Here Come The Co-Eds

Here Come the Co-Eds
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jean Yarbrough
Produced by	John Grant
Written by	Arthur T. Horman John Grant Edmund Hartmann
Starring	Bud Abbott Lou Costello Peggy Ryan Martha O'Driscoll Lon Chaney, Jr.
Music by	Edgar Fairchild
Edited by	Arthur Hilton
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	February 2, 1945 (1945-02-02)
Running time	88 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$717,621.39

Here Come The Co-Eds is a 1945 film starring the comedy team Abbott and Costello.

Oliver Quackenbush (Lou Costello), Molly (Martha O'Driscoll) and her brother Slats (Bud Abbott) work for the Miramar Ballroom as taxi dancers. Slats plants a phony article in the local newspaper that declares Molly's ambition is to attend Bixby College. The dean of Bixby (Donald Cook) reads the article and offers her a scholarship. She agrees, but only if Oliver and Slats can accompany her. They are hired as caretakers.

Meanwhile, Chairman Kirkland (Charles Dingle), whose daughter Diane (June Vincent) also attends Bixby, holds the mortgage on the college and threatens to foreclose if the dean continues to ignore tradition and does not expel Molly. Slats and Oliver run into some problems of their own as they fail at every task assigned to them by their supervisor, Mr. Johnson (Lon Chaney, Jr.).

Slats devises a plan to raise $20,000 to save the school: Oliver will wrestle the Masked Marvel. However, just before the match the Masked Marvel becomes ill and is replaced by Mr. Johnson. Oliver still manages to win the match, and Slats takes the $1,000 winnings and bets it on Bixby in a basketball game at 20-to-1 odds. Unfortunately the bookie attempts to ensure the outcome by hiring a professional team to play in place of Bixby's opponent, Carleton. Oliver dresses in drag and joins the Bixby team. Halfway through the game he receives a bump on the head and is convinced he is Daisy Dimple, "the world's greatest woman basketball player." Bixby pulls into the lead, but Oliver suffers another bump on the head and returns to his usual persona, and ends up losing the game for Bixby. To make up for it, he steals the bookie's money and after a crosstown chase (in a sailboat on a trailer), the boys arrive in time to pay the mortgage and save the school.

This film was re-released in 1950.

This film has been released twice on DVD. The first time, on The Best of Abbott and Costello Volume Two, on May 4, 2004, and again on October 28, 2008 as part of Abbott and Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection.