The Naughty Nineties
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Jean Yarbrough
Bud Abbott
Lou Costello
Alan Curtis
Rita Johnson
Henry Travers
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In the 1890s, The River Queen , a family-oriented showboat owned by Captain Sam Jackson, docks in the small Mississippi town of Ironville, with a new show featuring actor Dexter Broadhurst. Also on board the ship is Dexter's bumbling but good-hearted assistant, Sebastian Dinwiddie. Just as the showboat arrives in town, gamblers Crawford, Bonita Farrow and Bailey are ordered to leave Ironville by the sheriff. Seeing an opportunity to make some real money, the three arrange to meet Captain Sam at the Gilded Cage saloon in St. Louis, and there wine and dine him. Despite the best efforts of Dexter and Sebastian to save the naïve seaman's investment, the three win controlling interest in The River Queen in a dishonest poker game. Crawford, Bonita and Bailey then set up a crooked gambling operation on the ship, agreeing to leave once Captain Sam pays them $15,000. After one of his customers is shot during a gambling dispute, Captain Sam publicly condemns his partners. Although Bonita warns him that another such outburst will land him and his performers ashore, Crawford begins to have pangs of guilt about his friends's treatment of the showboat performers, as well as romantic feelings for Caroline, Captain Sam's beautiful daughter. Meanwhile, Dexter and Sebastian break into Bailey's room whie he is sleeping to search for Captain Sam's promissory notes, but find nothing. Later, after Sebastian exposes a crooked dice game at one port, Bonita offers to play Captain Sam a single game of poker for the full interest in The River Queen . Unknown to Bonita, Crawford has rigged the deck so that the seaman will win, and in the ensuing mêlée, Dexter and Sebastian manage to capture Bailey and all his men. Bonita and Bailey are then arrested, and as his reward, Sebastian is finally given a role in The River Queen's latest production, playing "Little Eva" in Uncle Tom's Cabin .
Director
Jean Yarbrough
Cast
Bud Abbott
Lou Costello
Alan Curtis
Rita Johnson
Henry Travers
Lois Collier
Joe Sawyer
Joe Kirk
The Rainbow Four
Jack Norton
Sam Mcdaniel
Billy Green Minstrel
Bud Wolfe
Henry Russell
Ralph Johns
Bing Conley
Tony Dell
John Indrisano
Bud O'connor
Charles Phillips
Jack Worth
Donald Kerr
Doug Carter
Jack Frack
Parker Garvie
Jack Coffey
Irene Thomas
Bill Alcorn
Ronald Stanton
William W. Larsen
Dolores Evers
Lillian Yarbo
Emmet Vogan
John Hamilton
Ed Gargan
Bill Ward
Audley Anderson
Warren Jackson
Perc Launders
Cy Ring
Rita Gould
Ann Lawrence
Gladys Blake
Jack Chefe
Jack Rice
Charles Mcnally
Jack Overman
Shirley Karnes
Barbara Pepper
Arthur Loft
Carol Hughes
Sue Robin
Tom Fadden
Milt Bronson
Rex Lease
Sarah Selby
Torchy Rand
Ruth Lee
Sidney Fields
Crew
Felix Adler
John Boyle
Jack Brooks
Bernard B. Brown
Howard Christie
Edward Colman
Edgar Fairchild
Edgar Fairchild
Milton Feld
Hal Fimberg
Russell A. Gausman
John B. Goodman
John Grant
John Grant
Nanette Grant
Edmund L. Hartmann
Edmund L. Hartmann
Will A. Heelan
Arthur Hilton
Edmund Joseph
Jean Kenney
Harold H. Macarthur
Junie Mccree
Paul Neal
Jack Norworth
Jack P. Pierce
Ronald K. Pierce
Robert Pritchard
George Robinson
Leigh Smith
Andrew B. Sterling
Albert Von Tilzer
Harry Von Tilzer
Vera West
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Strange as it may seem, they give ball players nowadays very peculiar names.- Dexter Broadhurst
Funny names?- Sebastian Dinwiddle
Nicknames. Nicknames.- Dexter Broadhurst
Not -- not as funny as my name -- Sebastian Dinwiddie.- Sebastian Dinwiddle
Oh, yes, yes, yes!- Dexter Broadhurst
Trivia
Contains the famous "Who's on First" routine.
The only baseball defensive position NOT mentioned in the "Who's On First" routine: Right Field.
Listen closely during the "Who's On First" routine. The laughter that can be heard faintly belongs to the film crew and director. After numerous takes trying to eliminate it, the power of Abbott and Costello to elicit laughter during this sequence proved too strong. The director had no choice but to leave the giggling in.
Lou Costello recycles the "Lifesavers Candy" routine Groucho Marx used in the Marx Brothers' hit Horse Feathers (1932).
The boat used as the showboat "River Queen" in this production was also used as the "Cotton Palace" in Show Boat (1936)
Notes
According to Hollywood Reporter, producer Alex Gottlieb was assigned to develop an Abbott and Costello comedy entitled The Naughty Nineties in January 1943; it has not been determined, however, if any elements of Gottlieb's project were used in this film. Early Hollywood Reporter production charts include Mantan Moreland in the cast, but he did not appear in the released film. Abbott and Costello revised their famous "Who's on First?" comedy routine in The Naughty Nineties, having previously performed it in their 1940 film debut, Universal's One Night in the Tropics (see AFI Catalog of Feature Films, 1931-40; F3.3271).
