Thursday, February 21, 2013

Ticking away with my Sanity, I've got too much Crime on my Hands

Is it any wonder?  I mean, seriously?

ACT ONE

We usually start with a close-up of something in these things, but this one's a little bit different.  It's a close-up of a guy holding a diamond.  Why, it's Kenneth MacDonald, possibly one of the best Stooge bad guys ever!  Of course, their first mistake was stealing a diamond with a name.  In this case, the Punjab Diamond, the fourth largest diamond in the world.  Unless they have their own diamond cutting equipment, they might have a little trouble fencing it.  But for now, they spend a little time soaking it all in... especially that Christine McIntyre.  I get the feeling she's not going to be doing any singing in this one.  Just a feeling.
And then... the squabbling begins.  The weak link in the criminal chain insists on the immediate payoff.  MacDonald, the strong link, tries to explain that this is a hunk of hot ice that needs time to cool... a few weeks, a few months, probably a few years would be good.  Alas, omega males tend not to listen to the reason of their superiors, so a fight breaks out.  MacDonald gives the guy a mighty slap... but, that's the Stooges' slap sound effect for each other!  I guess it's more than diamonds they're stealing now!  Anyway, I'm assuming the guy what got slapped was Lester Allen, who plays "Runty" here.  He's kinda short, you see.  Runty leaves the apartment in a huff, and the big lug Cy Schindell follows after him a minute and a huff later... HAH!  See how I did that?
Cut to: stock footage of newspapers being printed.  Ah, the old days.  The stock footage fades to a brief shot of an upscale newsroom, and then BAM!  Jarring transition to the Managing Editor's office door.  If I was better, I'd figure out what other Columbia film that footage was taken from.  Maybe Wikipedia knows!... nah.  Well, the Internet has solved all the riddles worth solving so far, anyway.
Time to introduce the Stooges.  I probably don't need to tell you the joke that's coming at this point... but I'll set it up anyway.  The big cheese there says "Well, men, this will be a tough assignment.  Do you think you can cover it?"  I don't need to say it, right?  And so, J.L. Cameron hands the Stooges a torn chair cushion.  A bit of the stuffing falls out, and Larry watches it fall, but to no avail.  J.L. Cameron is played by C. C. Wilson.  Great speaking voice.  Apparently, this was his last film as well, along with Cy Schindell!  Oh, how many more have to die, Stooges?  How many?
Cameron makes the mistake of drawing the Stooges into the larger plot.  A newspaper on Cameron's desk has the diamond theft story on the front page.  Larry tries reading it upside down, but mispronounces "museum."  What a maroon.  Larry mispronounces it so badly that Cameron is compelled to correct him, and sternly.  Cameron further makes the mistake of saying that he's got every available man covering the diamond story.  The Stooges see their chance: why, they're not really upholstery men!  That's just a day job from during the war because they were 4-F.  They, like Jeff Gannon after them, are reporters at heart.  Reportering is what they do, and they would like to reporter on this Punjab Diamond story.  Shemp does a little play-acting to show his reporter chops to Cameron, saying over and over "STOP THE PRESSES!  STOP THE PRESSES!"  Moe obliges, picking up two iron-shaped bookends from Cameron's desk and pressing them to Shemp's head.  I don't think I need to tell you what Shemp says about that.  Even Larry feels the hurt of that.  "Whaddaya say, will you give us a chance?" Moe asks Cameron.  Cameron does what he can to get the hell out of there, and promises the Stooges to seriously consider it... sheesh.
And so... Cameron leaves the office.  Now, like me, you may have thought that the Stooges were going to patch up a chair cushion for this guy, but as it turns out, his office floor looks a bit like the bottom of a mouse cage, so the Stooges are going to work on that instead.  As per their usual custom, Moe places himself in between Larry and Shemp so he can more easily get hit by both.  Unfortunately, no one's going to get stabbed in the butt with one of those pointy sticks that the Stooges often use to pick up garbage.  I guess they got too many cards and letters about that.  Instead, Shemp's reduced to throwing bits of paper behind himself... but strongly.  Moe gets the brunt of that right away.  Cut to a shot of Larry doing some fancy broom work... I'm LOLing already.  Gee, I wonder where the heck that broom's going to end up?... BINGO!  Soon after, Moe gets a second volley from Shemp.  And a third.  A second from Larry.  And a fourth from Shemp, but at least it was small!  For Shemp's Fifth, he may have crossed the line.  Shemp finds an empty jar... an empty glue jar?  It's got a glue lid, anyway.  And... CRACK!  Right over Moe's head.  "Oh, Moe!  I'm sorry!" says Shemp... but to be perfectly honest, he didn't sound too sorry.  The whole sibling rivalry thing, you know.  Moe puts a circular file over Shemp's head and retorts with "Now I'm sorrier!" then improvises a little bit just for good measure.
Just then... the phone rings.  And even though the boss is out of the office, Moe's the boss for now, so he answers the phone... eventually.  See, there's multiple phones on the desk.  Hoo boy, this is going to be a long 16 minute short.  Moe eventually gets the right phone, and it's the shrimpy guy from before!  He speaks in hushed tones, but says the word "Dapper" before getting shot.  As "mngentry" of YouTube fame rightly observes, I think this is the only time when someone dies in a Stooge short.  Well, there have been many times when the Stooges have fallen from great heights and landed, and they should have died, but there's not usually serious film noir-style gunplay in these things.  A jarring mix, to be sure, but all the greats change the game up at some point in their careers.  Moe hangs up the phone and writes a note for Cameron.  Oh, right... the guy gets shot twice, and Moe says "Hello?" three times.  Shemp comes up, sticks out his hand and says "Hello!"  Moe slaps Shemp, hangs up the phone and writes the note.  I just can't do these play-by-plays like I used to.  The ol' belly just ain't no account.  Larry puts two and two together, and points out excitedly to Moe that this is their big chance to break into the reportering game.  "You know, Porcupine, for a guy without brains you're a genius," Moe tells Larry, and doesn't slap him!  This is a Stooge film, right?  Shemp grabs the nearest hat he can find, and launches into his reporter shtick a second time.  And this time, both Moe and Larry reach for the bookends, but Shemp stops them before they smash his face a second time.  But Shemp's not done yet.  Moe tells Shemp "Okay, you're a reporter... but I'm the boss!"  Now it's time for Shemp to bend the fourth wall a bit, starting with "In the movies, the reporter always talks back to the boss!"  He loosens his already-very-loose tie, pushes his hat back, and launches into the shtick.  GENIUS!  Normally I'd say that this is the part where they're stretching time, and technically it is, but I cut slack when it's this good.  And unequivocally it is.  Moe hits Shemp with a clay replica of a phone, and asks Larry "Say, YOU didn't see that movie by any chance, didja?"  Larry kisses Moe's ass as hard as he can, but gets slapped anyway, and Moe says "That's for absolutely nothing!"  Phew.  This is a Stooge film after all.
Moe looks on Cameron's desk and finds two buttons that say "Press" on them.  "Press badges!" says Moe, taking the badges.  It was a simpler time, with a lot less paperwork.  Shemp managed to find himself a sink knob with the word "Press" stenciled on to it.  Out of respect and deference to Curly, they didn't use one that said "Pull."  And so, off they go out into the unsuspecting world... then the phone rings again.  Shemp's all over that.  It's too good to ruin.

ACT TWO

Setting: Squid McGuffey's CafĂ©.  Well, it's half of a comedy name, anyhow.  Way classier than Hootie McBoob, anyhow.  And needles to say, there's trouble a'brewing long before the Stooges get there.  One guy's a wandering booze zombie.  The proprietor of the joint's apparently holding court at the bar, and he gives this zombie a good shove after it runs into him.  Second challenge: a live-action J. Wellington Wimpy comes in, hiding a giant plate behind his back.  He sneaks quickly up to the bar, and starts loading up his plate with sandwiches.  Because his back's to the camera, they have to dub him in saying "What goes on?"... I'm sorry, here's the right linque.
The guy sneaks into an adjoining room with the sandwiches.  He removes a blanket that's covering up a big box and... it's a guy in a gorilla suit, er, I mean, a gorilla.  This is turning into a shaggy dog story!  The guy gives the sandwiches to the gorilla, but the gorilla rudely knocks the plate out of the guy's hands, breaking the plate and spilling all the sandwiches.  Mr. Squid follows the guy into this room and, as anyone would be, is shocked to find a room with a gorilla in a cage in it.  Just to rub more salt into this wound, the gorilla slaps Mr. Squid on the head, knocking him unconscious.  That's his name, I swear!  Mr. Squid McGuffey.  The other guy is Hawkins, but the IMDb doesn't have any credit for him.  A damn shame.  I'm positive he was a big so and so.
This "Stooge" film is turning into a bit of a Frankenstein monster: part Stooge, part Ealing.  Thank God the Stooges finally show up at McGuff's place, and dressed rather dapperly if I do say so myself.  They get the lay of the land, and Moe says "If anyone wants to turn back, now's the time."  He then rescinds the offer once Larry and Shemp try to take him up on it, like some sort of... non-ethnic Offer Rescinder.  Moe encourages the other two to act tough, so he bends the brim of his hat and starts flipping a coin.  Larry does the same.  Shemp can't find a coin, and the brim of his hat makes the sound of a hundred saltine crackers getting smashed when he bends it, but persevere he does ne'theless.
They take the brute force approach in questioning the bar patrons.  Moe asks two guys at a table if they're Dapper.  The Stooges get no verbal response, and get scared out of their wits.  Moe, rather unsubtlely, drops his coin under the table.  Shemp quickly dives for it, and Moe steps on his hand.  Shemp yells, tries to stand up, and hits the table.  Unfortunately, he doesn't upend the whole table, but he does cause the one guy to spill his beer.  So far, this is the highlight of the pic.  They patch things up with the two patrons, sort of, and quickly move on to the next victim.
The next victims are the bartender and Dapper.  I had to double-check; it's not Squid, but a different guy.  Squid's apparently still out cold in the gorilla room.  "We're looking for a guy named Dapper," Moe says to the bartender.  Dapper shakes his head at the bartender, and the bartender says "Never heard of him!"  The Stooges ask to look around, and the bartender says okay.  Once the Stooges leave, Dapper gets the bartender to send a signal to Christine McIntyre in the room with the diamond.  It's much like the silent alarm technology that banks and convenience stores have, except the bad guys have it as well.  McIntyre acts promptly, and quickly hides the diamond in a bowl of candy.  Back to the Stooges in the hallway that Sandwich Man was in earlier.  Moe's knocking on one door.  Shemp knocks on another, and then Moe knocks on his door again, then Shemp again.  Must be an old Vaudeville routine or something.  McIntyre opens the door and Shemp knocks on her forehead twice!  Oh, for shame.  He's no gentleman.  Sensing there's a beautiful dame in their midst, Moe and Larry quickly join Shemp, and they all slobber all over the hot and classy McIntyre.  She protests, but Moe quickly pacifies her by saying "We're looking for a guy named Dapper!"  She says, without pausing, "Dapper?  I've never heard of him.  I'm all alone."  She almost had me convinced!  Alas for her, the boys have to look around anyway.  "Look everywhere, men!" says Moe.  Shemp, however, can't stop staring at McIntyre, so Moe has to slap him on the back of the head.  "Keep your mind on your business!" says Moe, just to drive the point home.  Moe gives Larry an especially prolonged beating after that with the wire brush that Larry gave him.  Lol; Moe knocks Larry's hat off, but it makes no noise.  Seemed to hurt Larry, though!
