When people stop breathing all over a resort hotel managed by Alan Mowbray, the place could get a bad reputation. As if its reputation wasn't bad enough with the help they hire there, mainly Abbott&Costello.Bud's the house detective and Lou's a bellboy. When he breaks incoming guest Nicholas Joy's glasses and generally makes a mess of things, Joy vows to get him fired. People are always doing that to Costello, but later Joy is the first one who winds up dead.Joy was a high powered criminal defense attorney and as it happens in all these murder mysteries there's a hotel full of suspects who might have a better motive and more upstairs to plan things better than the hapless Lou. But Lou being the patsy he always is gets the attention of police detective James Flavin. Costello being the klutz he is and getting Flavin's hair, Flavin might just want to arrest him on general principles.One of those suspects is Boris Karloff. He plays a Middle Eastern hypnotist and swami from Brooklyn and the one bad thing in the story is how he tries to frame Lou and have him commit suicide as well. If he's not the guilty party which he isn't, than why do it?I really did like the cavern set where Lou has an extended scene with the masked murderer who is trying to get a tell tale clue from Costello. There's even a red herring sent up that Abbott might be the murderer, but who in the world would believe that?A lot of this ground is covered before and better in their film Who Done It where the boys are also amateur sleuths and interfering in the police investigation. Still Abbott and Costello Meet The Killer, Boris Karloff is not a bad one for the guys.

Bud & Lou find themselves at the center of a murder mystery, the chief suspect? Why Lou Costello of course.As a comedy, Meet The Killer offers nothing fresh to what we haven't seen before from the boys prior to this 1949 offering, not that the comedy doesn't deliver, because it does, very much so. Be it Freddie (Costello) being too stupid to be hypnotised by the shifty Swami (Boris Karloff), or a wonderful sequence of events down in the creepy caverns, it's fun and very diverting. However, the strength in "Meet The Killer" is that it works very well as a whodunit mystery, a ream of characters, all acting oddly, come and go to keep the viewer guessing right through to the cheery pay off. It's entertaining on two fronts and has a cast clearly having fun into the bargain. Super shadowy photography by Charles Van Enger as well. Enjoy!Now, about that Tortoise? 7/10

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello star in this classic "who done it" movie. The team provides their usual funny pratfalls and mix-ups but along the way they manage to provide a classic theme to this movie. With Abbott and Costello, Karloff managing his way into the picture as the grueling possibility of the killer.This may be Abbott and Costello's best attempt to provide some new material into their excellent routines. Costello's character, Phillips is mainly accused of murdering a well known lawyer after they have a public disagreement.Phillips arrives at the lawyers hotel rooms to apologize but he finds that the lawyer has been murdered. Abbott goes far and above the the call of friendship to prove his friends innocents but who really did do it? Watch and see.

I'm a big A&C fan and have been since I was ten. I saw this A&C film many times in the 1980s (I recorded it once and watched it over and over again). It turns out that this film is included in Volume 3 of the Best of Abbott and Costello DVD set. After purchasing the set, I had a chance to watch it again recently. There are some genuinely outstanding gags here. Of all the movies made after A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN (the duo's high point), this is one of the best. The chase scene through the caverns is actually very well made and has withstood the test of time. It remains one of the best climaxes from an A&C movie. Unfortunately, Boris Karloff isn't put to very good use in the film. This is a surprisingly atmospheric film, though, and at times it even contains elements of noir. It reminds me of a cross between WHO DONE IT and HOLD THAT GHOST, although it's not as good as either of those films. Still, unlike A&C GO TO MARS or Africa SCREAMS, it's certainly not a blemish on their filmography.