By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello got a lot of good publicity as a comedy team in their time. But, in my opinion, Abbott was not funny -- strictly a straight man -- and Costello wasn't as funny as many people thought he was. This movie is typical of those facts. There is no particular connection or empathy between Bud and Lou, and Abbott is seldom on screen for the allegedly funny scenes. And Costello's tortured facial expressions at moments of "stress" are often unpleasant, not funny, to look at. With the "Middle Ages" costumes and atmosphere, and the totally forgettable singing and dancing, this movie appears to be an attempt to mimic the 1934 Laurel and Hardy feature, "Babes in Toyland." If so, it is a very failed attempt. Stan and Ollie fit together without a seam showing. Bud and Lou did not.

First, the Goodtimes DVD release of this film is the one to get for people who have never seen this film before or have seen poor quality transfers of it. Very excellent quality and I am someone who had never seen this movie before--but it's hard for me to imagine there being a better print out there. So a big thumbs up to Goodtimes video for that.As for the film itself, I'm usually not one for cute and whimsical vehicles turned out by my favorite comedians. "Snow White and the Three Stooges" for instance is a prime example of cute and whimsy gone all wrong--but fortunately, this film doesn't reach that low level.While it's not prime A & C, "Jack and the Beanstalk" managed to hold my attention and I didn't find myself staring at my wristwatch waiting for the film to end. And the performances by all the actors involved were good enough--although by the closing minutes of the film I was left to wonder what happened to the Giant's housekeeper that Costello becomes infatuated with. One minute we see her leaving the Giant's castle with the cow, then she's never seen again--kind of odd. Overall, while I prefer my A & C a little more edgier & not geared towards kids so much, "Jack and the Beanstalk" is not a film that embarrasses the duo--a pleasant little vehicle that should delight the kids and maybe entertain the adults as well. 6 stars

The often-told fable gets amusingly tweaked with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in the leads, singing, dancing, and messing with a really nasty ogre. Opening in sepia tone, Bud and Lou somehow walk into a job as babysitters for a problem child; Lou wants a bedtime story read to him, quickly falling asleep and dreaming he and his mother live in a colorful storybook village, growing a magical beanstalk and attempting to rescue a kidnapped princess from a giant. Devised and co-produced by Lou's brother, Pat, this was an independently-financed production from the comedy duo which Warner Bros. distributed. It has some kooky songs and even kookier sequences (such as a masochistic Minuet between Lou and the giant's equally lanky female cook), but it does appear as a paste-up job. Filmed in just over three weeks, some of the scenes are so sloppy, one doesn't know if they were hastily left that way or if the clumsiness was perhaps intentional (the editing, too, is awful, leaving the cook and her cow behind in fantasy limbo). The sets, leftovers from Ingrid Bergman's "Joan of Arc", are fine, but the costumes are atrocious--hopefully, this venture scared Costello away from tights for the remainder of his life! It's kinda cute in a bumbling, ramshackle sort of way, and Lou gets a lot of funny business to do, but it isn't as imaginative as it should have been. ** from ****

I had watched this previously (at secondary school, of all places!) and recall not liking it all that much. However, I was more amenable to it this time around – perhaps because it came hot on the heels of a similar film pitting a comedy act in a fairy-tale setting, i.e. the self-explanatory SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES (1961); here, of course, it's Abbott & Costello we're talking about.The film utilizes the sepia-into-color transition popularized by THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) between its modern-day bookends and the period-set main narrative; less welcome are the entirely resistible love interest and musical numbers, seemingly compulsory ingredients of this type of family-oriented fare but which now date them most of all! As usually happens, too, most of the characters who appear in the fairy-tale also turn up in 'real life' – including, in this case, the Giant (played by Buddy Bear from the afore-mentioned SNOW WHITE AND THE THREE STOOGES) who also fills in for a burly cop whom the pint-sized Lou Costello aggravates! The stars are amiable as always and manage to adapt their standard characterizations to the requirements of the familiar formula. Incidentally, this proved to be the boys' fourth of five films with director Yarborough – and one of only two A&C vehicles to be made in color (the other being the similarly adventurous ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET CAPTAIN KIDD [1952]). Atypically for them, this was not a Universal production – but rather an independent one distributed through Warner Bros., which explains its public domain status! Finally, I really ought to spring for those four "Abbott & Costello" DVD collections from Universal one of these days – plus I still have a handful of filmed fairy tales/children's classics to go through during this Christmas period...