This movie starts out as one of the best Abbott & Costello feature films...it kind of falls flat at the end though. The first 3/4 of the movie is fast paced with some of their funniest routines. The highlights are when they try to fix a leaky faucet & one of their funniest routines ever...also just by itself worth purchasing this film...the Susquehanna Hat Company...fabulous. Everytime I see that routine it cracks me up...a true classic. Overall this is a very good movie...the last 25 minutes could've been better though.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Abbott & Costello take apart the world of High Society
Abbott and Costello come up with one of their best films with the 1944 comedy "In Society." Bud is Eddie Harrington and Lou is Albert Mansfield, a couple of plumbers called in to repair the leak in the bathroom of the wealthy Mr. Van Cleve (Thurston Hall), whose wife (Nella Walker) is hosting a costume ball (already, you know this is going to be a good one). The boys arrive at the Van Cleve mansion in a taxi driven by Elsie Hammerdingle (Marion Hutton), who is mistaken for a costumed guest by playboy Peter Evans (Kirby Grant). Meanwhile, the boys are destroying the upstairs bathroom and flooding the master bedroom. Mrs. Van Cleve writes an angry letter to the plumbers but ends up mailing the boys an invitation to a society weekend at the estate of Mrs. Winthrop (Margaret Irving). Just to complete the fun, Peter has already invited Elise to the same shindig. The second act of "In Society" reminds you a lot of the Marx Brothers' "Animal Crackers," as Drexel (Thomas Gomez), a loan shark, tries to enlist the boys in a plot to steal the valuable painting, "The Plunger" (LOL). This ends up setting up a frantic chance scene at the end, involving a fire truck.
"In Society" joins that long list of comic films in which the madcaps encounter the world of high society and proceed to destroy it, although this one is not as anarchistic as "Animal Crackers." With Abbott & Costello it is always a series of unintentional accidents. The destruction of the bathroom is the best sequence in the film, which also includes the classic burlesque piece "Fleugel Street," where Lou tries to deliver hats to the Pioneer Hat company and everybody he meets beats him up and breaks a hat. The original story for "In Society" was written by Hugh Wedlock, Jr. and Howard Snyder, who used to write gags for Jack Benny. John Grant, Edmund L. Hartmann and Hal Fimberg got screenplay credit for turning the story into more of a workable Abbott & Costello movie. The female romantic interest Marion Hutton, the sister of actress Betty Hutton, had been a singer with the Glenn Miller orchestra and had introduced "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree." Oh, final note: Arthur Treacher, the screen's greatest Butler, plays Pipps the Butler in this film.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - lots of creative comedy scenes
Abbott and Costello create another winner as two bumbling plumbers trying to work their way into society bathrooms. This movie has a lot of whacky physical humor balanced by a good story.
There is also a special effects error in this film that most people don't notice. Watch the car chase carefully during the part where a car is hanging from the ladder truck. At one point you will see that car defy the law of gravity.