One half. Abbot and Costello
Africa Screams is a 1949 American adventure comedy film starring Abbott and Costello and directed by Charles Barton that parodies the safari genre. The title is a play on the title of the 1930 documentary Africa Speaks! The supporting cast features Clyde Beatty, Frank Buck, Hillary Brooke, Max Baer, Buddy Baer, Shemp Howard and Joe Besser. The film entered the public domain in 1977.
Diana Emerson visits the book section of Klopper's department store seeking a copy of Dark Safari by the famed explorer Cuddleford. She tells the clerk, Buzz Johnson, that she will pay $2,500 for a map that is inside the book. Buzz's friend and coworker Stanley Livington, an armchair explorer, has read the book and says that he is familiar with a map within it. Buzz brings Stanley to Diana's home to draw the map, but when he overhears Diana offer Clyde Beatty $20,000 to lead an expedition to capture a legendary giant ape, Buzz realizes that the map is worth considerably more. Buzz negotiates for more money and for him and Stanley to join the safari.They travel to the Congo with Diana's team of explorers, including Harry "Boots" Wilson, Grappler McCoy and Gunner, a nearsighted professional hunter. When he learns that the expedition's true goal is not the giant ape but a fortune in diamonds, Buzz renegotiates their deal again.One half. Laurel and Hardy
A Chump at Oxford is a Hal Roach comedy film produced in 1939 and released in 1940 by United Artists. It was directed by Alfred J. Goulding and is the penultimate Laurel and Hardy film made at the Roach studio. The title echoes the film A Yank at Oxford (1938), of which it is a partial parody.
Stan and Ollie are street sweepers who, while taking a lunch break outside a bank, accidentally foil a bank robber's escape. The grateful bank president offers them jobs, but Ollie admits that they haven't enough education to succeed. The bank president pays for scholarships at Oxford University in England, where they are victimized with elaborate hazing by prankish students.
The servant assigned to Stan and Ollie recognizes Stan as the long-lost athlete and scholar Lord Paddington. Many years before, the scholar received a bump on the head which claimed his memory. He wandered away from the university, never to be seen again. Stan and Ollie dismiss the story and continue their misadventures. When Stan manages to bump his head, he immediately transforms into Lord Paddington, complete with upper-crust diction and condescending manner. Hardy, astonished, is permitted to stay on as Paddington's "lackey."
