A Pair of Stooge Shorts

If a Body Meets a Body: 

(Short # 86 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

This was a remake of The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case, from 1930 and something I’ve viewed before. Case was better, although Body was still fine. Curly’s declining health started to become apparent here; he was slower and his vocals a different pitch.

The trio are in the poorhouse; thank heavens then that Curly Q. Link has his rich uncle Bob O. Link pass away. At his mansion, spooky chicanery takes place, including murder. Detective Fred Kelsey (who has only a few turns in the Stooge world but most were rather memorable; ironically, he also played a detective in Murder Case) detains everyone in the house for the night. This results in wackiness involving dead bodies, along w/ a skull and a parrot.

Body is uneven yet still had enough laughs to earn a passing grade.

Micro-Phonies

(Short # 87 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

The last great Curly short. This was released out of order compared to some shorts that were filmed beforehand, but it was out of order so the debut of director Edward Bernds would not be a short where Curly was down in terms of performance due to health. He was “up” during these days, which helped make for a hysterical effort.

Their blue-collar job this time is “handymen at a radio station.” Besides irking their boss and upsetting a haughty male singer Signor Spumoni, they hear a baritone singer (Christine McIntyre) who records an opera tune despite the protests of her rich parents. The trio pantomime that performance while playing the record, and a talent scout spots them; note that Curly is dressed like a woman to do the singing. 

They are invited to a swanky party where McIntyre, her parents, and Spumoni are all present. There’s nary a dull moment and Phonies is much more than the absurdity of Curly pretending to sing a woman’s operatic vocal. Spumoni was quite a foil as he did battle with them; furthermore, there were many funny puns so the lack of violence from the Stooges was irrelevant in this case. 

The rest of Curly’s run-there’s only 10 episodes left-was mediocre or worse; at least Micro-Phonies was a delight and reminded me of his good old days just a few years previous.