Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950)

I recently discovered this film on YouTube. It is one of the rare Abbott and Costello films that I had not seen before. Besides Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, professional wrestlers “Wee Willie” Davis, Sammy Menacker, and Tor Johnson played parts in the film.

 

The film opens with Abbott playing Bud Jones, a wrestling promoter, going over “the script” with two of his wrestlers. You can imagine the promoters at the time grimacing over the word “script.”

 

“Wee Willie” Davis plays Abdullah the Great, Champion of North Africa. Abdullah is going over the evenings matches with Bertram the Magnificent, played by Sammy Menacker. Bud is telling them how he wants to match to go. Lou Costello plays Lou Hotchkiss. Bud calls Lou into the ring to show Abdullah and Bertram how Bud wants to match to go.

 

Both Abdullah and Bertram take turns manhandling Lou to great comic effect. After Lou crawls off, Bud tells Abdullah that Bertram dropped the match to Abdullah last week, so it is Bertram’s turn to win the match. Abdullah refuses and leaves to return to Algiers. Bud borrowed money from the syndicate to bring Abdullah to the United States, so Bud and Lou must follow Abdullah to Algiers and convince Abdullah to return.

 

Complicating matters is that Abdullah’s cousin, Sheik Halmud, is working with a corrupt Foreign Legion Sergeant to extort money from a railroad company trying to lay track in Algiers. Mistaking Bud and Lou for railroad company spies, Sheik Halmud orders his men to kill them.

 

Bud and Lou escape from the killers into a Foreign Legion post, where the corrupt Sergeant tricks Bud and Lou into enlisting in the Foreign Legion. Bud and Lou are horrible Legionnaires, but it gives them the chance to find Abdullah at Sheik Halmud’s camp. They also help a French secret agent. Patricia Medina portrays the secret agent, Nicole Dupre. The film concludes with a typical chase scene.

 

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