The looking around eventually begins in proper.  Shemp grabs something and goes "Look!  Look!"  It's a monogrammed cigarette case with the letter "D" on it.  "D!  That stands for Dapper!" says Larry.  The jig is up.  But to kill some time, the Stooges decide to wait in the room for Dapper to return to it.  Shemp sits next to McIntyre, while Moe and Larry sit at the other end of the room.  There's a bowl with candy in it next to them, and they just help themselves like they own the place.  Monkey see, monkey do; Shemp doesn't want to feel left out, he being the only Stooge not eating candy, so he starts in on the bowl next to him.  McIntyre, meanwhile, turns on the waterworks and tries to smooth talk her way out of this mess.  Shemp says "With oranges, it's much harder."  What the hell does that mean?  And so, Shemp reaches for the diamond when going for his third candy.  McIntyre looks on in horror at what's about to happen.  Shemp catches the diamond in his mouth, and it makes a 'clink'ing sound.  You know, if that were me, and my teeth were as bad as his probably were, and a diamond hit my tooth, I'd probably scream in pain, much like he did in the prequel to Wham! Bam! Slam!  But there's no tooth pain, but a few seconds after catching the diamond, at 1:17 on the YouTube link, Shemp lets forth a mighty burp.  One of the mightiest of the Stooges' burps, in fact.  McIntyre screams and faints... and the picture quality gets a little crappy at this point.  Gee, I hate to think of Stooge films on nitrate film stock!  So disconcerting.  Moe and Larry join McIntyre by her side.  Shemp asks what happened.  Moe, of course, says "She must've got a good look at you!"  Larry brings over a glass of water, which Shemp quickly drinks.  Oh, right, he's supposed to be choking on the diamond.  McIntyre comes to and says "Oh, I'm fine.  It's just that you policemen frighten me so."  Policemen?  The Stooges quickly and helpfully say that they're reporters!  On their first assignment!  McIntyre's demeanor quickly changes.  She says "And your last!" and gives them the ol' three-way slap in the face.  Even she's been doing too many of these Stooge shorts.  "Muscles!  Dapper!" she screams.  Dayamn; she totally means business!  Muscles and Dapper are waiting outside with guns drawn, and they enter right away.  For once, someone other than Moe lays out the scenario.  And so begins the long drawn-out process of getting that diamond out of Shemp in a cinematically acceptable way.  Not like getting the compass out of Slim Pickens in 1941, mind you.  Shemp tries coughing it out, but his first attempts fail.  Meanwhile, Moe and Larry are sitting on the couch with McIntyre, and Moe does a massive double take when he sees how McIntyre's staring at him.  If looks could kill, indeed!
Muscles starts slapping Shemp on his dust-laden back, but Dapper stops him.  Dapper suggests that Moe and Larry try to get Shemp to make with the diamond.  The clock is set to five minutes... which is bad because they've got about eight until the flick's over.  This is no time to stand on principle: good guys v. bad kind of thing.  The Stooges are in full-on Wuss Mode, and are all too willing to give the diamond back to the bad guys who stole it.  If Shemp could just cough it up!  He tries again, coughing and making awful slurping noises and such.  No avail.  Moe and Larry have to take action, and they flip Shemp much like Milton Berle and Terry Thomas flipped Ethel Merman in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World when Ethel's bosom swallowed up some car keys.  They hold Shemp upside down and hit his head on the floor.  Damn!  I bet that drew some blood, or at least some spinal fluid.  Even the crooks are horrified!  Moe and Larry give up on this plan, and go to Plan B: ice tongs.  "Now you're getting smart!" says Dapper.  Oh, puh-leeze.  What does he know about smart.
Moe goes over to Shemp and says "Open your mouth."  Shemp obliges, but Moe sticks his hand in, and Shemp can't help but bite down.  Moe hits Shemp in the head with the tongs, then the stomach.  Shemp instinctively opens his mouth, and in go the tongs.  Muscles looks on in horror.  The tongs get a lot longer as they do the ol' sleight of tongs magic trick.  Oh, we're really killing some time now.  Moe starts hitting the tongs, and it makes a horn sound for some reason.  Usually we hear that noise when a nose is hit.  It's disconcerting!
And so, after what seems like five minutes, Moe pulls the tongs out... but they're not holding anything!  "Not even a tonsil," says Moe.  "And now, I'll try!" says Dapper, standing up.  They help Moe and Larry into the closet, while Cy Schindell gives Shemp a good shaking up.  Well, seeing as how it's his last Stooge film ever on Planet Earth, why not?  Go nuts.  Maybe it's me, but MacDonald seems to have his same doctor demeanor from Monkey Businessmen.  Great actor.  Dapper invites McIntyre to leave the room for the gruesome operation that's about to happen.

