Chester Lauck and Norris Goff made the characters of Lum&Abner household names, in their time they were as famous on radio as Amos&Andy. Both men were fortunate in that they looked like the characters they played on radio so making films was a smooth transition for them. During the height of their popularity in the Forties before television they made a few films and Two Weeks To Live is one of them.These two gentle rustics, proprietors of the local grocery store in Pine Ridge Arkansas find out that Abner has inherited a railroad and they start dreaming big. Turns out it's just a Hooterville Cannonball type line that carried ore from a gold mine that Abner's uncle owned back in the day that's long played out. In fact when probate and taxes are done they owe money. And they've sold right of ways to the various farmers back in Pine Ridge and they're in some deep debt now.To pay it off they engage in various schemes as the plot moves from one crazy situation to another. Abner even gets a diagnosis mixed up with a man with Two Weeks To Live hence the title. Lum starts using Abner the way Crosby used Hope in those various Road pictures. They also get involved with saboteurs, a crazy mad scientist who wants to send one of the boys to Mars in a rocket, and a window washer with an invisible dog.The production values aren't much, the film looks like it was shot with a brownie camera, still it's quite amusing. Lum&Abner were the predecessor for the Beverly Hillbillies, Andy Griffith and all sorts of television with a rural red state setting. Their naive and gentle humor is still amusing.

This is the first one of the Lum and Abner movies i have ever seen. I have heard a few audio tapes of the old radio show over the last 6 years and I have to say that from the time this movie started playing on my DVD player until the end of it I was laughing so much I feel this live movie is even more funny than the old radio show. It is so wild what old Abner has to get into after he and Lum are fooled into thinking that he has only two weeks to live. It is also so funny at the end when Lum is put in that rocket ship and crashes near that sign in Iowa thinking that he is just nine miles from the Planet Mars when the sign says "9 Miles to Mars Iowa" and it is such a funny movie with what those two get into! I would recommend anyone who likes comedies to watch this movie!

This is one of my new favorite movies, for many reasons. One is Abners mispronunciation of words and all around silliness. Another one is Lums some-what know-it-all attitude, and the window washer Mr. Pinkeys "inavisible" dog 'Rover'. It all starts when Abners uncle dies and leave him a railroad, then Lum and Abner, thinking they could build a line right there in Piney Woods, Arkansas, ask everyone to invest in there company. After a trip to Chicago to claim the railroad they discover that it is totally dilapidated. Along the way Abner is incorrectly diagnosed as having "Two weeks to live". The boys lose all there money paying Abners uncle's debt's and get themselves stuck in Chicago. They try lots of things to get enough money to get back home and pay every one back.

I got this out of the 88 cent bin at Wal-Mart. As Lum and Abner peaked in popularity about 15 years before I was born, I didn't know much about them. I wasn't expecting much but this was an amusing B movie. Lum and Abner are a couple of country bumpkins who go to the big city. We have all seen this type of thing many times before, and they do some humor based on a hick's unfamiliarity with the big city, but it never regresses to Beverly Hillbillies type humor. There was no big laughs but I did get some chuckles. I am sure some jokes passed me by that those familiar with the characters would have caught. The movie does have some interesting characters like the window washer and his invisible dog, the guy who invents a Jekyll and Hyde type formula and the always amusing Franklin Pangborn. It is a zany comedy that feels just a bit restrained from making it an anarchy type comedy like the Marxes. If you like old comedy and see this in the 88 cent bin at Wal-Mart, it is worth picking up.