Africa Screams
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| Africa Screams | |
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 Africa Screams Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | Charles Barton |
| Produced by | Edward Nassour |
| Written by | Earl Baldwin Martin Ragaway Leonard Stern |
| Starring | Bud Abbott Lou Costello Clyde Beatty Frank Buck Shemp Howard Joe Besser |
| Music by | Walter Schumann |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | May 4, 1949 (New York City, New York) May 27, 1949 |
| Running time | 80 mins. |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Mexican Hayride (1948) |
| Followed by | Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949) |
| IMDb profile | |
Africa Screams is a 1949 film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The film is notable for having two members of the Three Stooges (Shemp Howard and Joe Besser) working together in a non-Stooge vehicle.
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[edit] Plot
Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) is in the book department of Klopper's Department store looking for a copy of the book Dark Safari by the explorer Cuddleford. Buzz Johnson (Bud Abbott) overhears her saying that she will pay $2,500 for a map that is inside that book. He comes up with a plan to pass his friend Stanley Livington (Lou Costello) off as a great explorer who accompanied Cuddleford on the expedition written about in the book. With claims that he can reproduce the map, the two men go to Diana's home that night. They come to an agreement to join her on her expedition to Africa, and when Bud overhears that Clyde Beatty has been offered $20,000 to lead the expedition he feels that the map may be worth more than she has offered.
They head off to Africa, along with some of her own explorers, including Harry (Joe Besser), Boots Wilson (Buddy Baer), Grappler McCoy (Max Baer), and Gunner (Shemp Howard), a nearsighted gunman. When they arrive, the boys learn the true expedition is for diamonds, and Buzz plans to renegotiate the deal. Unfortunately Stanley cannot reproduce the map, as he has never seen it, and they attempt to bluff their way around the jungle. Eventually the groups arrives a the camp of the Ubangi tribe and the chief offers many diamonds in exchange for Stanley, who he feels can feed many. They start to chase Stanley while Buzz gabs the diamonds and hides them. Finally the tribe are scared away by a large gorilla. Another gorilla has dug up the diamonds that Buzz hid. They eventually wind up back in the United States, and Stanley now owns the department store, along with the gorilla, and Buzz works for them as the elevator operator!
[edit] Trivia
- It was filmed from November 10 through December 22, 1948.
- It was re-released in 1953 with the Marx Brothers film, Love Happy.
- This was one of the films that Abbott and Costello made independently while they were under contract with Universal.
- The title of this film is a play on the 1930 documentary, Africa Speaks.
[edit] DVD releases
As this film is in the public domain, there have been at least a dozen DVD releases from a variety of companies over the years. The image below is a screenshot from the colorized version released by Legend Films in 2005.
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[edit] External links
- Africa Screams at the Internet Movie Database
- Movie Tome
- A few free to download clips from the movie in WMV and RM formats.
