NOTES: A vaudeville episode, "The Language Scene", with Lou Costello and Sid Fields, was shot but deleted from the movie before release. Because of Universal's practice of splitting receipts (the movie was invariably double-billed), In Society does not figure on any champion money-making lists, even though it was a tremendous success in America and Australia, earning a fortune for the studio. The title is sometimes erroneously cited as Abbott and Costello in Society, or even Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Society. PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Abbott and Costello rated 8th place in the annual poll of top money-making stars for 1944, voted by circuit and independent exhibitors throughout the United States. COMMENT: One of the most enjoyable of the Abbott and Costello series. Some genuinely funny sequences and routines are given a lift by an excellent support cast, and are leavened with some really attractive musical interludes. Marion Hutton makes a bright, bouncy heroine, Ann Gillis has a sexy song, and it's always a pleasure to see Arthur Treacher. And by the humble standards of Jean Yarbrough, the direction even has a modicum of pace, polish and style.OTHER VIEWS: Both Abbott and Costello are in fine form, taking full advantage of some superior material, much of it deriving from classic burlesque, such as the Floogle Street (here called "Bagel Street") routine involving the infamous Susquehanna Hat Company. The various strands of humor plus the song breaks have been put together with professional precision. The movie is always attractive to look at - and I don't mean just because of all the girls - and, as said above, it boasts a most appealing lead in Marion Hutton. - G.A.

Years ago Alan King had a great line about plumbers that it was indeed a noble profession and should be celebrated the way astronauts are. Without plumbers King reasoned, we'd all be astronauts. But when you hire Abbott&Costello as plumbers you'd better be checked out in a space suit.Bumbling plumbers Bud and Lou after wrecking the home of Thurston Hall and Nella Walker get invited to a big society bash when they get that instead of a threatening letter from Walker. When they went to that job they got a lift from their friend, Rosie the Riveteer cab driver Marion Hutton who was mistaken for a society girl in costume by Kirby Grant who was similarly attired. So begins Marion's Cinderella like odyssey.In fact Marion and Kirby are given a great deal more screen footage than you would normally expect in an Abbott&Costello feature. I'm guessing that Universal was trying to turn Hutton into a big film star the way Paramount was doing with her older sister Betty. Marion was a lighter and sweeter version of Betty, maybe if she had a more distinct personality of her own she might have had a film career. In any event she was more interested in singing than acting. She got a couple of really good songs to sing, No Bout Adoubt It is in the style of her sister. And one of the big song hits of 1944 was introduced by Marion with My Dreams Are Getting Better All The Time. Television's future Sky King also has a fine number with What A Change In The Weather. This should prove a pleasant surprise to his fans who probably didn't know Kirby Grant started as a singer.But Bud and Lou get their innings as well here as they make an ungodly mess of Thurston Hall's lovely home. And they do one of burlesque's celebrated routines, the famous Susquehanna Hat Company on Beagle Street. Who could possibly believe that such horrific events in people's lives could have happened on that street or been connected with that hat company?The last chase sequence as society crook Thomas Gomez tries to steal a valuable painting on the fire engine is re-edited from W.C. Fields's Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. You'll recognize it of course if you are a fan of Fields, but it is certainly edited nicely into In Society. This is one of the best A&C films from their early Universal period, a must for their still growing legion of fans.

A&C as plumbers - cue a 100-or-so cross-talk routines, trouble with pipes and a plethora of vulgar noises, before the duo somehow becomes embroiled in a high-society art theft. Naturally they save the day, but not without ruining the substantive part of it first.This particular A&C film is often much funnier than most, but it nevertheless remains as unbearably noisy, frenetic and annoying as any similar 'Three Stooges' short spun out to feature-length would have been.Rather more insultingly, a lot of the footage is lifted from WC Fields' 'Never Give A Sucker An Even Break'.

Made towards the end of their first contracted stint with Universal Studios, "In Society" is possibly the last eminently watchable Abbott and Costello feature until they initiated their horror spoofs with "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein", the picture which has probably survived the sands of time better than any of their others. In "In Society", the emphasis is very much on the physical and visual side of the pair's vaudevillian humour and there is little in the way of the verbal routines or snappy one-liners which are dotted around many of their other movies. But the visual set-pieces are performed with a great vivacity and enthusiasm for which Costello's apprenticeship as a stuntman in some pictures of the late twenties had prepared him well, and it is refreshing to find an unexpected but heart-warming tribute to W.C. Fields, including shots taken directly from the master's 1941 "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break".