Here Come the Co-eds (1945)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Jean Yarbrough

Writers:

John Grant (writer)
Edmund L. Hartmann (story)

Release Date:

2 February 1945 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Musical

Plot Keywords:

Basketball | Sailboat | Train | College | Ballroom

Cast

Bud Abbott	...	Slats McCarthy
Lou Costello	...	Oliver Quackenbush
Peggy Ryan	...	Patty
Martha O'Driscoll	...	Molly McCarthy
June Vincent	...	Diane Kirkland
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Johnson
Donald Cook	...	Larry Benson
Charles Dingle	...	Jonathan Kirkland
Richard Lane	...	Nearsighted Man at Ballroom
Joe Kirk	...	Honest Dan the Bookie
Bill Stern	...	Himself (sports announcer)
Phil Spitalny	...	Himself (leader, Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra)
Evelyn Silverstone	...	Herself (Evelyn and Her Magic Violin)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ruth Lee	...	Miss Holford (unconfirmed)
Phil Spitalny and His All-Girl Orchestra	...	Themselves

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:S | Sweden:Btl

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

This was the first of only two Abbott and Costello films produced by their writer John Grant.

Quotes:

Oliver Quackenbush: I really don't like dancing because it's nothing but hugging set to music.
Woman in Trailer: What don't you like about it?
Oliver Quackenbush: The music.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Oysters and Muscles (1948)

Soundtrack:

Let's Play House

"Positions Girls, Positions."

The main attraction in Here Come the Coeds is seeing Lou Costello in drag during a girl's college basketball game. One of the players is injured and he substitutes. When he's conked on the head he develops amnesia and then Abbott and Peggy Ryan tell him he's Daisy Dimple the world's greatest female basketball player and he proceeds to act the part.

Some here have said that Costello was hardly convincing in drag. But I have to say I've seen drag performers a whole lot worse.

Abbott and Costello are paid dancing escorts at a dime a dance palace. Why anyone would pay to dance with Costello is anyone's guess. But they get fired and land jobs at a girl's college where Abbott's sister, June Vincent, enrolls due to a publicity gimmick Abbott thought up.

There was some other comment that this was the only time any female, Peggy Ryan, showed an interest romantically in Lou. Not true at all. In previous films Martha Raye and Joan Davis did. But this was the only film Costello got to do a song and dance with a female partner. He did do an outrageous waltz with Joan Davis in Hold That Ghost, but there was no singing.

Peggy Ryan was doing a whole lot of musicals with Donald O'Connor at the time at Universal. She had a nice fresh appeal and partnered well with O'Connor. Working with Costello must have been something different.

Donald Cook as the Dean of Students is paired with June Vincent. As they are a pretty sappy pair fortunately there's not much film wasted on them. Charles Dingle as the head of the board of trustees fares much better. He's his usual pompous stuffed shirt, a part he played like no one else in film history. I wish they'd given him some comedy bits with the boys.

Lon Chaney, Jr. plays the head caretaker and the nemesis of the boys. He gets right in with the comedy and serves as a great foil for Costello, especially in the wrestling match sequence. It's a ripoff of what they'd done in Buck Privates in a boxing match, but who cares, it's still a very funny sequence.

I saw just about all of Abbott and Costello's films as a lad. WPIX television in New York used to run them constantly on Sunday morning. For some reason Here Come the Coeds wasn't among them, I only got to see it a few years ago. But it was worth the wait.