If you’ve ever dived into a bargain videocassette bin at K-Mart in the late 80’s, then chances are you have already seen most of these movies.

Disc One
Africa Screams (1949) - Directed by Charles Barton - Bud Abbott and Lou Costello venture off to the Dark Continent to search for diamonds and a big-ass ape. Two out of six of the Three Stooges are also on-hand to provide a few gags: Shemp Howard and comic genius Joe Besser.

Flying Deuces (1939) - Directed by A. Edward Sutherland - Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy accidentally wind up enlisting in the French Foreign Legion after Ollie feels the cold, hard sting of rejection from Jean Parker (who is engaged to Reginald Gardiner). Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless himself) plays the Commandant and the great James Finlayson (the man who originated Homer Simpson’s famous “Doh!” makes an appearance as a jailor.

Several silent L&H-related Two-Reelers (Shorts) are also on this disc: Bromo & Juliet (1926) - Directed by Leo McCarey - A Charley Chase vehicle featuring Oliver Hardy; Crazy Like A Fox (1926) - Directed by Leo McCarey - No, it isn’t the Jack Warden TV show of the same name, but rather another Charley Chase subject with a cameo by Ollie; Along Came Auntie (1926) - Directed by Fred Guiol and Richard Wallace - Ollie co-stars in this Glenn Tryon short; Short Kilts (1924) - Directed by George Jeske - Stan and James Finlayson both star in this tale of rival Scottish families attempting to make peace (which doesn’t work, naturally); and Smithy (1924) - Directed by George Jeske and Hal Roach - Another solo Stan short with James Finlayson and Glenn Tryon.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Along with Africa Screams, Flying Deuces has been distributed more times and by more video distributors than anybody could probably count!

Disc Two, Side A
Jack And The Beanstalk (1952) - Directed by Jean Yarbrough - Abbott & Costello return in this musical-fantasy aimed directly at the kiddies (one of two color features made during their brief stint with Warner Brothers). Bud and Lou wind up babysitting one of the world’s most irritating boys (future Toyota Celica designer and Spin And Marty star David Stollery). Unable to get past the big words, Lou has the child read him a bedtime story and soon, the black-and-white film goes into full color ( la The Wizard Of Oz) complete with a gay prince. Buddy Baer plays the giant and Dorothy Ford co-stars as his ogle-icious housekeeper. An uncredited Mel Blanc provides some voices for a couple of animals. Look for William Farnum (in his last big-screen role) and the great Joe Kirk (brother-in-law of both Lou Costello and his producer brother Pat).

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Remember when you could just let strangers into your home to baby-sit your kids and everything would be OK? Neither do I.

Disc Two, Side B
The Inspector General (1949) - Directed by Henry Koster - The inimitable Danny Kaye heads an impressive cast as an illiterate peasant who gets mistaken for the Inspector General by a group of greedy small town officials. Song and dance abound. “Give ‘em the fist, give ‘em the wrist, give ‘em the finger!”

Luigi‘s Useless Information: The first character seen in this classic is none other than B-Movie legend Nestor Paiva, whom many of us will always remember as the loveable ship’s captain Lucas in Creature From The Black Lagoon. He also appeared in The Mole People, Tarantula, Madmen Of Mandoras (which was later re-released as They Saved Hitler’s Brain) and the second chapter in the Black Lagoon saga, Revenge Of The Creature.

Disc Three, Side A
Three shorts by W.C. Fields are included on this disc: The Golf Specialist (1930) directed by Monte Brice; The Dentist (1932) directed by Leslie Pearce; and The Fatal Glass Of Beer (1933) directed by the tragic soul that was Clyde Bruckman.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: I have never been a fan of W.C. Fields so my attempts to watch these shorts now were just as successful as they were years ago: fruitless. I did notice Stooge regular Bud Jamison in there somewhere, though. Yes, I prefer the Stooges over W.C. Fields. Go ahead, pick a fight with me over it - I studied Joe Besser Kung Fu, you know!

Disc Three, Side B
Speak Easily (1932) - Directed by Edward Sedgwick - Buster Keaton, one of my personal favorites, stars with Jimmy Durante in this amusing feature in which a booksmart Professor (Keaton) inherits $750,000 and decides to go out and live his life a little bit. Thelma Todd and Sidney Toler also star.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Dave O’Brien, everybody’s favorite Reefer Madness star (and B-Western star extraordinaire) also makes an appearance in this short. Dave also worked as a stuntman (and did some extreme stunts in several Pete Smith shorts) and would later go on to become a successful comedy writer/director for comic icon as Red Skelton.

