The Time of Their Lives: Bud and Lou Every Night at My House

This is my entry in the Classic Movie Blog Association's A Haunting Blogathon: In the Afterlife. For more eerily delicious articles, please visit here.

Bud and Lou on opposite sides of the revolution in 1946's "The Time of Their Lives."

My Father: How many times can you watch the same film?

9 year old me: a lot.

If you grew up in the New York metropolitan area in the 1960s - 1980s, you probably remember Million Dollar Movie. Twice nightly for an entire week channel 9 would run the same movie. The opening theme was especially memorable. Upon seeing "Gone With the Wind" for the first time in its theatrical release in 1967, my friends and I (and probably a bunch of others in the theatre) exclaimed "that's the theme from Million Dollar Movie!" when we first heard Tara's Theme.

The same movie every night! What joy during an era when there were no VCRs, no DVDs, No DVRs and no cable or streaming TV! I wonder how many little movie lovers followed that siren song that opened the door to classic movie mania (and I write that without an ounce of shame). My brothers happily watched "Mighty Joe Young" every night, but my favorite, by far was Abbott and Costello's "The Time of Their Lives."

Bud and Lou were already well known in my house via reruns of their television show (an afternoon ritual). Seeing them in a story, and such a funny and rather scary story, only made me love them more.

Ghosts Lou Costello and Marjorie Reynolds realize they are ghosts condemned as traitors

"The Time of Their Lives" is an un unusual Abbot and Costello film because Bud and Lou are not a team here. In fact, Bud is the target of Lou's antics. Briefly, Lou plays a Revolutionary War era tinker named Horatio Prim. Horatio was a patriot who wanted to earn enough money to buy his servant girl sweetheart out of her indentured servitude. In the meantime, a plot with Benedict Arnold was afoot. In a case of mistaken identity (what else?) he and patriot lady Melody Allen (Marjorie Reynolds) are taken for traitors, shot, their bodies thrown to the bottom of the well and bound by a spell that condemns them on the Danbury property unless they are proven not to be traitors. Of course, the real traitors were butler Cuthbert (Abbott) and Melody's fiancé, Tom Danbury. A letter from General Washington could clear the doomed duo and one did exist, but it was hidden by the duplicitous Tom. 

Fast forward to modern times and the old Danbury estate has new tenants. Horatio and Melody have been rambling around the property for centuries, but this new crew moving in consists of a Cuthbert look-alike (Abbott again as Cuthbert relation Dr. Greenway) and a few other non-believers. The ghosts are able to communicate their plight via psychic housekeeper Emily (Gale Sondergaard), Washington's letter is found thanks to a message sent by the repentant Tom, the cursed duo are united in Heaven with their loved ones and Cuthbert/Greenway finally gets punished.

What charmed me as a kid were the special effects. The ghosts have some fun with cars and radios and the fact that they can walk through walls. When Melody spots the beautiful fashions of the day and dresses up in a modern evening gown and jewels, only the clothing and jewelry are visible to mortal eyes, setting the stage for only a pair of stockings running up the stairs past a terrified Binnie Barnes.

A special shout out to Gale Sondergaard as Emily. She is Judith Anderson's equal when it comes to creepy housekeepers (making Binnie Barnes's line "didn't I see you in Rebecca?" even more amusing) and I can still hear her spooky way of calling to Melody as the long-dead Tom Danbury during a séance (Mel-o-deee.....Mel-o-deee). 

"Didn't I see you in Rebecca?"

Those ghosts are real!

I apologize for taking so long to get to the main topic here, but truly, the main topic is that every night viewing that prompted a question from my father that I have not yet been able to provide a quantitative answer. 

How Many Times Can You Watch That Movie?

My Favorite Colors: Black and White!

Oprah calls them "Aha Moments," those moments in life when you are struck by a clarity of purpose and discover your defining passion in life. As a movie-mad kid, that moment came for me when, after watching the same Abbott and Costello movie countless nights in a row on TV, my father finally exploded and said "how many times can you watch that movie?" That's when I knew I was different from everyone else in the house. I could watch it endlessly!

Anyone who grew up in the New York Metropolitan area in the 1950s and early 1960s should remember  WOR-TV Channel 9's "Million Dollar Movie." The same movie aired every night from 7 pm - 9:30 pm. "King Kong" and "Mighty Joe Young" were aired frequently, but I was transfixed by Abbot and Costello's "The Time of Their Lives."

I was already a fan of Bud and Lou (courtesy of their TV show, which aired in the afternoons after school), but this  movie contained many of the ingredients that would forever constitute the recipe for favorite films: humorous men, a beautiful woman, a suspenseful atmosphere, menacing supporting players, a mystery and some history. In case this little classic passed you by, Lou plays a tinker at the time of the American Revolution. Bud is a bad guy with bad relatives. In a plot that involves George Washington, traitors loyal to the British, a purloined letter hidden in a clock, and thwarted romance, Lou and Marjorie Reynolds (playing a lady of higher social standing than he), are patriots who get killed. Their bodies are dumped in a well because they are mistaken for traitors. Only the letter in the clock can exonerate them! They roam the earth as ghosts, waiting for someone to discover that letter and set their souls free. Finally, in 1946, the old estate is due to be purchased by some relatives of the baddies who crossed Lou and Marjorie back in the time of the Revolution. Gale Sondergaard, as a creepy housekeeper straight out of "Rebecca" is on hand for some sinister humor. Hilarity ensues, the letter is discovered, and Lou and Marjorie's souls are set free to be re-united with their respective loves.

Unfortunately, Lou's long-awaited admission into Heaven is delayed, due to a certain holiday.

1940s-style special effects: good enough to provoke laughter

I loved every minute of it, but the one scene that delighted me every single time was the one where Melody (Marjorie's charcter), investigating the fashions of 1946, comes upon some nylon stockings. In the middle of modeling them, she is interrupted by the residents of the house. She makes herself invisible, but, alas, the stockings are real. When she runs up the staircase, only the stockings are visible. Well, I was a kid (but I think I'd still laugh at this scene today - just for old times sake).

While my brothers could view "King Kong" and "Mighty Joe Young" frequently, I was the only one who was faithful night after night to a movie I loved. If I loved it, I never tired of it. Over the years, those favorite films became like old friends. Movies are always the same no matter how many times repeated. They, unlike life and people, never change.You can always count on the movies.

And so it is today. Some of my very best friends:

Sunset Boulevard

Vertigo

Laura

North by Northwest

Gigi

Singing in the Rain

City Lights

The Apartment

Some Like it Hot

Charade

Love Me or Leave Me

Gone With the Wind

Notorious
The Philadelphia Story
Citizen Kane
Shadow of a Doubt

And the list goes on....

If I love it, I never tire of it. Just like a true friend.

Thank Heavens For Movies!