A Quartet of Stooge Shorts

Malice in the Palace: 

(Short # 117 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

The last public domain Stooge short—and also one that Curly filmed a scene for, but despite appearing in the one-sheet and lobby card, his scene (as a cook who had a giant fake handlebar mustache) was cut for reasons unknown to me except that a few different explanations were heard. His declining health likely played a factor. Regardless, Malice in the Palace is still a rollicking good time.

As standard for the era, white people are cosplaying as Arab people but as long as that’s not a deal-breaker for you… there’s also a darker than usual gag concerning Larry the chef chasing down a cat & dog then those animals making noises as he’s preparing rabbit & hog dogs, resulting in everyone else thinking that upsetting thought. If that isn’t too gruesome for you…

It’s still a silly effort where characters have names like Hassan Ben Sober, Emir of Shmow, and Ghinna Rumma. The boys are persuaded to look for the Rootin-Tootin Diamond; this is after they learn of it from Sober and Rumma. To be frank, only the last few minutes are spent w/ acquiring the diamond from Shmow’s palace and that isn’t as strong as the rest. Even so, that does not mean I wasn’t entertained nor laughed a decent amount of times.

There’s even the return of a map featuring many pun-filled names, a device they hadn’t used since 1941’s I’ll Never Heil Again, and a few seconds of stock footage as they reuse the idea of the trio dressed as Santa Claus in an Arabian palace, first used all the way back in 1938’s Wee Wee Monsieur.

Vagabond Loafers:

(Short # 118 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

A Shemp short that is a remake of one featuring Curly; it’s not just lifting a gag or routine. Vagabond Loafers is a remake of the legendary 1940 A Plumbing We Will Go, a favorite of me and many other Stooge fans. Routines, lines, and stock footage is taken from Plumbing. Now, the setup is different; instead of hijacking a plumbing truck to avoid arrest, the boys are novices in a plumbing business that is open 24 hours. A mansion springs a leak so they’re called even though a soiree is being thrown for a new $50,000 painting on display.

Moe struggles with stopping the leak so like in Plumbing, Larry goes to the yard to try and turn the water off while Shemp goes to the bathroom, where his bungling results in being surrounded by pipes. I do prefer Plumbing but that doesn’t mean laughs aren’t present. There are still funny one-liners and there’s the thrill of Kenneth MacDonald and Christine McIntyre attempting to steal the painting. This is notable as the last appearances of both Symona Boniface (a tremendous name, and a funny lady who was in quite a few shorts w/ the Stooges going back to some of their first in the mid 30’s) and Black actor Dudley Dickerson.

With Dickerson, they actually used both stock footage and new scenes for him as he reprised his role as the mansion’s cook. A recipe like this sounded like a stew of trouble; instead, without comparison to the original, I enjoy Vagabond Loafers for what it is. Although, I couldn’t tell you why this was called Vagabond Loafers-it references nothing in the short. I suppose it is a catchy title…

Dunked in the Deep: 

(Short # 119 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

A minimalist Stooge effort. That proclamation is made as there is exactly one other character shown on screen throughout and only a few sets are used. Gene Roth portrayed a foreign spy w/ a vaguely foreign accent. He was a background player in such films as the OG Nightmare Alley but had more prominent roles in the likes of Earth vs. the Spider, recently shown on The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs.

He hides microfilm of “government documents” in… watermelons. The Stooges are his neighbor; as they were victims of circumstances, they ended up stowaways on the same aquatic vessel, a shipping frigate, to be exact. Believe it or not, the watermelons conceit was a relevant reference. Those familiar w/ Alger Hiss (who worked for the American government but was accused of being a Soviet spy… the validity of those charges have never been proven or disproven), it’d take way too long to explain here but rolls of 35mm film were found in a hollowed-out pumpkin on his farm, purportedly to send to the Soviet Union.

That is the best gag present; the rest, plenty of bits used in previous efforts. That in of itself is not a demerit. While those OG efforts were typically better, none of them here were bad. Deep was still a good time and I was amused that something this small a scale could still be satisfying.

Punchy Cowpunchers: 

(Short # 120 in Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk: The Columbia Shorts of The Three Stooges)

This is a Western, as the title accurately suggests. The Stooges have dabbled in this genre on more than a few occasions. What made this stand out: there’s another protagonist who is even more inept than Moe, Larry, and Shemp. The Killer Dillon gang wish to steal the gold owned by the family of Christine McIntyre’s Nell; she dispatches her beau Elmer to get help from the U.S. Cavalry. The Stooges (horse groomers in that branch of the military) are tasked with stopping the Dillon men due to a superior they’re feuding with hoping they’ll be killed in the line of duty.

The trio are their typical blundering selves yet Elmer (portrayed by Jack Mahoney) dresses and acts like a singing cowboy—but Elmer is constantly clumsy and forgetful. He fell off his horse, hurts his knee more than once, can’t hit the broad side of a barn, and can’t even remember to load his revolvers. It’s a great parody of the singing cowboy stereotype; not only can Nell inadvertently dispatch of the foes, the Stooges are in fact portrayed as more competent than Elmer.

Punchy Cowpunchers was a swell time, between the appropriate sets, costumes, the music you’d hear in a traditional Columbia Western of the time, and the presence of all the familiar Stooge supporting players of the time (there’s also Vernon Dent, Emil Sitka and Kenneth MacDonald. Not all get equal screentime by any means) + the funny routines and one-liners I expect = a memorable effort from the boys.