This Abbott and Costello comedy brings to mind the earlier rather similar "Road to Zanzibar", staring Hope, Crosby and Lamour. Both involve interactions with gorillas and cannibals. They differ in that the gorilla in the present film is friendly and helpful toward Costello because be rescued it from a pit fall trap. Also, we get a look at a King Kong-sized gorilla, which just stands there. It's unclear if this is supposed to be the Orangutan gargantuan-a fabled giant form of orangutan that the expedition supposedly was seeking. All present naturally occurring orangutans are confined to the islands of Sumatra and Borneo, no where near Africa. Partial fossils of a long extinct giant form of Orangutans (Gigantopithecus) have been found in parts of eastern and southern Asia.Getting back to the movie, Lou is afraid of all animals. We see him cracking a whip at some unseen animal, which turns out to be a house cat. Doesn't sound like a good candidate for a safari to darkest Africa! Nonetheless, he's invited to go on such an expedition organized by Diana Emerson, who seems to be an independent wealthy young woman, who was actually after diamonds rumored to be plentiful in one small area of the Congo basin. Lou claims to have memorized the lost map of where these diamonds are. Abbott invites himself on the expedition. Ex-boxers Max and Buddy Baer: Diana's henchmen are also present, while Shemp Howard, of The Three Stooges, plays gunner, who is nearly blind, despite very thick glasses. Incredulously, he's supposed to be ready to shoot any dangerous animals, in case the primary shooter misses. He appears as the focus of attention occasionally, serving as a running gag. We also have wild tropical animals experts Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck. Clyde snaps his whip to encourage some lions to do his bidding in a large bamboo enclosure. Lou enters this enclosure, locking the door, confident that he can get along with the lion inside, thinking it's Abbott, in his lion suit. When he sees Abbott outside the cage, he panics, and later hides under a wicker enclosure. Abbott returns and doesn't see Lou, thus supposes the lion ate him, clothes and all(right!). Later, Abbott finds Lou, who finds a large clear stone. Abbott declares it's a diamond(very unlikely). As they walk along the jungle path, they find more, until they come to a native village, where they see that a native has been planting these stones to make them come to their village. They're tied to poles, while a big cauldron of water is being boiled. A gorilla comes along and unties Lou's ropes, then he unties Abbott's ropes, and they skedaddle. Abbott has the stones in a sack, which he hides in the jungle while Lou is elsewhere. When Abbott returns for his diamonds, they aren't to be found, as the gorilla took them. Meanwhile, the Baer brothers are roaming the jungle when a group of chimpanzees decides to have fun with them. They pile palm leaves on the trail, which one trips over. They hit one with a pea shooter. Soon, the two are fighting each other. The chimps end the fight by dropping coconuts on their heads.We see Abbott paddling a raft down the river, when Lou yells he wants to go with him. But Abbott refuses, saying, since his diamonds were stolen, he's going home. The next scene is in front of a tall skyscraper in NYC. Lou gets out of a car, smartly dressed, enters the skyscraper, and goes to the elevator. Abbott is the elevator operator. He asks Lou if he can have a raise. Lou says he will have to consult with his business partner. Guess who his business partner is. You got it!Although this was filmed in B&W, I saw the colorized version at YouTube, which was quite good. This was a relatively short A&C film, at 75min....Hillary Brooke, who played Diana, had an extensive film and TV career. She played a pirate captain in "Abbott and Costello meet Captain Kidd.", and was Lou's usual girlfriend on "The Abbott and Costello Show"This is a moderately interesting film, especially for children, with some childish performances here and there.

