I'll have to go with the consensus of reviewers here on IMDb and agree this was not one of Abbott and Costello's finer efforts. And yet, and yet, when I add this title to the list of A&C movies I've watched and reviewed, and sort them in IMDb rating order, it comes out #14 out of thirty one films (so far). So a little bit of a contradiction there, which might mean only the critical viewers showed up to make comments.
The story is better in the first half with it's set up of George Bell (Costello) and Tom Watson (Abbott) hooking up with a sullen Nugget Joe McDermott (Tom Ewell) contemplating suicide over a saloon gal (Mitzi Green) he can't win over to marry him. But there's plenty of takers who want to kill him themselves up in Skagway, where Joe put away a whole slew of outlaws when he was a former sheriff. When it's revealed that Joe has a two million dollar inheritance in gold besides, it ups the ante for the number of gunmen who want to see him dead.
There are a few good bits here, like Bud's tampering with an alarm clock to get some extra sleep time at his partner's expense, and the roulette wheel scene in which Lou wins and loses a fortune without ever knowing it. But there's also a recycled routine using a plate of water-squirting whale blubber. Movie fans of the era must have gotten delight out of goofy stuff like that, as the boys used a similar bit in 1947's "The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap" using a frog in a soup bowl, and later replacing the frog with a fish in 1950's "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion". It must have worked for a while, but by this time it comes across as pretty corny.
Looking for a way out of the story, the film makers ended things kind of abruptly with a huge question mark. When all of Nugget Joe's gold sinks on a dog sled, baddie Jake Stillman (Bruce Cabot) winds up throwing a big wedding party for Joe and Rosette, who Jake tried to conspire with to take Joe out of the picture from the outset. With a little thought I think the writers could have come up with something that made more sense, but it appears they didn't even try.
One saving grace, and only because he's a personal favorite, Iron Eyes Cody makes an appearance in the story as Mukaluk Eskimo chief Canook. He looked the part, as he always did portraying a Native American in Western movies, but did you know he was really Italian? Yet he devoted his life to Native American causes, living his own life in all respects as an American Indian. I know, I found it hard to believe too.
The story is better in the first half with it's set up of George Bell (Costello) and Tom Watson (Abbott) hooking up with a sullen Nugget Joe McDermott (Tom Ewell) contemplating suicide over a saloon gal (Mitzi Green) he can't win over to marry him. But there's plenty of takers who want to kill him themselves up in Skagway, where Joe put away a whole slew of outlaws when he was a former sheriff. When it's revealed that Joe has a two million dollar inheritance in gold besides, it ups the ante for the number of gunmen who want to see him dead.
There are a few good bits here, like Bud's tampering with an alarm clock to get some extra sleep time at his partner's expense, and the roulette wheel scene in which Lou wins and loses a fortune without ever knowing it. But there's also a recycled routine using a plate of water-squirting whale blubber. Movie fans of the era must have gotten delight out of goofy stuff like that, as the boys used a similar bit in 1947's "The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap" using a frog in a soup bowl, and later replacing the frog with a fish in 1950's "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion". It must have worked for a while, but by this time it comes across as pretty corny.
Looking for a way out of the story, the film makers ended things kind of abruptly with a huge question mark. When all of Nugget Joe's gold sinks on a dog sled, baddie Jake Stillman (Bruce Cabot) winds up throwing a big wedding party for Joe and Rosette, who Jake tried to conspire with to take Joe out of the picture from the outset. With a little thought I think the writers could have come up with something that made more sense, but it appears they didn't even try.
One saving grace, and only because he's a personal favorite, Iron Eyes Cody makes an appearance in the story as Mukaluk Eskimo chief Canook. He looked the part, as he always did portraying a Native American in Western movies, but did you know he was really Italian? Yet he devoted his life to Native American causes, living his own life in all respects as an American Indian. I know, I found it hard to believe too.