ACT THREE

They clear off the desk in the room, and move it towards the center.  "Cut it out!" says Shemp.  "That's just what we're gonna do!" says Dapper.  Muscles starts to tie Shemp's feet together with rope.  Cut to the inside of the closet.  Moe says "They're killin' him!  We gotta get out of here!"  That's his job, right?  It's no use.  The closet's locked up tighter than Fort Knox.  "We're trapped like rats!" says Larry.  Gee, I wonder what Moe will say in response?  Larry hits on the back wall of the closet, knocking loose a big bag of tools from the shelf on high.  I think there's a Biblical lesson there for all of us: pound on the Lord's wall long enough, and he will send help from above.  There's a nice shot of the tools scattered on the floor.  Moe says "Where'd you get the tools?"  "On the head," says Larry.  Good line.  Larry grabs a "turn-arounder" and starts boring a hole in the closet's back wall.
Back to Shemp who's now tied down on the desk pretty good, considering he's only got two thin ropes holding him down.  They might break once they start cutting him open and he starts thrashing around like a fish out of water.
Gee, I wonder whatever became of that gorilla from the Second Act... ah!  There he is!  As it turns out, Moe and Larry are going to saw their way into the gorilla cage.  They just don't know it yet.  Larry's gone about as far as he can with boring the hole, so Moe takes over on saw duty.  Moe pulls back and hits Larry in the chin.  Dayamn, that looked kinda genuine... okay, maybe not.  I just rewatched it a couple times.  And so, it came to pass that the gorilla got stabbed in the ass by Moe's saw.  And Lord, did it boing.  But this is no time for the old "What are you growling about?" bit.  The gorilla jumps around, then settles as far away from the wall as possible.  Back to Moe who says "We'll be safe in a minute."  Get it?  GET IT?!!
The gorilla tries to grab the saw blade with his fingers.  He successfully holds onto it eventually, prompting Moe to say "We've struck a snag!"  Cut back to Shemp, where Dapper's decided to not use the tools on the table to cut Shemp open, but rather his own switchblade.  Dapper knocks Shemp's head on the desk for good measure.
And now, some blatant time killing.  Larry asks Moe, "How is it?  Pretty tough?"  Get on with it, already!!  I know, I''m one to talk.  Back to the gorilla, then back to Larry, who's taken over the job of sawing through the cardboard wall.  They pry open a big hole in the wall, and Moe gives Larry the honor of stepping through first... where he promptly gets scared by the gorilla and leaps back inside, knocking Moe against the wall.  Rinse and repeat.  Moe decides to escort Larry out through the wall on the third iteration, and they both promptly get mashed down to the floor by the agitated guy in a gorilla suit.  The gorilla leaps through the hole in the wall to just slightly more freedom.  Meanwhile, Muscles is playing Shemp like a xylophone in the ad hoc operating room.  They find what sounds like the diamond on the third hit, and Dapper starts to begin work.  "Don't'cha think we ought to put him to sleep?" asks Muscles.  Dapper motions to the closet.  Apparently the anesthetic is in there with Moe and Larry.  It is, in a way, as the gorilla hits Muscles on the head, and hard.  Now, according to the IMDb, Schindell, who plays Muscles here, died of cancer, but somehow I can't help but think that that knock on the head sped up the process.
Back to MacDonald, who gives Shemp another tap to double check on the diamond's location.  Then, back to the gorilla, who's staring rather directly into the camera at this point.  That'll be my Christmas card next year, I think.  Dapper says "Gimme the whetstone" and the gorilla obliges.  Dapper hasn't turned and looked yet himself, you see.  So Shemp is in double freakout mode now, with the addition of the gorilla to the comedic stew pot.  Dapper sharpens his knife, saying "Now, now, relax!  This isn't going to hurt you at all!"  Well, they can't all be jokes.  If Shemp didn't have a gag over his mouth, he could ask "Is this going to hurt?" and the other guy could say "Oh, no!  I'll be fine." but this is hardly the time or the place.
Just to rub more salt into the wound, Dapper finishes sharpening his knife, and gives all of Shemp's coat buttons one fell swipe.  If only the rest of the surgery would go as smoothly.  "Anesthetic!" says Dapper, who's clearly seen too many of these Stooge films himself.  Still unable to turn away from Shemp, Dapper says "C'mon, c'mon!  Give it to me!"  The gorilla's seen too many of these Stooge films as well, and knows to take that as the cue to hit Dapper with a hammer that's sort of suitable for hitting a rock with a chisel.  And so, finally we have the catalyst to set Dapper in motion away from the gorilla.  Dapper finally sees the gorilla, but unlike Curly or Shemp in that one rags-to-riches tale, Dapper's all too sober and he's not seeing a tiny monkey from the next room.  This is the real deal, one of the two or three gorilla costumes used by the Stooges.  Dapper lets out a mighty scream and throws his knife into the air, which lands next to Shemp's face.  Oh, Dude!  Dapper still gets the worst of it.  In one mighty take, the gorilla chases him all the way around the desk and smashes him into unconsciousness in a chair next to the desk.  Final length of scene: about 19 seconds!  I feel compelled to point out that Dapper starts whining like a little baby, but that's how it tends to go in these things.  The bad guys dole out their suffering more slowly over longer periods of time, while the revenge against them is swift, tending not to last as long.
Having vanquished Dapper, it's time for the gorilla to move on to this strange being sitting on the desk.  Shemp's still wetting his pants in fear.  This scene's too good to spoil.  To call it a time killer would miss the point, even though it does do that as well.  I think Kubrick must've seen this part before making 2001!
Back to Moe and Larry who have come to, and are trying to cut through the lock on the cage.  What maroons.  And, back to the gorilla in the Christmas card pose.  In an early bid for 3-D, the gorilla leaps right into the camera's face.  After that, we get a medium shot of the gorilla.  There's no doubt anymore: the gorilla's the star of this picture.  The gorilla hits Shemp on the belly and POP goes the diamond!  The gorilla studies it closely.  Meanwhile, Dapper and Muscles have regained consciousness, have their guns drawn and are waiting for their chance to grab the diamond back.  They spring into action, but the gorilla makes them its bitch anew once again.  Dummies start flying at this point.  Shemp's still tied to the desk and trying to just get the hell out of there.  Back to Moe and Larry who manage to cut through the iron bars.  Why don't they just go through the closet?  Oh, right, I'm missing the point.  Larry gets hit by the iron door on the way out.

EPILOGUE

This is almost over.  There's 40 seconds left!  They have to wrap this up!  Next scene: the ill-fated hallway, where J.L. Cameron shows up with a buncha cops.  They have McIntyre in makeshift custody, as in a guy's holding on to her wrist and dragging her along.  Moe and Larry emerge from the first room, and they all go into the second room.  "They're murdering my pal!" says Larry... I think.  It was a little garbled.
Next scene: the room is in shambles.  Muscles and Dapper are out cold, and they're arranged so it looks like the room's even more in shambles than it actually is.  Meanwhile, Shemp's looking at the diamond with one of those fancy lenses that people in the diamond trade use.  "Fifty carats!" says Shemp.  Shyeah, right, like he'd know.  Shemp tosses the diamond to Cameron.  Cameron congratulates Shemp, then goes right into reporter mode, asking "Did you knock out these crooks all by yourself?"  Shemp takes full credit for it, at which point the gorilla stands up and says "I helped!", thereby becoming in an instant the British best friend, and adding class to this otherwise nondescript Stooge flick.  I think I saw the remake of this, in which the gorilla subplot was heavily relied on, but never the original.  I'll give it four stars for effort.  It should be one of the greats.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

RIP Cy Schindell, who turns and looks for the last time with the Stooges.  We'll miss you, buddy!

