Buck Privates (1941) Review

The trailer for Buck Privates:

Buck Privates is the first film to actually star Abbott and Costello and unlike One Night in the Tropics it was successful enough to cement Abbott and Costello as top-draw box office power. The question is, does this film hold up as well as its reputation back then? Well...let’s see.

Slicker Smith (Abbott) and Herbie Brown (Costello) are running from an officer when they accidentally enlist themselves in the Army, thinking they’re about to go see a movie. Joining them are the spoiled playboy Randolph Parker III (Lee Bowman) and his former valet Bob Martin (Alan Curtis) as well as the officer who was chasing them earlier (Nat Pendleton). Smith and Brown must learn the ways of the army while Smith and Brown both find themselves attracted to the same girl, Judy Gray (Jane Frazee), all the while Parker learns the value of hard work...yeah, it’s that kind of story.

So the obvious big improvement over One Night in the Tropics is that Abbott and Costello are in a lot more of this movie and therefore have more time to perform their famous routines. In Tropics a lot of the routines were shortened due to the fact that the focus was not on Abbott and Costello, but here the routines get to play out longer as they should, due to the increased focus. They also get to rely a bit more on physical routines here, like Herbie Brown’s boxing match or the Army drill sergeant routine, the one routine that undeniably had to turn up in this film; after all, it’s the exact venue it needed for this routine.

Similarly, the increased focus allows for a lot smaller moments as well. We’re allowed to see more wisecracks that are just simply there to make you laugh real quickly and then disappear right after, like Herbie’s instructions after giving his old clothes to be stored away.

One thing that I really like is how Abbott’s character is just as incompetent as Costello’s character when they first join the Army. I was expecting them to have him be the model private while Costello was the only one messing up and eventually they go that route, but they do show Abbott as being just as vulnerable as Costello at first, which makes a lot of sense due to this being a different experience for him. It’s this kind of attention to detail that I like; it makes Abbott more relatable despite his con man nature in a lot of scenes.

The Andrews Sisters do a wonderful job. The songs they sing in this are very entertaining and I believe this is the film that introduced “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” to audiences. Their harmonizing is pitch perfect and they’re always singing something upbeat, a much happier mood than the constantly slow love songs from One Night in the Tropics. Unfortunately, the group is limited specifically to performing the songs, being allowed very little time to actually do some acting outside of an occasional line.

Another standout bit is the song, “When Private Brown Becomes a Captain,” which Costello performs with enthusiasm both from himself and some other Army members, among them being Shemp Howard, my personal favorite member of the Three Stooges. That dance he does with the towel is hilarious!

The film does have downsides, though, with the main one being the romantic leads. Despite the fact that Abbott and Costello are the stars of this, the romantic scenes somehow feel like they go on a lot longer than in One Night in the Tropics, and not in a good way. The whole idea is that the playboy wants the girl, but she doesn’t want anything to do with him because he’s too self-indulged. It’s the kind of thing we’ve seen so many times before and it’s just so boring! Unfortunately, they seem to overtake the second half of the film, with Abbott and Costello almost being reduced to supporting players again. Another problem is the fact that Abbott and Costello are not really well incorporated into what’s supposed to be the main storyline. Really, they don’t interact with the romantic leads all that much and it often just feels like we’re watching separate movies whenever it cuts between the two sides. To One Night in the Tropics’s credit, Abbott and Costello did feel important to the main storyline, since their actions had a long-term effect on the narrative, such as when they took Mickey to San Marcos. Here, you could remove Abbott and Costello and not really lose anything in the continuity, showing just how little story there really is to this film. Obviously I’m glad they didn’t remove them from this film, since it would otherwise be insufferably boring, but this goes to show that Universal did not quite know what to do with the duo just yet.

In the end, Buck Privates is an entertaining enough film, but requires sitting through a lot of tedious moments that sometimes make you feel like watching the rest isn’t really worth it. Still, the film has some great production values as well as a mostly good supporting cast (outside of the romantic leads, of course), so I think the film is worth checking out at least once.

7 out of 10