Jack and the Beanstalk, 1952 film with Abbott and Costello

Jack and the Beanstalk is a 1952 American family comedy film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. It is a comic revision of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale.

Plot:
Mr. Dinkle and Jack (Abbott and Costello) look for work at the Cosman Employment Agency. Jack makes advances to Cosman employee Polly (Dorothy Ford), but he is thwarted by the arrival of her boyfriend, a towering police officer (Buddy Baer). Polly assigns Dinkle and Jack to babysit for Eloise Larkin’s brother and infant sister, while Eloise (Shaye Cogan) and her fiancé (James Alexander) are out for the evening. The babysitting duties are complicated by the fact that Donald (David Stollery) is something of a prodigy, as well as a self-proclaimed “problem child”. The dull-witted Jack is soon outclassed by the child, and an attempt to lull the boy to sleep by reading the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk (Jack’s “favorite novel”) aloud fails when Jack stumbles over the larger words. Bemused by Jack’s incompetence, Donald reads the story instead–a role-reversal made complete when Jack falls asleep as Donald reads. In his slumber, Jack dreams that he is the young Jack of the fairy tale.