Strong to the Finich, like Dennis Kucinich

ACT ONE

The opening theme music's a little different!  I guess they'd have to rearrange it each time.  Lotta work!
Scene: Olive Oyl's Health Farm for Children.  Of course, one of them looks like Bimbo or Bosko as a child, but we'll leave that aside for now.  The kids seem to be pounding out the "Cha Cha Cha" rhythm on the table, but that'll stop once they see the main course: Olive brings out a big steaming bowl of spinach.  I'm thinking they're going to want candy and ice cream instead.  Ain't that always the way?  To kill some time... I know, but they do that in these things sometimes.  Not just Stooge films.  To kill some screen time, Olive lets the door hit her where the Good Lord split her, that old omniscient pervert!  The bowl of spinach flies into the air.  She catches the bowl, but it's empty.  A few seconds later, the spinach comes down piecemeal, but she catches all the pieces.  A temporary good omen, but it's probably a sign of hard times ahead.  She places the bowl on the table.  I guess the kids have to split it six ways, as they have no plates of their own.
Close-up of a kid who looks like a young Jackie Cooper.  The kid says "What?  Spinach again?"  And so, the crying begins.  Alas, they didn't know how good they had it back then!  No e.coli outbreaks, anyway.  But the kid does have a good point: it helps to alternate spinach with candy and ice cream.  So not only are all six of the kids crying, two of them start an outright revolt, attempting to shove the bowl off the table.
After wiping the dizzy look off her face, Olive tries sternly to get the children to behave.  She seems awfully new at this.  She should take a page or two from the book of the Old Lady who lives in the Shoe.  Olive gets hit in the face with a handful of spinach... twice!  Olive starts crying, too.  I don't know if this is the kind of thing Popeye can fix... but she's happy to see him, nevertheless.

ACT TWO

Again, it's always good to change the structure of things a little bit.  We begin the second act with Popeye's theme song rather than the first.  If Soderbergh were making this, Popeye would show up in the Third Act singing the song.  Popeye's carrying a big box this time.  It's a present for the kids.  The little brats probably don't deserve it, but it'll take their mind off the spinach for a while...
...could it be?  Now that he's got the kids' attention, he unwraps the present to reveal... YES!  A FRESH CRATE OF SPINACH!  The crying starts anew.  Popeye tries to make his case for good nutrition, but it's too late.  The crying continues anew.  Oh, kids and their lack of logic.  They were happy to see Popeye at first, but spinach trumps Popeye, apparently.  What did they expect?  Do they understand the strong correlation between Popeye and spinach?
Well, to be fair, these kids aren't half as annoying as Popeye's four nephews.  God, I hate those four brats for some reason.  I'm glad they're usually seen in the non-Fleischer cartoons.
Popeye tries to make the case for spinach.  His muscles coil around each other like snakes, but to no avail.  It's time for a game-changing demonstration of spinach's awesome power.
Popeye dips into the crate for a fresh can of spinach, and he opens it!  I'm so used to this happening when Bluto's beating the s... beating up on Popeye.  Popeye gives a handful of spinach not to himself, but to a tree.  We see the tree chewing up the spinach... only in a Fleischer cartoon.  The tree begins exponential growth on steroids.  It's going to be huge because the pavement's not part of the painted background and.. sure enough, the tree roots start rending the very pavement.  The tree grows very tall and starts producing fruit: first pears, then pineapples and bananas!  So not only does spinach make any environment seem tropical, it turns trees into genetic freaks.
For some reason, the kids are unimpressed.  Not big fans of tree fruit either, I guess.  Time for demonstration #2.  There's a lone chicken in the road.  It's about to get crossed by some spinach.  Popeye scatters some spinach on the ground.  The chicken starts to eat some of it, and finally gets it.  The chicken's got these demonic, Will Vinton-type Claymation eyes, but never mind.  The chicken gobbles down the rest of the spinach as if it were earwigs, then promptly lays a dozen eggs in a carton, which it picks up and walks away with!  Not as impressive as the egg-laying feats of WB's Swooner Crooner, arguably, but still.
Kids?  Well, they've stopped crying, anyway, but they've been spending too much time at the theatre, filling their heads with nonsense and dreams of ... ice cream and candy, I guess.  "Well, blow me down!" says Popeye.  Fortunately, demonstration #3 is on its way: a fanged fighter with boxing gloves.  Must be one of those human-bulldog hybrids that Dubya tried to warn us about.  We see the dude walking down a street where all the houses on the left side are the same, as are all the trees on the right.  Yup, phony 3-D.  Is there any greater bane to an animator's existence?  "GET OUTTA ME WAY, YA GREAT BIG PALOOKA!  I'LL MOW YA DOWN, STEP ASIDE!" says the guy... I think.  I can't tell if he's affecting a Scottish or Irish accent.  It's slight, anyway.  Whoever performed that line was definitely not meant to do this for a living; I think the guy thought he could coast forever on that one performance, but man.  What a performance.
Popeye stops the guy on his manliness rampage, and points to his chin.  The be-boxing gloved fighter obliges Popeye, and pop!  He hits Popeye right on his giant butt-shaped chin.  Popeye gently falls down, and noisily slurps up a bit of spinach.  Popeye points to his chin again.  The nondescript guy with boxing gloves hits Popeye on the chin again, but Popeye doesn't fall this time.  Popeye gets hit again and again, thereby proving the supremacy of spinach, and introduces the concept of "Rope a Dope."  But where's his parade?  Oh, right... (note to self: find YouTube video of Popeye in the Macy's Day Parade.)

