally. It's a fun film that the whole family should enjoy.