This will be my fifth, and right now my last, comment comparing two iconic movie comedy teams-Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello-when reviewing either team's pictures. If you've read my previous comment on A & C's first film One Night in the Tropics, you know the story of how their next one, Buck Privates, came to be. So I'll just tell what plot there is here. It concerns a triangle between a playboy (Lee Bowman) who's trying to avoid the draft, his former chauffeur (Alan Curtis), and a girl (Jane Frazee) they both like a lot as they all get enlisted into the Army along with a couple of con men (Bud & Lou) and a cop (Nat Pendleton) they're trying to avoid. Also on board are the Andrews Sisters-Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne. Okay, with that out of the way, I'll just say this was a very enjoyable mix of comedy and music and the dramatic subplot of Bowman, Curtis, and Frazee isn't too bad. It's obvious Universal wasn't confident A & C could carry a picture by themselves but nearly everything they do and say here is dynamite and the box office receipts helped convince the studio executives to charge future Bud & Lou endeavors at A, instead of B, rental rates. I mean such routines like "Money Changing" (first time a reprise from a previous film was used), "Dice Game", "You're Forty, She's Ten", and especially "Drill" (which was extended by producer Alex Gottlieb using several different takes of Costello's ad-libs) helped the boys' popularity go into high gear. Oh, and seeing Lou in the boxing scenes took me back to when he watched Stan Laurel also fight in the ring as a spectator in The Battle of the Century. And while musical interludes usually seem to intrude in the comedy flow, hearing and seeing such numbers like the Oscar-nominated "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B", "Bounce Me Brother With a Solid Four", and "Apple Blossom Time" performed by Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne just add to the rousing enjoyment. Jane Frazee herself has a wonderful romantic number called "I With You Were Here". And with an assist from Shemp Howard as a cook, Costello himself has a funny novelty song called "When Private Brown Becomes a Captain". Okay, there are some lines that promote the propaganda of the positive effects of Army life but otherwise, Buck Privates was a fine beginning of A & C's successful movie career. Okay, now you're wondering why I mentioned Laurel & Hardy at the beginning (other than for comparing Lou's and Stan's boxing scenes). Well, when they started work on their first Fox feature, the movie they made, Great Guns, came on the heels of the success of Buck Privates and if one looked at the original script of the Fox/L & H picture, you'd know that indeed the studio wanted to capitalize on the Universal/A & C blockbuster as evidenced by this unfilmed exchange between Stan & Ollie: O: Wait-, S: What's the matter?, O: Don't throw the water out there!, S: Why not?, O: The sergeant is just liable to come walking in!, S: What's the matter with that?, O: Don't you remember? They did that in Buck Privates! P.S. As a longtime fan of my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life, I can't end this review without mentioning that Samuel S. Hinds, George Bailey's father, played Major General Emerson here. Also, Alan Curtis was born the same place I was, Chicago, Ill.