One Night In The Tropics

Third Base

One Night In The Tropics
USA 1940 Directed by A. Edward Sutherland
Universal/Shout Factory Blu Ray Zone A

Just before directing The Invisible Woman (reviewed here) in the same year, A. Edward Sutherland directed Allan Jones as one of the two leading men, along with Robert Cummings, in comedy vehicle One Night In The Tropics. Jones was, of course, a famous opera singer (and father of later singing sensation Jack Jones) who is perhaps best remembered for both his acting and singing as lead romantic support in two films made five and three years before this, namely the first two non-Paramount films that the Marx Brothers made for MGM under their new contract with Irvin Thalberg... A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races. 

In this one, Jones and Cummings play friends Jim and Steve. Steve is supposed to be married on Saturday to the lovely Cynthia Merrick (played by Nancy Kelly) but Steve’s girlfriend Mickey, played by Peggy Moran (who genre fans may best remember as the female lead in the excellent sequel The Mummy’s Hand from the same year - one of eleven movies she starred in that year alone and reviewed here) is also on the scene. So Jim, who works for an insurance agency and, as played by Jones, is the confident one of the two, invents a Love Insurance Contract for Steve, guaranteeing he’ll marry Cynthia by 2pm the following Saturday, or his insurance company has to pay out a million dollars. 

Shenanigans and complications ensue as the two friends try to keep the wedding going when, by the end, it’s clear that Steve wants to be with Mickey, while Jim and Cynthia have also fallen for each other. And, as you would expect from a film shot in 1940, the template for the film and the style of dialogue is very 1930s screwball comedy here. Alas, it’s also hindered with some terrible songs by the likes of, if you can believe the film’s actual credits, rather than their absence on the IMDB for this film, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein. These are... definitely not songs these two musical giants will be remembered for, that much I can tell you.  

The real stars of the show though, and the reason I found myself watching it, are the two supporting actors who are making their movie debut here as a comedy duo. You see, this film kicks off Shout Factory’s beautiful, 28 film Blu Ray set of Abbot And Costello - The Universal Collection and Bud Abbott & Lou Costello here work for a local night club owner played by William Frawley. 

And it’s a likeable enough film with a typically convoluted plot which is, apparently, based on a novel by Earl Der Biggers... who will always be known best for writing the six Charlie Chan novels which kickstarted various film cycles and TV shows (live action and animated) for his famous fictional detective. But, as I said, the real stars of the show, who were being given a kind of try out here, were Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Now, the two were already known for their radio show by this point so it’s nice that, when the two first turn up on screen doing one of several of their routines interwoven around the plot, you hear their voices only for 30 seconds or so, before the camera moves to a shot where they are both on screen. 

They start off their first romp with a typical ‘Abbott cons Lou out of money’ routine... you know the kind of thing, “Give me two tens for a five” with Lou half catching on and then doing himself out of even more money. And their most famous routine also makes its film debut with them... apparently the first thing they shot, although it comes maybe half way through the movie as cut together... the immortal “Who’s On First” routine about the baseball players. And it’s nice seeing this and other routines in early stages and, you can figure out just how they developed in later years when these sketches were repeated in movies or in TV (and I would assume they all came from the radio and stand-up first). 

It’s also interesting to see the way things don’t quite work around them perfectly, technically in the movie. I mean, there are a fair few instances (especially with other actors) where the long shot takes and mid-shot takes don’t quite match but trying to get around any continuity issues also means that certain things happen, or in this case don’t, which gives a little unneeded theatricality to proceedings. Such as when the boys do an extended routine at a hot dog stand with neither of them actually getting to eat any of their hot dogs... just waving them around and repeatedly almost taking a bite... the sausage lengths wouldn’t change between cuts.

The movie was, it would be safe to say, a resounding failure at the box office but Abbott and Costello were popular enough on the back of this film that the studio offered tham a two picture contract in a more prominent role with an option to extend and the rest, as they say, is history. It’s perhaps a little telling that this film, when re-released in cinemas at the tail end of the 1940s, was cut down quite a bit so, proportionately, the Abbott and Costello material was more foregrounded against the rest of the film. 

And that’s that, I think, for One Night In The Tropics... despite my dad moaning that we had to watch the songs rather than skip them I actually found the picture charming and quite sparkly, with Alan Jones playing a much less naive character than he did when he was supporting The Marx Brothers. My aim is to watch all the other movies in this set with my dad* so, yeah, watch out for more reviews soon. 

*That sadly might not now happen. 
More on that at some point in the future.