Two More Stooge Shorts

Three Smart Saps: 

(Short # 64 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

Featuring “a marble machine”… i.e. a pinball machine. The trio are suitors looking to marry sisters Bella, Mella, and Stella. Note that their surname is Stevens—I did laugh at “Stella Stevens;” the actress would have only been a toddler when this was made. The patriarch of the family is a prison warden who was jailed when the inmates took over the asylum… er, I mean jail. The trio scheme the idea to enter jail and Moe take photographic evidence of the prison.

The Stooges walk through the front door of the prison after failed attempts to get arrested. The joint is now dressed up as a nightclub, complete with men and women in fancy attire, along with that marble machine. Absurd, yes; that doesn’t mean there aren’t laughs present. The highlight is Moe and Curly dancing the rhumba with a pair of ladies. Curly’s suit is ripped off in stages a la a bit in Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman. Curly’s dance partner is Barbara Slater, a lady more than half a foot taller than him in heels.

She and he dancing was a treat, especially Curly attempting to cut the rug. Three Smart Saps did entertain me even with such an off-kilter premise. Besides what was previously mentioned, there’s the expected slapstick gags, verbal puns, and even some singing from the trio.

Even as IOU:

(Short # 65 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

This short was surprisingly bad. The start was rather interesting-they sell counterfeit racing programs. That was brief before they stumble upon a poor mom and her daughter a la the Cash and Carry short… only it was a sorry imitation of that. After some mild antics, they attempt to raise money to help them out by taking their piggybank stash, again like Cash and Carry.

Only, we never see the mom and daughter again! The daughter was portrayed by Sharyn Moffett, who had a short career in the acting world but some will remember her for her role in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House. As an adult, she and her husband later became… Episcopalian ministers. That is far more interesting than the rest of this short. So is this being the last time that Bert Young appeared with the trio. He was a supporting player who was a familiar face due to appearing in about three dozen shorts, almost from the beginning.

This becomes bizarre as two swindlers make Curly think that there’s a talking horse (please don’t ask; this is also a worse version of Playing the Ponies) and after that is a truly incomprehensible final minute that isn’t even worth discussing.

I’ve relished viewing these Three Stooges shorts chronologically; most watched so far have at least been fine, and many were at least pretty good. No need to get angry when there are some bad ones coming later—such as Curly being forced to work while ill or the four shorts that Sam Raimi got the term “Fake Shemp” from… Shemp literally DIED and they tried to hide this fact. Then, there’s the end of the line with the brief Joe Besser era featuring the likes of actual talking horses and aliens.

Still, I’ll be happy to talk about all of those and note when there are funny moments. Some chuckles were at least present here so it wasn’t completely dire—this was just so disjointed, like they stitched together some half-baked ideas done better previously and cohesive, IOU was not.