MartinHafer After seeing DANCE WITH ME HENRY and reading the reviews, I think folks have been way too kind to this film. I am sure most of it is because they love Abbott and Costello and so they want to love the film or at least treat it with great reverence because of this. I myself have seen every Abbott and Costello film and wanted to like this film, too, but can't bring myself to say anything nice about DANCE WITH ME HENRY.The problem is that the script from start to finish is painfully unfunny. Now making a more serious film was not really the problem. LITTLE GIANT, after all, was a rather serious Abbott and Costello film and while the fans didn't like it, the film was well made and entertaining. If you see it today with an open mind, you can't help but appreciate the writing and especially Lou Costello's acting. However, not being funny is only the tip of the iceberg with DANCE WITH ME HENRY. The more serious problem is that the film is 100% saccharine--too sickeningly sweet for consumption. Watching this film could easily send diabetics into comas--it's THAT over-the-top sweet. With all the cute little kids and with a whole new persona for Lou Costello (sort of like a social worker and Pied Piper rolled into one), it's very sticky going. In this film, Lou isn't dumb at all--but the owner of "Happyland" amusement park who adores kids and takes in two orphans. Now I know I'll upset a few people with this observation, but isn't this all a bit creepy?! A single man devotes his life to hanging around kids, owning an amusement park, taking in kids.....this sounds very, very weird--like a recruitment film for pedophiles. I am sure that was NOT the intentions of the film makers but here in the 21st century, I could easily see people getting that impression--how could they not?! Please rest assured I do not hate Abbott and Costello. My comments are more because I am frustrated that this film was so bad and all attempts at humor were out the window. You can't just say Bud and Lou were old and they couldn't do any better. Remember, the year before they made ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (I gave this one an 8) and ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY (I gave this one a 7). So, they were capable of still being funny and entertaining and still had a lot to give. Too bad they had such an awful script and you wonder what Bud and Lou thought about this. Could they have wanted it to end this way? Overall, here's how I see the film: Bud's acting (5), Lou's acting (4), the direction/timing in the film (2) and the writing (-5). You just can't make a good comedy with a bum script and indifferent directing. They deserved better than this--and so did the audience.

Jay Raskin It seemed to me that this was essentially a children's film. While A and C made films that children could watch and enjoy, I think this and "Jack and the Beanstalk" were the only two films they made which were explicitly for children.The beginning ten minutes (good set-up of a potentially funny situation) and the last ten (imagine "Home-alone" with twenty kids) are fine, but the middle is quite flabby. There are no memorable routines and very few (about ten) funny lines.Actually, I do not know if the producers had it in mind, but the movie works well as a pilot for a T.V. series. One can imagine all sorts of great sitcom possibilities with Lou as a bachelor trying to raise two kids while owning and operating a "Kiddie land" amusement park. When this was made, Danny Thomas's "Make Room for Daddy" had been a hit show running for three years and "Bachelor Father" was about to begin its run, so a "raising kids" comedies were the type of thing a network might buy. I suppose if it had done well as a movie, it could have been developed into a television series. So, I believe that it was rather a smart career choice for A and C.Sherry Alberoni as Boopsi and Rusty Hamer are the two stand-out kid performers. Sherry is Shirley Temple cute trying to convince the cops that she witnessed a murder and Rusty Hamer is the nicest and sincerest boy actor of that period (Ron Howard did steal his crown a few years later).A and C fans will savor a few well done moments,(the visit of the nasty welfare worker at the beginning, for example) but on the whole only their fans will be able to sit through it.The last shot of the movie with Costello playing the pied-piper is delightful and cute. If the rest of the movie had been so, this movie would have revived A and C's careers and fortunes.

bkoganbing In 1955 after Abbott&Costello Meet The Mummy, Bud and Lou finished their long stint with Universal Pictures. They did one more film, an independent released by United Artists titled Dance With Me Henry.The title comes from a hit song of the time that her nibs, Miss Georgia Gibbs had a hit record of. It's heard instrumentally at some points in the film. The film has a role reversal of sorts, Bud is a shiftless gambler who owes some big money to gangster Ted DeCorsia because of some bad bets and Lou is the owner of a small amusement park, beloved by the kids especially the orphans from a home run by Father Frank Wilcox. Lou being the good hearted soul that he is takes Bud in.But the gangsters want their money from Bud and if not they want him to go to work for them on some jobs like a bank heist they pulled just recently. Lou arranges to meet the District Attorney Robert Shayne and tell him what he knows. But then at the amusement park the DA is killed by DeCorsia's chief henchman Richard Reeves and Reeves also hides the loot from the job because he's planning a double cross. It's quite a jackpot the boys have themselves in, but there's a providence that watches out over innocents in films. And in Dance With Me Henry, Lou is almost Stan Laurel like in his innocence.That's what's missing in Dance With Me Henry. The old burlesque routines that one expects from an Abbott&Costello film just aren't here for their fans to savor. Abbott who's usually a sharpie and always putting stuff over on Costello is the idiot here and it doesn't wear well on him. He's also put on a lot of pounds and he's almost as rotund as Costello. Lou's character is something new, as if he was trying to explore new vistas.The film didn't go over so good and the boys split up the following year. And Lou would do one solo feature film before his demise two years later. Dance With Me Henry is not a horrible film, but it just isn't what I and other fans came to expect from Bud and Lou. They deserved something better as a farewell.

steve5plums Dance With Me Henry was Abbott and Costello's last movie together and because of that I felt it was interesting to watch. Was it a good movie for Abbott and Costello? Not really as I would rate it as only fair. However, I don't judge it as harshly as others. I thought Lou Costello looked pretty good in the movie, but it was Bud Abbott who looked a little wore out. I don't blame Bud so much because I believe his part was poorly written. He wasn't able to get into that playful verbal banter that made the boys famous because his part of a gambler seemed kind of awkward for what was going on in the movie. Overall, I think this movie should be watched by Abbott and Costello fans just to see the boys in their final movie even though most would rank it lower than most of their other movies.