ACT THREE

Now, here's a plot development that even Seymour Papert would like!  One of the kids spots two emaciated cows (that sound like sheep.)  Their mouths hover over the ground like a vacuum cleaner on a rug.  The kid whistles to the other kids, he picks up a can of spinach, and off they go.  The kid breaks the spinach can over a rock, and splits it into two equal halves.  He feeds the spinach to the cows.  The kid says "Hey!  You want this spinach?  We don't want it!"  None of that gets animated, of course.  Boy, those Fleischers were kinda lazy about that!  The cows start growing big.  But then... they sprout horns and become angry bulls!  Seymour Papert would probably like that, too.  Beware the hand of spinach, with great power comes great responsibility, all that jazz... oh, right!  I should probably get to class.
Back!  The sextet of children heads for the nearest tree.  Meanwhile, Popeye's still messing around with the palooka, the big palooka.  Popeye looks over and sees that he's needed elsewhere.  He picks up that flower in the lower right hand corner of the screen, sticks it on the bad guy's chest and knocks him out in one punch.  Well, he was a bit worn out from punching Popeye in the chin.  Rope-a-dope, I'm telling you!  In a rare bit of polikeness, Popeye places a pillow on the ground for the palooka's head to land on... which it does.
Back to the kids, who are still trying to climb the tree, but they're still in the grip of fear and have more trouble climbing that tree than the Stooges have getting through a door.  Fortunately, the tree scoops up all the kids and lifts them on high.  Trees, animated or real, don't do that nearly often enough.  It would certainly change our relationship with lumber if it started happening for real... maybe.  The bulls hit the tree at the last second and are down.  Popeye comes a'running up, and the bulls hit him, sending him flying high up into the air.  The two newly invigorated bulls put their horns together, using it as a trampoline to catch Popeye and throw him back up into the air.  Judging from the expressions on their faces, the bulls don't seem to be having much fun.  But continue they do.
Eventually, Popeye's had enough of this indignity to his character.  Time for that can of spinach he always keeps close to his chest.  The kids cheer when they see that!  It couldn't have come at a better time, because no sooner does Popeye ingest this latest dose of spinach than the bulls unlock horns and start laughing.  There you go!  They were having a good time after all, the bastids.  Time for Popeye to punch some bulls.  One punch apiece seems to do the trick, but Popeye doesn't stop there.  Each punch Popeye delivers spins the bull dizzy anew.  The kids cheer from high up in the tree.  Popeye spins the bulls until he's satisfied, then sends them flying into a nearby house, wrecking one of its sides.  Their horns turn to trumpets and play part of "Taps."  Only in a Fleischer flick... wait a tic.  Did he just slightly demolish Olive's health farm main office? No finesse.  It wouldn't surprise me, anyway.
And so, a lesson for Og Mandingo.  The kids knock down Popeye on their way down from the tree, and head for the bowl of spinach.  Maybe spinach's the greatest salesman in the world!  Olive slowly comes out of her funk.  Didn't she see Popeye in trouble?  Figures.  And so, the kids empty the spinach bowl.  They're apparently eating it the wrong way at first.  But just before the bowl's empty, they hold their last clumps aloft before gobbling them up.  At this point, they sprout Popeye-like arms... avec tattoo, no less!  I'm surprised that got past the Hays Code.  They play the Popeye spinach theme for the kids, and off they go to perform their own feats of spinached-up greatness.  The first is my favorite, where the fat German kid runs over to a very very long fence.  Ăśter gives it a mighty punch, and it starts breaking down like dominoes on the right.  The kid stands on the part of the fence next to him that's still standing and laughs as it breaks... at least, until the part he's standing on falls down.  Olive and Popeye get a kick out of that one.  Next: Jackie Cooper punches an apple tree.  The tree flies into the air and turns into a rain of fruit crates by the time it hits the ground.  See?  Spinach is good for industrialization!
Third feat: the tall skinny kid that looks like Alfalfa goes over to a windmill.  Using his new found spinach power, he draws in a mighty breath and blows on the windmill.  The building that holds the windmill breaks from its foundation and flies away.  Take that, Big Bad Wolf!
Any more than three feats would just be gratuitous at this point, apparently.  Plus, there's about 25 seconds left.  Reminds me of how Dan Aykroyd wanted to have fifty giant monsters in Ghost Busters.  He thought it was a video game, see.  Now, Nothing but Trouble, on the other hand... he apparently had all the artistic license he could think of!  Anyway, the ending is something that even the South Park boys would like: all the kids, lost in their fog of spinached-up gratitude, all jump on the bench that Olive's sitting on, sending her flying into the air.  This time, however, Olive gets caught.  Usually she hits the ground but gets caught on the first bounce, if memory serves.  But this time, Olive lands on top of a spinach-induced human pyramid... or, I guess it's more of a rhombus, rather.  The point is, she's fine.  As for me, well... this one's just okay.  I did like the introduction of the shirtless boxer guy.  Worth it if only for that.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Newton I. Aduaka

Born in Eastern Nigeria in 1966, Newton's family relocated to Lagos in 1970 at the end of the Biafran War. In 1985 he left for England to study Engineering but discovered Cinema and attended the London International Film School, graduating in 1990... boy, now I've done it.  Now I'm just cutting and pasting from IMDb!  I gotta go...

Box office 2-24-13... oh, right! The Oscars

For some reason, the usual muses didn't move me to do the whole Oscar pick rigamarole.  But I can do a little Monday night quarterbacking, for what it's worth!  That's a shout out to Silver Linings Playbook, by the way.  Speaking of which, there was something about the Supporting Actor category that left me a little wanting.  Don't get me wrong, I love De Niro as much as the next film buff, but it's the Oscar he should've gotten for The King of Comedy... something like that.  I guess Waltz was the best way out for the voting bloc.  But how will Tarantino complete the trilogy?  What genre or age of mankind can he pervert next?  Cavemen?  Sci-fi?... that's it!  A caveman sci-fi pic!  Wouldn't you like to see a caveman stick his hand on a primitive fingerprint ID scanner to enter a secret cave?  Just me?  Okay, skip it.
What else?  Oh yeah.  Well, Sean Penn proved that an actor can win another Oscar after 5 years... no, wait, Hilary Swank did that a bit earlier.  And so it was for Daniel Day-Lewis.  And FINALLY!  Spielberg is now an actor's director.  Took him long enough!  And even though Robert Richardson didn't win this year, his influence is felt nevertheless.  Take Claudio Miranda's hair, for example... actually, it's the only example.
And, of course, everyone was supposed to be talking about how rude and crass Seth McFarlane, the Oscar host, was, but he was clearly outdone by The Onion with their comical tweet via the Twitter.  Have we learned nothing from Don Imus-gate?  Apparently not.

Friday, February 15, 2013

N'yuk Like an Egyptian

Time to move ahead slightly in history with the next Stooge flick called Mummy's Dummies.