"Africa Screams" (Nassour Studios, released through United Artists, 1949), directed by Charles Barton, is a better than average Abbott and Costello comedy which places the popular team in one of their rare independent productions outside their home base of Universal Pictures. With military themes, ghost stories, college musicals, westerns, murder mysteries and everything else imaginable behind them, it would be a matter of time before Bud and Lou attempted a jungle comedy. The original screenplay by Earl Baldwin doesn't have Bud and Lou meeting Tarzan, Jungle Jim, Bomba the Jungle Boy, King Kong or The African Queen, but do team up with notable animal trainer, Clyde Beatty, and animal hunter, Frank Buck, in guest starring roles playing themselves.The story revolves around a couple of store clerks in the book section at Klopper's Department Store. Stanley Livington (Lou Costello), is approached at the counter by Grappler McCoy (Max Baer) and Boots Wilson (Buddy Baer), a couple of tough looking thugs inquiring about an out of print book, "Dark Safari" by Cuddleford, a notable explorer. The men, who are more interested in the map enclosed in the book, find that Stanley can reproduce the map by memory. They offer him $1,000 with the reproduction at their address later that night. At the same time, Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) inquires about the same book to Stanley's friend and partner, Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott). Knowing Stanley to be more familiar with the book than he, offers his services at her asking price of $2,500, arranging their meeting at her home later that evening. Upon their arrival, Buzz introduces Stanley to Diane as the world's greatest explorer who accompanied Cuddleford on an African expedition, never revealing Stanley has a phobia towards animals. Stanley also gets to meet Diane's present guest, Clyde Beatty, who's hired to lead the safari in search for an orangutan gargantuan (while in actuality seeking for uncut diamonds depicted on the map of the book) . Overhearing Diane offering Beatty $2,000 for the expedition, finding he could obtain more money than offered, convinces Diane to take he and Buzz on the expedition as well, which she does, at the price of the drawn map by Stanley. Once in the jungles of Africa, with the safari crew with Diane's henchmen; Harry (Joe Besser), her cook and butler; Gunner (Shemp Howard), an extremely near-sited sharpshooter as their protector (!); Buzz and Stanley soon realizes their lives are in greater danger with Diane and her thugs than coming face to face with lions, crocodiles, a giant gorilla, and cannibal tribe from the Ubangi territory as Stanley's map turns out not to be quite the one depicted from the book in question.Although its title "Africa Screams" is reportedly depicted from a 1930 documentary,"Africa Speaks," a product made so long ago for 1949 audiences not to even recall, is, what it appears, to be a parody to the Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour "Road to" series of the 1940s, especially the jungle African ventures of ROAD TO ZANZIBAR (1941) and ROAD TO MOROCCO (1942). In fact, with Bud, Lou and Hillary Brooks doing a Crosby, Hope and Lamour take, minus the song and dance interludes and Hollywood in-jokes, who could ask for anything more when it comes to certain gags and situations that could be just as fun to see with either Hope or Costello clowning in their own individual comedic style.Overlooking the aforementioned ROAD series format, "Africa Screams" is pure 79 minute comedy in the best Abbott and Costello tradition. Aside from Costello's frightful expressions and reactions, he naturally gets the biggest laughs here, especially with his shared sequences with other famed comics as Shemp Howard and Joe Besser (individually part of the Three Stooges comedy team at one point in their careers). Interestingly, both Besser and Hillary Brooke would become semi-regulars on their two-season television series of "The Abbott and Costello Show" (1952-53). Best moments for Costello occur when trying to impress Diane by doing a Clyde Beatty by locking himself inside a cage with a real lion who turns out not to be Buzz in lion costume; unknowingly swimming with a crocodile; and frightful reaction when approached by a giant gorilla, among others.As Costello gets the last laugh, it's his partner Abbott who, in state of confusion, who responds, "I just don't understand it." The audience does. Watch for it.With well thought out gags and some unexpected surprises, it's a wonder why "Africa Screams" has become the least known of all of their comedies combined. Once shown on New York City television (1956-1961) before disappearing from view, "Africa Screams" never became part of New York's television package of Abbott and Costello comedies (1940-1956) commonly shown Sunday morning/afternoons on WPIX, Channel 11 (1971-89). Falling into public domain with some poor reproductive copies, "Africa Screams" resurfaced on television after a long hiatus on cable, public television and independent stations as well as the early stages of home video in the early 1980s. In later years, "Africa Screams" turned up on DVD, and on cable TV's Turner Classic Movies starting in 2006. With availability readily accessible in recent years, "Africa Screams" should be an interesting rediscovery and real treat for anyone familiar with every Abbott and Costello movie ever made but unaware of the existence of this one. Availability in colorized format is quite good. (***)

If one can ignore the racism of the scenes set in Africa, or at least accept that this was a staple of Hollywood at the time, and can't be changed, then there's a lot to enjoy in "Africa Screams." It's not Abbott and Costello's best film, but it is one of their better later ones, with Lou contributing a very energetic performance, which can't always be said of post-"A&C Meet Frankenstein" films from the team. There isn't really a story here, just a premise, in which Abbott and Costello are drawn into a shady African expedition because the person in charge, played by Hillary Brooke, thinks Costello has memorized a map from a book that will lead her to a diamond mine. The transition from New York to Africa and back again is done in the finest "Well, here we are on the moon!" style employed in radio comedy shows, and of course, the jungle sets are patently phony, but it hardly matters. This is really a burlesque show without the strippers, careening from one barely-related, but often very funny, routine to another. The Baer brothers, Max and Buddy, are the heavies (Lon Chaney, Jr., must have been busy that month) and Stooges Shemp Howard and Joe Besser act as something of a secondary team, with Shemp playing a visually-impaired thug while Joe, doing his usual sissy routine, is forced to act as his guide-dog. Animal trainers Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck are there, too, because...well because they could be. There is one funny scene of Beatty doing his lion taming act while Costello, who is also trapped in the cage, desperately crawls around underneath a wicker stand trying to escape. There are also people in gorilla suits, rubber crocodiles, and those unfortunate bone-in-the-nose cannibals, one of whom oddly sports a skipper's hat. A&C's best director, Charles Barton, keeps everything moving to an absurd end, but the point is not to take any of this seriously.

Abbott and Costello head off to the jungles of Africa on a search for diamonds in this OK but unspectacular comedy. As the story begins, Costello is drafted by Abbott to impersonate a big-game hunter in order to lead a somewhat shady expedition to Africa. The movie lost a bit of credibility right off the start when Costello's secret obviously came crashing down in his exchange with Clyde Beatty, who was apparently a real big game hunter playing himself. The exchange was funny, but why Beatty wouldn't have simply outed him right then was beyond me. As the movie progresses, there are a series of adventures with various wild animals and with a tribe of cannibals, and the movie finally progresses to its end, as Costello (who seemed beaten) emerges from the adventures apparently fabulously wealthy, while Abbott works as his elevator operator.There were scattered chuckles throughout, and some good physical comedy in places, but for the most part the story was relatively weak and lacking in any sense of flow. This also features a somewhat nonsensical (but what else would you expect) appearance from Shemp Howard, of "Three Stooges" fame. If you need to waste a bit of time, it will do that - and not unpleasantly - but it really is nothing more than a time-waster. 5/10