Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 8, 2017

The Noose Hangs High marked the beginning of the end of Abbott and Costello’s exclusive deal with Universal Pictures (which included three at bats for Metro Goldwyn Mayer under a corollary agreement). Some may also perceive it as the beginning of the end for the legendary duo’s stellar film heyday, though the pair would continue to produce huge box office receipts for years to come, albeit in efforts that often paired them with Universal’s stable of monsters (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man, Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy). The Noose Hangs High was originally slated to be a Universal release, but with at least the hint of a little freedom, and the smarts to try to take more control of their cinematic output, Abbott and Costello ported it over to Eagle-Lion, a studio which, despite its impressive sounding aggregate moniker, was in fact little more than a dressed up version of “Poverty Row”’s Producing Releasing Corporation. The Noose Hangs High recycles some earlier Abbott and Costello bits, as tended to be the case more and more with the two comics as the years passed by, and it, like many other Abbott and Costello efforts, is also stuffed with a number of shtick laden sequences, to varying effectiveness. The film depends on one of those “why don’t they just tell someone” artifices, when the two leads are mistaken for messengers (they’re actually window washers) and get mixed up in a missing $50,000 caper that leads to predictably calamitous results.

This vignette laden enterprise actually begins with a whole subplot that has very little (and arguably nothing) to do with the rest of the film. Tommy Hinchcliffe (Lou Costello) has a painful tooth and is attempting to do a little home remedy, courtesy of a string, his dog, and a neighborhood cat. The result is predictably chaotic, leaving Tommy still in a great deal of pain when he steps out on a high rise window ledge with his partner Ted Higgins (Bud Abbott) to wash some windows. Even this little sequence has typical amounts of physical humor, with the whole skyscraper setting seeming awfully reminiscent of Harold Lloyd in Safety Last!.

As tends to be the case in terms of the interpersonal dynamic between Abbott and Costello in virtually all of their films, Ted is none too pleased to have to listen to Tommy’s incessant complaining, and so delivers him to a dentist who works in the building where they’re washing windows. That of course leads to yet another bout of outrageous gags, as it’s clear the dentist has no idea what he’s doing, except that he’s learned how to make his dentist’s chair rise up and come back down. Suffice it to say Tommy finally does rid himself of the problematic tooth, but the out of control dentist’s chair disrupts a psychiatric appointment in the office above the dentist’s, in one of the film’s most effective sight gags.

This whole opening array of bits is more or less completely disconnected from the rest of the film, perhaps implying a bit of padding was going on in order to get things to a decent running time. The main plot kicks in when Tommy and Ted, who work for Speedy Window Washers, are mistaken for two Speedy Messenger Service employees by bookie Nick Craig (Joseph Calleia), who is yet another worker in the same building (do bookies have actual offices?). Craig enlists the two to go retrieve $50,000 he’s owed by a guy named Stewart (an uncredited Ben Welden), and it’s at this point that the whole ensuing cacophony could have been avoided by the boys simply saying “Hey, guess what, wrong Speedy—we’re window washers.” But of course then there wouldn’t have been a movie.

Stewart does in fact hand over the loot, but he has plans of his own, which leads to Tommy running for the exits and ultimately finding refuge in a mail order company that’s sending out face powder samples. In a perhaps surprising bit of quick thinking for a Costello character, Tommy decides to mail the cash back to Craig, but of course fate intervenes once again, and the money does not reach its intended target. Now Tommy and Ted have the goons hired by Stewart as well as Craig and his henchmen on their tail, and they need to find out what became of that cold hard cash.

The film actually gives away that “secret” almost immediately, showing that one of the women on the face powder mailing list, Carol Blair (Cathy Downs), is the recipient of this unexpected windfall, and so the film struggles to develop suspense as Tommy and Ted do a little sleuthing to figure out who on the mailing list ended up with the loot. There is a litany of bits liberally sprinkled throughout these plot shenanigans, some of which are recycled (and slightly retooled) from the pair’s long career, and others which take advantage of supposedly new fangled technologies (like a car with too many buttons and knobs on the dashboard).

The Noose Hangs High is good, competent Abbott and Costello fun, but it lacks the ebullience of some of their better material. The supporting cast is filled with great little turns by the likes of Fritz Feld (as the aforementioned psychiatrist) and Mike Mazurki, as one of the humongous thugs after the boys, but the film occasionally has a certain tired quality that suggests the pair is mostly going through the paces, and often paces they’ve gone through previously.

The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Noose Hangs High is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of ClassicFlix with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. The bulk of this presentation is rather nice looking, with an organic grain field and solid contrast. Clarity and sharpness are variable, however, and while the majority of the film looks fine, if not stunning, there are moments where things look a good deal fuzzier (see screenshot 19 for one example, though this is a recurrent if intermittent and transitory issue), something that leads me to believe either a solitary source element had some problematic damage, or alternatively that more than one source was utilized. Whatever source was utilized was either largely damage free, in terms of age related wear and tear like nicks, scratches and dirt, or has been restored to appear so.

The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Noose Hangs High features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix that doesn't have any of the variability of the video presentation, and which on the whole sounds surprisingly full bodied. Dialogue and effects resonate cleanly and clearly and there are no real issues with dropouts or distortion. The age of the track is evident in a slightly boxy sound, but there's nothing overly problematic in my estimation.

The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:17)


• Image Gallery (1080p; 7:22)

The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are some fun bits in The Noose Hangs High, and my hunch is any devoted Abbott and Costello fan will find a lot to enjoy in this picture. The film hinges on ridiculous plot contrivances, as any number of other Abbott and Costello vehicles do, but the pair are as amiable as ever (if, in Abbott's case, on the curmudgeonly side), and Charles Barton keeps things moving along at a breakneck pace. There are probably a few too many distractions along the way, including a kind of bizarre Deus ex Machina in the form of an eccentric millionaire who shows up to save the day, but The Noose Hangs High delivers enough solid comedy to satisfy most Abbott and Costello aficionados. Recommended.