They're Selling Vacuum Cleaners!
Lou Costello plays a country bumpkin vacuum-cleaner salesman, working for the company run by the crooked Bud Abbott. To try to keep him under his thumb, Abbott convinces Costello that he's a crackerjack salesman. This comedy is somewhat like "The Time of Their Lives," in that Abbott and Costello don't have much screen time together and there are very few vaudeville bits woven into the plot.
Eddie L. Morrison / T.S. Chandler
Benny Miller
Hazel Temple Morrison
Miss Ruby Burke
Clarence Goodring
Martha Hill
Ma Miller
P.S. Van Loon
The conductor
Gus Anderson (salesman)
O'Brien (salesman)
Salesman
Larry, Salesman
Miss King
Air-pump customer
Mrs. Hendrickson
Salesman (uncredited)
Lost Motorist (uncredited)
Jim's wife (uncredited)
Man in Stockton Office (uncredited)
04 Feb 1931
Debt-ridden painter Michel is overcome with joy at discovering that he has just won 1 million florins in the Dutch lottery, but almost immediately, he discovers that his softhearted girlfriend, Béatrice, has given away his jacket containing the winning ticket to an elderly petty thief. Soon Michel, Beatrice and Michel's artistic rival, Prosper, are hurtling through the streets of Paris on the trail of the missing jacket.
28 Sep 1924
The wealthy and impulsive Rollo Treadway decides to propose to his beautiful socialite neighbor, Betsy O'Brien. Although Betsy turns Rollo down, he still opts to go on the cruise that he intended as their honeymoon. When circumstances find both Rollo and Betsy on the wrong ship, they end up having adventures on the high seas.
27 Dec 1945
Father O'Malley is sent to St. Mary's, a run-down parochial school on the verge of condemnation. He and Sister Benedict work together in an attempt to save the school, though their differing methods often lead to good-natured disagreements.
26 Mar 1945
Uncle Abdel Fattah forces his nephew Anwar to marry so that he does not deprive him of the inheritance. Anwar does marry, but one day he goes with his friend to a cabaret and meets Tahia, the dancer, who brings him back home drunk. The uncle comes to confirm his nephew's marriage and finds Tahia, who claims that she is his wife. When his real wife appears, he introduces her as his friend's wife.
28 Jun 1951
A meek bank clerk who oversees the shipments of bullion joins with an eccentric neighbor to steal gold bars and smuggle them out of the country.
07 Aug 1951
The unassuming, nebbishy inventor Sidney Stratton creates a miraculous fabric that will never be dirty or worn out. Clearly he can make a fortune selling clothes made of the material, but may cause a crisis in the process. After all, once someone buys one of his suits they won't ever have to fix them or buy another one, and the clothing industry will collapse overnight. Nevertheless, Sidney is determined to put his invention on the market, forcing the clothing factory bigwigs to resort to more desperate measures...
06 Apr 1953
Lester and Orville accidentally launch a rocket which is supposed to fly to Mars. Instead it goes to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. They are then forced by bank robber Mugsy and his pal Harry to fly to Venus where they find a civilization made up entirely of women, men having been banished.
05 Aug 1950
Jonesy and Lou are in Algeria looking for a wrestler they are promoting. Sergeant Axmann tricks them into joining the Foreign Legion, after which they discover Axmann's collaboration with the nasty Sheik Hamud El Khalid.
14 Mar 1951
As novice detectives, Bud and Lou come face to face with the Invisible Man.
02 Feb 1955
Harry and Willie are scammed into buying the Thomas Edison studio lot by a man named Gorman. They decide to follow Gorman's trail to Hollywood where, unbeknownst to them, he has taken the identity of a foreign film director. The lads wind up as stunt doubles in film the which Gorman is now shooting, while the conman tries to have the bungling pair done away with before they realize who he really is.
26 May 1949
Lost Caverns Hotel bellhop Freddie Phillips is suspected of murder. Swami Talpur tries to hypnotize Freddie into confessing, but Freddie is too stupid for the plot to work. Inspector Wellman uses Freddie to get the killer (and it isn't the Swami).
04 Apr 1947
Two ex-soldiers return from overseas--one of them having smuggled into the country a French orphan girl he has become attached to. They wind up running into their old sergeant--who hates them--and getting involved with a race-car builder who's trying to find backers for a new midget racer he's building.
26 Jul 1951
Al Stewart and Wilbert are magicians doing a stage act when they run into Wilbert's cousin, Dorothy McCoy. They find out that Wilbert's grandfather, Squeeze-box McCoy, had treasure hidden in the hills of Kentucky, which they go to find.
17 Dec 1956
Bud and Lou are the owners of the amusement park Kiddieland. Bud, a compulsive gambler, gets in trouble with the mob, and Lou finds himself struggling to keep his adopted children. When Bud is forced to make a shady deal, Lou tries to arrange a deal with the DA, but winds up framed for murder.
13 Aug 1946
Two ghosts, who were mistakenly branded as traitors during the Revolutionary War, return to 20th century New England to retrieve a letter from George Washington which would prove their innocence.
08 Oct 1947
Chester Wooley and Duke Egan are travelling salesmen who make a stopover in Wagon Gap, Montana while enroute to California. During the stopover, a notorious criminal is murdered, and the two are charged with the crime.
17 Nov 1941
Two peanut vendors at a rodeo show get in trouble with their boss and hide out on a railroad train heading west. They get jobs as cowboys on a dude ranch, despite the fact that neither of them knows anything about cowboys, horses, or anything else.
02 Feb 1945
Molly, her brother, Slats, and his pal, Oliver, are taxi dancers at the Miramar Ballroom. As a publicity stunt, Slats plants an article about Molly claiming her ambition is to earn enough money to attend staid, all-girl Bixby College. Bixby's progressive dean offers Molly a scholarship. Molly accepts on the condition that Slats and Oliver come along too as campus caretakers. But the pompous Chairman threatens to foreclose on the school's mortgage if Molly isn't expelled. Together, the trio, with the help of some new friends, concocts a scheme to raise enough money to save the school. The plan involves a bet on the Bixby basketball team, which is playing in a game rated at 20 to 1 by the local bookie. But the bookie has other plans for their dough and hires a group of ringers to step in for the opponents. All is not lost, at least while Oliver has the chance to turn things around for his friends-one way or another.
02 Jun 1943
After Flash Fulton and Weejie McCoy take pictures of a bank robbery, they're lured to the mountain resort hideout of the robbers, where they meet an old friend and his band.
27 Nov 1941
When a barnstorming stunt pilot decides to join the air corps, his two goofball assistants decide to go with him. Since the two are Abbott & Costello, the air corps doesn't know what it's in for.