Here's an Abbott and Costello flick I didn't catch as a kid growing up but as it turns out, I didn't miss anything. All the bits here were either recycled from earlier films or done again later, so there was nothing new to see regarding their material. In fact, now that I think about it, the boys were so popular it wasn't surprising that they did their routines over and over again for appreciative fans. The backdrop for this story is a misplaced sum of fifty thousand dollars that puts Ted Higgins (Bud) and Tommy Hinchcliffe (Lou) indebted to a mobster (Joseph Calleia) who in turn owes on a big time gambling bet to Julius Caesar McBride (Leon Errol). As I think about it now, I wonder if it was really necessary to give their characters different names because let's face it, nobody ever relates to their being anyone else other than Bud and Lou. With backup support from actress Cathy Downs and former wrestler and boxer Iron Mike Mazurki, "The Noose Hangs High" delivers plenty of routines in staccato fashion even if the story itself is as improbable as they come.

Abbott & Costello play two bumbling window washers who are mistakenly given $50,000 by a bookie to pay off a customer. When they realize the mistake, the boys quickly mail it back to the bookie to avoid rival gangsters, but a mix-up in the mail results in it being sent to an attractive young woman(played by Cathy Downs) who spent all but $2,000 of it, forcing them to bet the rest on a horse race, while the bookie and his gang wait impatiently to be paid back... Limp comedy rehashes all their old gags to little effect, further hampered by an incredibly contrived and absurd plot. This was made as an independent feature for the team, and is an unfortunate bust.

Tommy is having a painful toothache. When we first meet him, he is trying to use an unorthodox method to get rid of the pain he is feeling, but alas, it is not meant to be. The following day, the pain is no better. Perched on a window of a skyscraper, Tommy and his pal Ted are cleaning windows. Ted decides to bring his friend to a dentist in the building. The dentist proves to be the wrong man to deal with the problem at hand and Tommy has his own way solving his own problem.The duo is confused with men from a security service by Nick Craig's henchmen. He must make a payment of money J.C. McBride won on a bet he placed with Nick, who gives the money to Ted and Tommy to take it to the winner, but he does not intend to do so. He gets his guys to rob the naive would be messengers. The window washers manage to elude the criminals by entering a mail order firm where the money goes the wrong way, beginning a series of adventures for Ted and Tommy.Directed by Charles Barton, a veteran of Hollywood comedies and closely associated with some of the best pictures for the hilarious Lou Costello and Bud Abbott. This 1948 production recently showed in DVD format. The transfer is excellent. This seldom seen movie will delight fans of Abbott and Costello's fans. They were at the height of their popularity. The comedy has the comedians go from one routine to the other with such ease, the fun never stops.The cast includes Joseph Calleia, who is seen as the heavy Nick Craig. Leon Errol plays the lucky gambler at the center of the plot and whose identity is never revealed until the end of the story. Cathy Downs appears as Carol, the lucky recipient of the missing money. Mike Mazurski, who made a career playing tough men is at hand to liven things up.

This is a decent if undistinguished Abbott and Costello film. While it gets major points for having no distracting music or a mushy romance, the film did, unfortunately, recycle quite a few gags. In addition, the movie really wasn't all that funny--with fewer gags than normal. In fact, the funniest bit in the film was done by Murray Leonard, a frequent collaborator of Abbott and Costello (he's the same guy who played the very funny prisoner in LOST IN A HAREM). As a result, I felt amazingly flat by the time the picture was complete.Abbott and Costello are working as window washers when they are mistaken as delivery men. They are entrusted with picking an envelope of cash for a mobster and when they are tailed by other thugs, they mail the envelope to the man ( Joseph Calleia) instead. While not a bad idea, the execution stank because Lou is an idiot and mailed it to the wrong person--but to whom, he can't remember. So, when the envelope arrives empty, the thug promises to kill them unless they return the money by the deadline! After an exhaustive search, they find the lady who got the money in the mail. She unfortunately had already spent almost all of the $50,000, so much of the rest of the movie is spent trying to come up with the money or avoid Calleia and his thugs. Unfortauntely, none of this really was that interesting.Flat writing and a rather unfunny premise, this one is not one of the team's successes and I could see why this film was only rarely played on TV when I was a kid (yes, you young whippersnappers, back in the good ol' days (1968-1971), they showed a lot of their films on local TV and no, I am NOT talking about cable!).