Monday Minute
No. 117 | June 14, 2010

Take Five

This will be my twenty-fifth week of MAD About Movies, and after five months plus, it’s time to take a break.  I need some R&R (though I’m unfortunately too busy to enjoy any of that).  Rather than close shop, I will keep the doors open, but I plan to keep it brief.  For the movies this week expect a five-sentence write-up on each.  Like this intro.

Our theme this week
Movies that provide (a certain) R&R

Rio Rita (1942)

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello started in movies by taking their vaudeville routines to the screen, and this film came a couple of years after their debut, their seventh of about three dozen total.  It’s wartime and the story revolves around some Nazi spies at a hotel on the Mexican border looking to smuggle bombs into the U.S.  Doc (Abbott) and Wishy (Costello) are hired as house detectives and discover what the Germans are up to.  The boys engineer a surprise attack when Hitler and his high command come to visit, blowing the hotel to smithereens and thereby ending the war.  (Oops, I think I mixed up that last part with a Tarantino flick.)

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Rio Rita (1942)
S. Sylvan Simon, director
Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

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Rio Rita (1942)
Bud Abbott & Lou Costello

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Quote of Note
Doc:  Can you hear me?
Wishy:  Huh?
Doc:  You can’t hear anything, can you?
Wishy [removes ear plugs from his ears]:  How can I hear you if you’re gonna put these in my ears like that.  [inserts ear plugs in Doc's ears] After all, I can’t hear you if you got ‘em in my ears.
Doc:  Huh?
—Doc (Bud Abbott), Wishy (Lou Costello), Rio Rita (1942)

…58…59…60.