Damn. Still couldn't find an adequate title for this one. I don't have time to do my usual in-depth analysis this week... I keep meaning to do it piecemeal, but somehow I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But in this week's Stooge pic, Loco Boy Makes Good, the Stooges pull off a rare feat of benevolence. While they're not exactly "job creators" in the traditional, Founding Fathers sense, they're more like the colonizers that... oh, my professor's going to kill me for this. They're more like the plants that go in after a disturbance, like a fire or an earthquake, and pave the way for larger organisms to come in and make the disturbed land hospitable once again. Again, usually the Stooges cause the disturbance, but not this time. This may be the only time.It all starts with a newspaper. A random newspaper literally at Moe's feet. Sorry, "random." He reads about a lawsuit settlement where a guy got paid for slipping on a bar of soap. So, the Stooges get the idea to do the same thing. They pick a hotel lobby to try the same trick, but they end up finding out that the hotel's owner is a kindly old lady who's falling behind on the bills. The Stooges end up helping her renovate the place. Despite the usual comedic mayhem when the Stooges try to repair anything, the place flourishes and becomes a cultural hot spot. Why, the public domain equivalent of Walter Winchell even stops by! The pressure's on to make a good first impression. Hard to say if that impression's made, but the assembled audience seems to be having a good time. Vernon Dent plays a magician whose coat gets swapped with Curly's. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it, but it didn't seem like one of the great shorts to me.
***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan
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