8mm Forum: Abbott and Costello JACK AND THE BEANSTALK!!

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Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 20, 2007, 12:34 PM:

I am pleased as punch to do a review of this film, as I was expecting this print to be horrible. I digress, however.

This film begins in sepia tone, (ala Wizard of OZ) Abbott and Costello go to a house to do baby sitting, as Costello is a professional baby sitter, (and he proves to be less than so. The brat delights in beaning him on the head.) Costello then talks the brat (who, by the way, is very intellectual) into
reading a book of "Jack and the Beanstalk", Costello quickly dozes off and we enter the fairytale land. The film nicely switches from sepia tone to colour gradually, first one colour, than another, (flowers ect.), until the whole scene is colour.

Jack meets the princess briefly, who tells him that she wishes she was just a normal person.

Jack and his mother are poor. They're goose that lays the golden egg has been stolen, and now they have to sell thier cow, (a girl cow strangely named "Henry"). In town Costello meets up with crooked butcher "MR. Finkle" (Abbott), and he buys the cow for five magic beans, (which, as far as Finkle knows, are just normal beans.) He also finds out in town that the princess has been captured by the Giant. (The Giant has earlier kidnapped the Prince that was coming to marry the princess)

Jacks mother is less than amused and just tells him to plant the beans, which he does. The beans (via some good animation) grows overnight. Jack bravely decides to go up the beanstalk, and Finkle does to, (once he hears that the goose that lays the golden egg is up there, greedy Mr. Finkle)

They gtet to the top and are soon captured by the Giant, but not before Costello sings his cute song, "I'm not afraid of nuttin". The giant carried the two of them stating his "Fee Fi Fo Fum song". Once in the castle, they are put to work as servants. Either that, or they'll be dinner!

Costello soon becomes infatuated with the Giant very tall maid/servant. he also finds out that the prince and princess are imprisoned in the castle, (but they don't know that each other are royalty, because they haven't ever met each other.)
The two talk back and forth and the prince writes her a song. They use Costello to talk back and forth. Costello arranges for them to get out long enough to talk and sing to each other.
(cute song) This leads to a very funny dance sequence between Costello and the giant maid, which is more a dance of penalties on poor Costello, but he loves her all the more.

Now the giant returns. (By the way, there is a "Irish" singing harp who has funny rude comments thru-out, but he's mostly annoying.) He demands his breakfast, which Costello must make. When he was feeding the chickens earlier, he accidentily spilled gunpowder in the chicken feed. This leads to a funny sequence concerning exploding chicken eggs, (mostly in the giants face!) The giant decides that Costello would make a good breakfast, and puts Costello on a spit.

Meanwhile Abbott the Prince and the princess have gotten out and devised a plan of escape! They knock out the Giant and then escape thru an upper window via a chandelier. The Giant wakes up, however, and does battle with Costello, who amazingly outwits this giant, (which isn't saying much, as the Giant isn't too bright). They then use giant catapults made out of trees to get over the Giants fortified walls.

The giant breaks thru his won wall and chases Costello thru the forest, thru some funny little bits. Meanwhile, Mr.
Finkle loses all his riches he stole on his climb down the bean-
-stalk. Costello gets to the beanstalk, climbs down and then proceeds to chop the stalk down. The Giant plummets to the ground, falling thru to China. The townspeople dance happily, the prince and the princess agree to marry, and the King is set to crown the brave Jack.

We then switch back to sepiatone and reality, where the brat crowns him all right ... BONK.

Costello comes out of the bedroom as the dating couple come home, (the same people played the prince and princess) COstello gets smacked by Abbott and goes back into his jack character briefly, (still in sepiatone), slapping Abbott and singing a reprise of "I'm not Scared of Nuttin", dancing out the door!

THE END

This isn't your common Abbott and Costello movie. People who have rated this film (over the internet) miss the point that this was a fairytale made mainly for kids, (with just a slight touch of adult humor), and as so, does so wonderfully.
Costello's character was always a grown up little boy, and so playing Jack isn't that much of a stretch. In fact, it's right down his alley. Abbott, as Mr. Finkle is fine, but doesn't have as much to do as usual. This film was shot in sepiatone and "super Cinecolor", a short lived process that was adequete, but not quite up to Technicolor. The way they go into the colour realm is unique, changing in bits and pieces to colour.

This was made in 1952, near the end of thier career, (which in theatrical films, would only extend until 1955 with "Dance With Me Henry", a bomb, but they would have thier very popular TV show.), and I personally think that this was thier last good film. It was also a change for the duo, which was nice to see a change of pace for them.

Now, onto the print!

This, I believe, was a "Viacom" release, as it says this on the leader. having taken a second look at the leader, it is my opinion that this print that I lucked into has not faded, as
once it gets past the cinemagenetics and Viacom notice, it gets to the orginal leader and such for the film print. The Viacom
label has unfaded leader and it's not cut onto this by an owner not otherwise, so the slightly faded print, (just in the blacks) must be from the original print, so I got vintage colour on this baby. Great luck on that!!

The source negative is another wonder. Even on film prints of this I've seen on TV has a good deal of scratching and surface "specks". The master negative has ABSOLUTELY nothing on it, except for a few trace scratches at original reel changes, due to the delicate "super-cinecolour" film source, which is interesting in itself. Though it's not Technicolor, this has all the greens yellows blues and a nice spectrum, though the greys are slightly off. I have seen a "restored" DVD of this film, and it's nearly identical. I wouldn't be suprised if the same negative was used for the DVD, but, of course, I really don't know.

It has fine contrast, (another thing I noted was horrible in the TV print, probably from dupe after dupe!) as well, with an almost pin sharpness. I'm really not kidding. I don't know how the other prints were that were released by various film companies, but this one IS a superior print.

Interestingly, this must have been re-recorded by an owner, as it has sound on both main and balance track, very booming mono, and also very crisp.

Halfway through the film, about reel 4 or 5, the film becomes just a little lighter for the rest of the film, but it's not above the acceptable range, in fact, it's nearly right on, just a slight change, no wash-out.

On a side note, this may have come from "Dave Thomas Films", at one point, as the little labels say "Thomas Films", but I can't say for sure.

So, good luck you blokes, me fine mates, as, if I could find a good copy of this, then there are no doubt other copies
out there.

"I'm not Afriad of Nuttin" ....

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on April 22, 2007, 10:04 AM:

Very nice to read the above Osi and one I used to show may times over with my son many moons ago. My print went pink and my boy also grew up now in his 20's.
The good old days and a film I got to know backwards. We used to sing the theme song when watching the film.
Jack and the Beanstalk tra la la la la.

Nice web site here if you are a fan
http://www.abbottandcostello.net/

And another pic

[ April 30, 2007, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: Lee Mannering ]

Posted by Osi Osgood (Member # 424) on April 23, 2007, 05:31 PM:

Thanks for the link. I was very pleased when I recieved the above reviewed print, thinking it would be a badly faded Niles.

One thing I forgot to mention in my review was how striking the sepiatone sequences looked. I believe that sepia gives you a whole extra layer of "contrast" to the picture, or, to put it perhaps better, a better level of "grays" to the picture. I had loads of fun looking at the brats room in the beginning of the picture and it was quite striking.

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