ACT ONE

How come they never get to play three pharaohs?  No, it's three used chariot salesmen for them, but they seem to be spending most of their time fixing the chariots up.  We jump right into the thick of it with Moe under one of the chariots, barking orders as usual.  And then... a quiet indignity.  Moe quietly gets a face full of soot.  Well, it's not like a pie, I suppose.  Moe stands up.  A few seconds later, Shemp notices the dirty-faced Moe and he knows something ain't right.  When Shemp does his double take, he's holding a feather duster, and the feather duster loses about five pounds of dust.  Moe grabs the feather duster from Shemp and lets loose the other five pounds of dust on Shemp's face.  Spreading the joy.  Again, no sound effect.  So disorientating for me!  Thank goodness for Larry whose episode's a little more normal.  He's painting the chariot, moves his hand, and notices that there's a hand-shaped spot with no paint on it.  He does a massive double take... or is it a single take?  I'll leave that for future generations to decide.  He looks at his paint-coated hand and reacts a second time.  Fortunately for him, no one saw this, but he looks around anyway.  He opts to take care of his hand later and quickly paints over the hand-shaped spot in the paint job.
Back to Moe and Shemp.  Shemp says "Say Moe, I think this tire needs a recap!"  Moe says "So does your head" and hits Shemp in the forehead.  Not terribly clever at all, but at least we get the usual bonk sound that I, the Pavlovian Stooge film watcher, have so come to depend on lo these many years now.  As for Larry, he's returned to his lackadaisical painting ways, and briefly confuses Moe's ass with part of the chariot that needs painting.  Let me tell you something: if there's one thing Moe hates more than anything in this world, it's getting his ass painted.  He looks behind himself in horror.  It happens an unprecedented second time.  Time to put a stop to this nonsense right now.  He regrets that it has come down to this, and he's trying like hell to take the high road here... then his face gets painted by Larry.  I guess we're just lucky that Larry's also got a chariot in front of him!  Maybe that will get some of the paint.  Larry dips his brush in the bucket... they had paint buckets in ancient Egypt?  Anyway, he quickly notices that some of the paint... quite a bit of it, actually... ended up on Moe's face.  Moe takes the brush and laughs to try and relax Larry.  Larry laughs, but he's still got reflexes like a cat, and he dodges Moe's attempt to smite him with the paint brush.  Then, swollen with pride, Larry says "You missed me!  Nyaaaah...." and sticks his tongue out so it can get painted. So like Cy Schindell in the previous flick, I'm a Monkey's Uncle.  Moe smites Larry's face four times with the brush, then angrily puts the brush into the bucket... but who makes that grunting sound?  It doesn't sound like Moe!
And then... a customer arrives.  They stop cleaning themselves off, put the paint away someplace, and Shemp is dispatched by Moe to the customer's side.  Shemp says to the guy "Something in a nice clean used chariot?"  The customer is about to explain that he's the Pharaoh's assistant in need of three fortune tellers, or that he's the tax collector come to give them their final warning, or... you get the idea.  No time for that plot development yet.  Time to sell this bird a chariot.  Moe says to the guy "I'm Honest Moe, he's Honest Shemp and that's... that's Larry."  Larry winces, but a good joke's a good joke.  Can't fight it.  Can't fight the gravity of a good joke.  They pause for the laugh, and Moe gives Shemp the secret signal to run off... for some reason.
Moe then launches into his sales pitch... dayamn.  He's done his research!  Or maybe he's run afoul of his share of used car salesmen in his lifetime.  Time for a little payback!  Moe says "This buggy was owned by an old couple in Babylon.  All they did was drive it up to the Temple once a week!"  Some things never change.  Personally, I want a vehicle that can handle more than just a routine, but that's just me.  Meanwhile, back to Shemp, who's putting on a fake beard... fake beard?  Larry makes the mistake of pointing out the paint job, saying it's the original paint.  Moe quickly diverts the customer's hand from the paint to the tire, where the customer notices how, uh... loose the wheels are.  Moe explains that away, though, better than he thinks.  Or maybe worse.  The final offer for the chariot is 400 shekels, and... old man Shemp suddenly arrives to start a bidding war.  He gets a little too eager, and after bidding 700 shekels, the customer says "You can have it" and starts to walk away.  For some reason, the rival customer sticks around and doesn't pay for the chariot!  Makes me want to put my hand to my chin.  Shemp gets in a mumbled ad-lib before the deal rewinds and starts over.  Back to the original 400 shekels.  The customer reaches for a bag of money, which Moe aggressively takes.  Larry aggressively hands the guy a receipt, and they all aggressively get the chariot off the lot, where it promptly breaks down.  For a used chariot lot, they sure have a lot of privacy.  In our modern times, car lots, used or new, and their inventory, can usually be seen!  But there's still the offices where the paperwork gets filed and the seized loot gets divvied up somehow.
The customer notices the freshness of the paint, and a few seconds later the whole chariot has officially broken down.  That's what he gets for being a young man... middle-aged anyway.  If it belonged to an old couple, they probably didn't weigh as much.
Now, I should probably do a short Screenwriting 101 lesson here so I feel I haven't lost much credibility.  So far, we've seen the opening routine, and we're about to head into the routine changing irrevocably.  Men in Black... the 1997 sci-fi comedy, not the Stooges' 1934 short... is my favorite example of this, as that starts with a routine blowing-up of a rogue alien, but the routine is altered when one of the agents finds he's getting too old for this s... for the job.  Time for Tommy Lee Jones to recruit a new agent.  In the case of Mummy's Dummies, it's time for the Stooges to find a new line of work, as their customer was the Chief of the Palace Guards, and he's not happy about his chariot breaking down in such spectacular fashion.
I should mention the awesome camera work at one point here.  Larry's hand gets stepped on and the camera dollies back.  Sure, it seems like nothing today, but that was the whole budget right there on this film!  Moe says "I'm gonna get myself a cheap lawyer!"  More timely than ever.

