As two of the most popular entertainers of the mid-century film industry, comic greats Bud Abbott and Lou Costello offered an essential balm to the American public following the sorrows of the Great Depression and during the trauma of World War II. This is the first book to focus in detail on the immensely popular wartime films of Abbott and Costello, discussing the production, content, and reception of 18 films within the context of wartime events on the home front and abroad. The films covered include the service comedies Buck Privates, In the Navy , and Keep 'Em Flying ; more mainstream comic relief films such as Pardon My Sarong and Who Done It? ; and post-war experiments such as Little Giant and The Time of Their Lives . More than 120 stills and lobby cards from the author's personal collection illustrate the text, including many showing outtakes or deleted scenes. “McFarland’s high production values are well to the fore. Scott Allen Nollen’s very informative and well-researched work is a rewarding and recommended read”― Marsh Towers “Highly recommended”― Argunners Magazine As two of the most popular entertainers of the mid-century film industry, comic greats Bud Abbott and Lou Costello offered an essential balm to the American public following the sorrows of the Great Depression and during the trauma of World War II. This is the first book to focus in detail on the immensely popular wartime films of Abbott and Costello, discussing the production, content, and reception of 18 films within the context of wartime events on the home front and abroad. The films covered include the service comedies Buck Privates, In the Navy, and Keep 'Em Flying; more mainstream comic relief films such as Pardon My Sarong and Who Done It?; and post-war experiments such as Little Giant and The Time of Their Lives. More than 120 stills and lobby cards from the author's personal collection illustrate the text, including many showing outtakes or deleted scenes. Historian Scott Allen Nollen was educated in film and history at the University of Iowa.  Since 1986, he has written and edited more than 40 books on the history of film, literature and music, including volumes on Boris Karloff (now finishing his third), Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, John Ford, John Wayne and Ward Bond, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, Frank Sinatra, Takashi Shimura and (with his wife, Yuyun Yuningsih Nollen) Chester Morris.