This is an odd formula for an Abbott and Costello film. Instead of their usual locale, they find themselves going to the ski resort at Sun Valley to track some bank robbers, as the police think Bud and Lou did it. And, once they arrive at the resort, the viewers are treated to lots of song and dance numbers performed by Ginny Simms. The overall effect is a lot like taking a Sonja Henie film and shoving Abbott and Costello and some gangsters into it--a rather surreal experience to say the least!
Like almost all of the teams prior films (aside from WHO DONE IT!), the film follows a typical formula. In addition to Bud and Lou's antics, there is a couple on hand for support (Patric Knowles is back from a previous outing with the boys and Elyse Knox is there a 'the blonde'--something found in all their previous films) and there are too many irrelevant song and dance numbers. People looking for pure Abbott and Costello without all the other rigmarole should either see their later films (which, fortunately lacked this) or WHO DONE IT!.
Unfortunately, because this is set at a snow resort and apparently Bud and Lou apparently knew nothing about skiing or skating (either that or the studio was afraid they'd get hurt), the scenes of them doing these sports seem rather forced. When Lou is skating, it's pretty obviously not him and they tended to use lots of distance shots (the stuntman was actually too fat--and obviously not him). He did actually take a few good, hard falls up close but most of the work was clearly the stuntman. For the skiing scenes, they used a few stuntman shots but a lot of it was done with rear-projection--a common but incredibly unrealistic method of the day. This is a problem, as the film has less laughs and makes up for it by using more stunts--so this is obviously not one of their better films. It is still very watchable but certainly among their lesser efforts of the day.
Like almost all of the teams prior films (aside from WHO DONE IT!), the film follows a typical formula. In addition to Bud and Lou's antics, there is a couple on hand for support (Patric Knowles is back from a previous outing with the boys and Elyse Knox is there a 'the blonde'--something found in all their previous films) and there are too many irrelevant song and dance numbers. People looking for pure Abbott and Costello without all the other rigmarole should either see their later films (which, fortunately lacked this) or WHO DONE IT!.
Unfortunately, because this is set at a snow resort and apparently Bud and Lou apparently knew nothing about skiing or skating (either that or the studio was afraid they'd get hurt), the scenes of them doing these sports seem rather forced. When Lou is skating, it's pretty obviously not him and they tended to use lots of distance shots (the stuntman was actually too fat--and obviously not him). He did actually take a few good, hard falls up close but most of the work was clearly the stuntman. For the skiing scenes, they used a few stuntman shots but a lot of it was done with rear-projection--a common but incredibly unrealistic method of the day. This is a problem, as the film has less laughs and makes up for it by using more stunts--so this is obviously not one of their better films. It is still very watchable but certainly among their lesser efforts of the day.