Disc Four, Side A
The Sin Of Harold Diddlebock (1947) - Directed by Preston Sturges - After more than two-decades of working as a clerk in the basement of a big advertising agency, poor Harold Diddlebock (silent-era genius Harold Lloyd, in his final starring role) finds himself out of work. Depressed and looking for a new job, Harold runs into a guy named Wormy (Jimmy Conlin) and the two of them promptly discover a new cocktail at the hands of skilled bartender Edgar Kennedy. The cocktail, named after Mr. Diddlebock, brings out the wild side of the mild-mannered Harold and soon he’s making money at the racetracks, buying a circus, and walking a real life lion down the streets of the big city. Robert Greig (the original Michael Caine), Lionel Stander, Jack Norton, Margaret Hamilton, Rudy Vallee and beautiful unknown by the name of Frances Ramsden co-star.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Writer/director Sturges wrote this wacky-but-fun feature as a way to bring Lloyd out of retirement, using footage from Lloyd‘s 1925 classic The Freshman (which no doubt inspired Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy) as the beginning. Ghost producer Howard Hughes later re-edited, re-titled, and re-released the film as Mad Wednesday. Both versions flopped at the box-office, but should be seen nevertheless due to their vast differences (for example: actress Vallee shows up only briefly in Diddlebock, but plays a major role in Wednesday).

Disc Four, Side B
The Road To Hollywood (1947) - Directed by Bud Pollard - Exploitation writer/director Pollard edited together footage from four different Bing Crosby shorts from Mack Sennett (made between 1931-1934) and spliced in new footage of himself reading cue cards (he also narrates some of the old footage). This patchwork quickie runs just under an hour and it really isn’t much to waste any time over unless you’ve always wanted to see Bing in blackface.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Fans of the Three Stooges will no doubt recognize Vernon Dent as a director in one segment. Marjorie “Babe” Kane can also be seen in some of the recycled footage.

Disc Five, Side A
Palooka (1934) - Directed by Benjamin Stoloff - Jimmy Durante plays fast-talking boxing manager Knobby Walsh in this pre-Code comedy based on the Ham Fisher comic strip. Durante recruits country bumpkin Joe Palooka as a new prize fighter. Pretty standard formula stuff here. The beautiful Lupe Velez co-stars as a heavy-drinking gold-digger.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: Enter the lesser-known brother - James Cagney’s sibling William plays the boozing champ whom our hero replaces. Not one for the acting side of the camera, William chose instead to play agent to his brother (a wise move on his part). He also did some producing. Oh, and if anyone has the alleged stag film featuring Lupe Velez, please contact me: I’d love to see it!

Disc Five, Side B
Love Laughs At Andy Hardy (1946) - Directed by Willis Goldbeck - The second-to-last chapter in the Andy Hardy series finds our hero, back from a two-year stint in the Army, madly in love with Kay Wilson (Bonita Granville) and determined to marry her - much to the dismay of his mother (Sara Haden). Many of the regular Andy Hardy cast members show return (Lewis Stone, Fay Holden, etc.). Lina Romay and Dorothy Ford co-star.

Luigi‘s Useless Information: This would prove to be Lewis Stone’s last appearance as The Judge: he died seven years later yelling at a group of teenagers (no kidding), just five years before the final film in the series was released. Co-star Lina Romay is not to be confused with Euro-cult filmmaker Jesus Franco’s wife of the same name.

Presentation
Best I can tell, BCI (under the dreaded Brentwood label) simply transferred all of the movies in this collection from VHS. Most of them fare rather decently but virtually everything Disc One is absolutely unwatchable (particularly Africa Screams, which looks like it fell into a vat of bleach). Every title has either phony 5.1 or 2.0 Surround soundtracks, but nothing ever comes through the rear left and right speakers (at times I was wondering if anything was going to come through the front left and right channels, either). Some of the audio tracks suffer from a heap of hissing.

Extras
Unless you count the shorts as Special Features, you don’t get any. If you do count the shorts as Special Features--well, you still don’t get any! The weird DVD case (careful: you’ll scratch the hell out of these discs if you don’t open the case with caution!) is littered with a lot of scribbling by the late Al Hirschfield (whom some still refer to as an artist).

The Bottom Line
Cheap entertainment for those of you who prefer quantity over quality (and you’re all Commies, by the way), although I highly doubt we will ever see any immaculate-looking prints of Flying Deuces and Africa Screams (which is a pity, as they really are fun movies).