Abbott & Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950)

After their star fighters run out on them, two wrestling promoters are tricked into joining the Foreign Legion, where they foul up basic training, dodge desert cutthroats and chase pretty slave girls.

Another Foreign Adventure

The Foreign Legion marches along the trackless desert. It all started back in Brooklyn at a wrestling match. Abdullah is the wrestling champion of North Africa. They rehearse the script. [Did you notice the stunt double?] What syndicate was involved? So the boys go to Algiers to find Abdullah. There is a conspiracy to attack the railroad construction to extort money. There is a comic chase after Lou. Don't wave at an auction! Was there a plot to infiltrate the sheik's household? Then another comic chase. Next the boys join the Foreign Legion! [Are they training with 1903 Springfield rifles?] How does the enemy know about the Legion's plans?

There is an assignment for Bud and Lou. But they overhear the plot. A comic skit follows. A French undercover agent meets them and learns about Axmann. "Keep out of trouble!" The Legion is ordered to help a besieged army fort. [Do they have Bactrian (Asian) camels in North Africa?] The Legion is attacked. Bud and Lou are lost in the desert. [The shadows show the stage lighting.] There is comedy in their fishing attempt. "Don't you wish this was a mirage?" There is a wrestling exhibition for entertainment, and as escape for the boys. They are chased. "Let Lou hold the fort." There is a happy ending for some. Bud and Lou will return to Brooklyn.

This film is not among their best. The skits duplicate earlier films. A better story makes a better film. Perhaps the health problems of Lou affected his performance?
December 22, 2008

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO IN THE FOREIGN LEGION!

LAUGH your heads off as Bud and Lou end up in the French Foreign Legion! SEE Walter Slezak as the tough sergeant who has to whip these two comic misfits into fighting shape! WATCH as the desert sun beats down unmercifully on them all! DROOL over the dancing slave girls! AVOID the camels at all cost! Can you trust your eyes during the comic WRESTLING sequence or is it all a MIRAGE! September 29, 2001

Abbott and Costello take to the desert--or is that a mirage?

This time around Abbott and Costello are wrestling promoters Bud Jones and Lou Hotchkiss. Their star, Abdullah (Wee Willlie Davis), refuses to loose when they tell him to and he returns home to Algeria. The boys have to go after Abdullah and bring him back because they borrowed $5,000 from the syndicate to bring him to America in the first place. However, Abdullah's cousing, Sheik Hamud El Khalid (Douglas Dumbrille) and the evil Foreign Legionnaire Sgt. Axmann (Walter Slezak), have been raiding the railroad being constructed so they can get rich extorting money for protection. The bad guys assume Bud and Lou are spies for the railroad and order them killed. Lou has also upset the Sheik by outbidding him on six beautiful slave girls, including Nicole (Patricia Medina), a French spy. Anyhow, the boys end up enlisting in the Foreing Legion, narrowly avert death several times, and end up saving the day with ample help from Abdullah and Nicole.

This 1950 film, directed by Charles Lamont, was the 25th film featuring Abbott & Costello, then in their 15th year as a comedy team. The film suffers somewhat in comparison to Laurel & Hardy's 1939 classic "The Flying Deuces," but there are enough laughs in this one to make "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion" at least an average comedy by the boys. Of course, to be fair, Costello had faced a pair of serious illnesses, rheumatic fever and a gangrenous gall bladder, in the months before this film was produced. The wrestling sequence remains the comic highlight of the film, along with the mirages the boys encounter in the desert. The bit between Lou and the Commandant where the word play of "we"/"oui" is merely cute. Still, this movie is arguably the second best Foreign Legion comedy of all time, for what that is worth. June 12, 2001

THIS TIME THE TEAM WREAKS CHAOS IN THE FORIEGN LEGION

This basic Abbott and Costello comedy is a fast paced adventure about Abbott and Costello as wrestling promoters. When I first watched this I thought it wouldn't be as funny as the teams other outings but then I was wrong. I noticed that Abbott and Costello do the same old same old though but never the less the team does pull through.

BEWARE WATCH OUT

For the teams most funniest routines. August 16, 2000

Pleasant

This is a great A&C movie.There are a great many big laughs.These include The Mirage Scene and the big fish scene.There is also a good scene with lou kissing the arab girls.You wont be disappointed. July 27, 2000

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