Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Nonureva Really Surprised!

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Michelle Ridley The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

ttherman-2 In my opinion this is one of the weakest of their films. There are so many other good ones to watch before this. The energy level just kind of seems low here.

weezeralfalfa 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.

ferbs54 When I was a youngster, many moons ago, no screen comedians tickled my funny bone more than Abbott and Costello. Be it on film or their "Abbott and Costello Show" on TV (repeats of this 1952-'54 program ran in NYC throughout the '60s for we baby boomers), the team could do no wrong for me. Forty years later, however, I find that A&C have lost much of their sparkle and charm, although the best of the films--such as "Buck Privates," "Keep 'Em Flying," "Pardon My Sarong" and of course "A&C Meet Frankenstein"--remain wonderful entertainments for me. The team does not seem to have aged as well as some others; I find the silent clowns (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd) and the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields, and the Stooges far funnier, somehow, today. A recent first viewing of the A&C film "Africa Screams," released in 1949, has only served to bolster my opinion here. This is a remarkably stoopid film, made on the supercheap, that is fairly consistently UNfunny, despite a terrific cast. In this one, Lou plays a salesman of safari books, and his character goes by the name of Stanley Livington (oy). His buddy, Buzz Johnson (Abbott), convinces pretty Diana Emerson (Hillary Brooke) that Stanley is a big-game hunter and safari guide (even though Stanley had previously confessed that as a child he was scared by his piggy bank, and that he was 15 before he ate his first animal cracker...double oy!), and so off go the three (along with Diana's thuggish accomplices, played by real-life boxing brothers Max and Buddy Baer) to hunt for the Orangutan gargantua in the African jungle. But wait...what the boys don't know is that Diana is actually an unscrupulous diamond hunter! (This last is not really a spoiler; this movie was BORN spoiled!)Anyway, baby boomers who grew up loving the sweet and lovely Hillary Brooke on "The A&C Show" may be surprised to see her portray a "bad girl" here, but actually, Hillary had been known for playing bad girls for many years (check her out in 1944's "Ministry of Fear" or 1946's "Strange Impersonation" for proof). She manages to escape from this wholly unfunny wreck with her dignity fairly intact. Real-life lion tamer Clyde Beatty is in the film (his scenes with the big cats ARE pretty darn impressive), as is real-life big-game hunter Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck, and they too emerge likable and unscathed. Not so for then-current Stooge Shemp Howard, playing a Mr. Magoo type, or for future Stooge Joe Besser (playing Diana's butler and doing, essentially, a warm-up performance for his Stinky Davis character on "The A&C Show" a few years later). "Africa Screams," incidentally, marked the first time that A&C, Brooke and Besser worked as a team, and is the only time that Shemp and Besser appeared together.As may be expected, the film dishes out all kinds of shenanigans with lions, crocodiles, zany monkeys, "Umgawa"-spouting cannibals, and the seemingly inevitable man in a gorilla suit; you can doubtless imagine. Instances of extreme stoopidity include that ridiculous native chant, Stanley's use of an egg beater as a ship propeller, and the film's protracted ending, during which A&C, Diana and her thugs, cannibals, monkeys and that darn gorilla chase each other through the jungle. Homages to then-recent films "Mighty Joe Young" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" fail to engender any laffs, either. Actually, I only chuckled three or four times during the course of this 79-minute film, but they were more chuckles of disbelief at the inanity on screen than chuckles of actual mirth. AND, strange to say, Bud struck me as more amusing than Lou in this outing. Go figure. Truly, "Africa Screams" is a movie for hard-core A&C historians only, and possibly kids up to age 6 (and even THEY might be rolling their eyes). The lousy print quality of this Westlake Video DVD doesn't help matters, either. Y'know, it just struck me that this film makes the 1963 Bob Hope vehicle "Call Me Bwana" look like high art! To quote Buzz, as he watches Stanley jump into a crocodile-infested river: "What a belly flop!"

masercot There is a lot to like about this movie. Two of the stooges are in it. A couple of real-life prize fighters. And, a couple of real-life big game hunters...The plot is simple, sweet and stupid: Lou has a map memorized and he is forced on safari because everyone assumes it is a different map. He encounters lions, tough guys, crocodiles and big-game hunters. Bud Abbott is in the movie as well, being unbelievably horrible to his best friend...Not as many "routines" in this one, but a lot of solid comedy. Joe Besser gives a few out-loud laughs, as well. Shemp is great as the blind mobster.This was from a particularly fertile time for the duo. Well worth a watch...