Blu-ray gift for Bud Abbott & Lou Costello fans: all 28 of their movies in ABBOTT & COSTELLO: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection

TrustMovies has never been sure quite why the antics of comedy team Abbott & Costello have not been enshrined into the certified canon of movie greatness, as has the work of so many other comedians and comedy teams. Was it because the pair was too mainstream?

Well, so were Martin & Lewis, yet Lou Costello's comedy is one hell of a lot subtler than that of Jerry Lewis. But, then, I guess the French critics -- followed by some of the American variety -- didn't take Costello (below, right, with Bela Lugosi) quite to heart the way they did our Jerry.

Bud Abbott (below, left) was a terrific "straight man" for Costello's antics, and an excellent stand-in for us in the audience, making the comedy all that much funnier. But it was the chubby, endearing, frightened and foolish Costello who always made us laugh -- and love him all the more for his many foibles.

This new collection -- so far as I know, the first time their 28 films have been gathered into an entire collection (and certainly the first time they've appeared in high-def, in these glowing, delicious, black-and-white transfers that look better than any A&C movie I've yet seen) -- is a must for fans of the duo. Though the Blu-ray edition is a pricey $136, that's still under $5 per movie, while the copious Bonus Features alone should keep you busy for the remainder of the year -- if not the rest of your lifetime. (Which might amount to the same thing for those of us in the 70s/80s category, who grew up laughing at the antics of this pair.)

The films themselves range in release date from 1940 to 1955, during which the duo made on average a couple of movie per year. The first of these is ONE NIGHT IN THE TROPICS (above), in which A&C get billing below stars of the time like Allan Jones and Nancy Kelly (later Oscar nominated for The Bad Seed), but above that of co-star Robert Cummings. This movie, another of so many that demonstrates how much better was the screenwriting for even throw-away comedies back in the day, is an entertaining little lark, complete with songs (by Jerome Kern) and a musical-number finale that's a glorious hoot.

The team of A&C made nothing but comedies, of course, yet within that framework they inhabited an enormous number of genres -- from westerns (The Wistful Widow of Wagon Gap, a delight that co-stars the great Marjorie Main, above) to war films (Buck Privates, In the Navy, Keep 'Em Flying), horror (A&C Meet Frankenstein) to sci-fi (A&C Go to Mars below), among others. What's more, their comedy routines lend themselves so easily to all these genres -- for genres, over time of course, are ever more easily parodied.

The famous routines -- of which Who's on First? is probably most known (and seen in its entirety via One Night in the Tropics) -- are still great fun, and so are these two sterling comedians. Kids today who have never seen Abbott & Costello will have some delight in store, should their parents see fit to grace them with a look at these funny, fun-filled movies.

As of now, I've seen only a half dozen of the 28 included in the three discs in this collection -- Hold that Ghost, co-starring the wonderful Joan Davis (above, center) is another "must" -- but I won't be sharing it with even my very best friends until I've viewed the whole collection, which constitutes an absolute treasure for A&C fans.

From SHOUT! FACTORY, Abbott & Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection hits the street on Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, November 19. The transfers are wonderful and, as earlier noted, the Bonus Features assembled here are themselves worth the collection's asking price. (Still, I do hope these discs will turn up somewhere for rental, as well.) 

The year's best love story: Jon S. Baird's elegiac and beautiful STAN & OLLIE

Don't worry: It's nothing sexual. Yet in STAN & OLLIE -- screenwriter Jeff Pope's and director Jon S. Baird's lovingly recreated tale of the final live-performance tour of that great motion picture comedy team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy -- the filmmakers have managed to come up with the kind of full-fledged, comic, moving love story that we seldom see anymore.

Early on you may notice how very quiet the movie is. It never insists. Instead, it takes you into the world of Laurel & Hardy gently, and you soon begin to realize how actually gentle were so many of the team's most memorable moments. That, as much as anything, accounted for its popularity and fame.

Sure, the pair did slapstick and schtick, but at their core was a kind of sweetness, together with a perseverance, that stood them -- and their audience -- in very good stead.

And that is what director Baird (shown above) and screenwriter Pope (below),

along with their two gifted and versatile leading actors -- John C. Reilly (as Hardy) and Steve Coogan (as Laurel) allow us to discover in this wonderful new film.

Although (very wisely), the filmmakers let us see enough of the pair's comedy routines to understand why they were so popular in their day, the tone here is more elegiac than anything else.

Via the unusual quietude of the script and direction, Pope and Baird capture the beauty of a relationship that was so oddly close that at least one of these two could simply not perform without the other.

And while actors Coogan (above) and Reilly (below) have clearly done their homework as to the look, sound and "feel" of the men they are essaying, this is no mere "impersonation." The actors seem to inhabit not just the bodies of Laurel and Hardy but their very souls. Mr. Coogan, especially, has that soul down pat. This wondrously versatile actor (you must see his performance in The Dinner, if you haven't already, and in any or all of his "Trip" movies) show us here yet another side -- quiet and infinitely subtle -- we've not yet seen, and he is remarkable.

Mr. Reilly, on the other hand, is reliably funny and often just this side of over-the-top, as was Oliver Hardy. The two actors are as good at bringing to fine life these icons of our movie past as they are in bringing to to even better life the inner lives of the two men. You'll come away from Stan & Ollie with as much of a sense of the characters of these men -- their thoughts, hopes, annoyances -- as of their performing lives.

As the two most important women on the scene, both Shirley Henderson (above, left, as Ollie's wife, Lucille) and Nina Arianda (above, right, as Stan's wife, Ida) are entertaining, compelling -- and funny, too.

The film's story takes in the final British tour the comedy duo did in order to impress the man whom Laurel hoped would bankroll their comeback film. The imaginary scenes we see from this would-be film prove both memorably comic (we get to see and hear one of Hardy's most famous retorts) and infinitely sad.

As Stan & Ollie moves quietly along, it builds surprising emotional force via the accumulation of tiny details and small incidents.

Baird's and Pope's refusal to go for the big scenes and most obvious choices results in a little gem of a film -- one of the year's best -- in which repressed feelings somehow land with more meaning and resonance than does the usual Hollywood grandstanding.

From Sony Pictures Classics and running a just-right 97 minutes, after hitting New York and L.A. a few weeks back, Stan & Ollie opens here in South Florida this Friday, January 18, at the AMC Aventura 24, Aventura; Living Room Theaters, Boca Raton; Cinemark Palace 20, Boca Raton; Regal Shadowood 16, Boca Raton; Cinemark 14, Boynton Beach; Cinepolis Coconut Grove, Landmark Merrick Park, Coral Gables; Cinemark Paradise 24, Davie; The Movies of Delray and The Movies of Lake Worth; The Classic Gateway, Fort Lauderdale; Cinepolis 14, Jupiter; CMX Brickell City Center, Miami; Regal South Beach 18, Miami Beach; Cobbs Downtown at the Gardens 16, Palm Beach Gardens. Wherever you live across the USA, simply click here -- and then click on GET TICKETS on the task bar atop the screen to find a theater near you.