Africa Screams (1949)

A woman (Hillary Brooke) is seeking an out of print book that includes a map to an African diamond mine. When a department store clerk (Bud Abbott) hears that she's willing to pay $2,500 for that map, he tells her his friend (Lou Costello) can draw the map from memory. So off to Africa they go. Directed by Charles Barton (THE SHAGGY DOG), who had helmed seven other Abbott & Costello comedies. While fitfully amusing, this is not one of the better A&C comedies. The gags are telegraphed and the whole production looks cheap with its sound stage Africa, men inside gorilla suits and fake crocodiles. Typical of its time, it's also racially insensitive with its black cannibals wearing bones in their noses while grunting "Oomgawa!" and stirring a big cauldron to cook the comedy duo. With an amusing Joe Besser, Shemp Howard, Max Baer, Buddy Baer and Clyde Beatty and Frank Buck playing themselves.