ACT TWO

Scene: the Palace proper, where King Vernon Dent... I mean, Rooten-tooten, is getting fanned by lovely damsels.  And yet... all is not well!  Mo kingdom, mo problems, as The Daily Show might say.  Despite his sporting chin-do, the financial reports are grim and, more urgently, the dude's got a bad toothache.  Philip van Zandt's bringing the bad financial news, so he must also be a usurper to the throne somehow.  Sorry... spoiler alert.  But the King in all humility keeps things in perspective, and tells Van Zandt "How DARE you bring me this MISERABLE report, when I suffer like a dog with a toothache... SILENCE!!!!!"  Even the report itself is against the King!  Such insolence.
Meanwhile, the Stooges are brought into the King's midst.  Van Zandt tried to explain about a crop failure and a flood on the Nile.  He's good!  He's been reading his Bible, but to no avail.  It's the Stooges' turn at bat now.  After the usual Royal preliminaries, it's down to business.  Rhadames, the Chief of the Palace Guards, wants the Stooges dead for the 400 shekel deal gone sour.  Ever the loyal Stooge, Shemp tries to make a getaway, but even the plants are against him. King Rootentooten gives this matter the attention it deserves, saying "I have no time for such trifles.  Throw them to the crocodiles!"  Then, he makes the mistake of adding on a bit about his toothache.  The Egyptians gave us hieroglyphics, beer and the pyramids... You'd think they would've given some thought to dentistry.
Anyway, the Stooges, their olfactory senses working a little too well, devise a quick plan.  If they cure Vernon Dent's... Rootentooten's toothache, they might at least get a reprieve before being thrown to the crocodiles!  Shemp's got a wrench on his tool belt, so that ought to be enough.  Rhadames protests, but the King is desperate.  "Come forward, knaves!" says Rootentooten to the Stooges.  Time to kill some time.
The time killing begins when Shemp puts on his trademark Coke bottle glasses.  "Where'd everybody go?" he asks.  Moe grabs Shemp by the hair and guides him over to the victim... I mean, the patient.  The King sees the wrench up close, and closes his mouth tight in protest.  As with Dr. Sheldon Kornpett with his patient at the beginning of The In-Laws, Moe has to explain to the King that his mouth has to be open... like this!  At that moment, Shemp goes under Larry's arm and gets the wrench into Moe's mouth.  I don't know if it's the highlight of the film, but it's a sight to behold.  The choreography!  Fosse couldn't have done it better.  Shemp pulls Moe's tooth, making a champagne cork popping sound that will be overused in Pink Panther cartoons later on.  Shemp celebrates prematurely, and Moe has to go over and point to the fresh black black gap in his teeth.  This eats up some time.  Well, they had to do that back then to wait for the audience's reaction to die down.  Shemp may not be able to see with his glasses, but even he's able to see that... after removing his glasses, that is.  Shemp tries to apologize, but for some reason it's not good enough.  Some people's standards are far too high.  But Moe tries to be polite about it.  He puts Shemp's glasses back on for him, THEN slaps him in the face!
Attempt #2.  Shemp uses his wrench again, but this time on the King's nose.  He really needs a better pair of glasses.  The Stooges manage to extract the King from his throne, and down on the floor they all go.  The guards rush over.  "Your highness!" says one of them.  Oh, this is probably not going to end well........
Next scene: It ends well!  The King finds his tooth on the floor, and more importantly, the pain's gone.  The Stooges then rise quickly to the top of Egyptian society, becoming Royal Chamberlains by royal decree.  Rhadames protests, but the fight's been pretty much beaten out of him.  Everyone exits Stage Right, but the Stooges stick to their proletarian roots and hang close by the camera.  Shemp confuses the word "chamberlain" with "chamber maid."  Professor Moe corrects Shemp, explaining that the King wants them to "look after things."  Ever the pessimist, Larry says "Yeah, we might have to pull another tooth!"  Shemp says "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.... Not bad!"  Moe, ever the joke killer, says "Not good" and hits Shemp with his own wrench.  Shemp gets in an ad-lib, I assume, before fading to black.
Fade-in, where the Stooges are busy getting accustomed to the good life, Egyptian style.  There is a period of adjustment with these things, as you'd imagine.  But soon enough they'll have to be protecting their Status Quo from usurpers and the like.  Besides, it's not all fun; Shemp has to serve himself grapes!  Larry gets them fed to him by a pretty babe.  Must be a seniority thing.  A little later, Shemp suffers a shock to the cuticle during his manicure.  He says to the pretty manicurist, "Careful!  That's me under that nail!"  We'll leave that aside aside for now.  Moe sets the boys into action, as it's time for the King's "afternoon nip."  Off to the wine cellar they go!  Shemp gets his flirting rudely interrupted by Moe.
Next scene: the tomb of another King.  Oh, those Egyptians and their tombs!  I could've sworn the tombs were off limits once they were filled, but what do I know?  This is the Stooges we're talking about here!  Philip van Zandt and the Chief of the Palace Guards enter this tomb.  Now, according to its official IMDb page, van Zandt's character's named Futamon, and the Chief of the Palace Guards is named Rhadames, so I'll try to stick with those from now on.  And so, van Zandt lays out the scene for the Chief of the Palace Guards: the tax money was all collected, but Futamon just didn't declare all of it.  Frankly, this is much worse than just wanting the throne to himself!  Futamon redistributed the wealth to two different spots: a casket, and a basket... sheesh, that rhymes.  I'm just so disgusted with myself.
Next scene: the Stooges are having a little trouble finding the wine cellar.  What else is new?  Rather, what else is old?  They do the old "door is on the right" routine... I'm sorry, here's the right... er, correct link.  This ought to kill some time before they stumble onto Futamon's evil scheme!  Sorry... spoiler alert.  Moe draws Shemp into the mix, but Shemp ends up pointing to his left!!!!!  They end up picking the door on the right, and they leave the scene Stage Left.
Next scene: the Stooges stumble upon Futamon's financial double-dealings.  They don't hear the Stooges come in, and they make sure to spell it out as plainly as possible: Futamon will give Rhadames a share of the loot for keeping quiet... the Egyptian version of "hush money," as it turns out.  The Stooges run away, but to keep things interesting, Shemp runs through the wrong side of the door.  A mighty chase ensues, which quickly turns into a battle over the door: the Stooges try to keep the bad guys in, and the bad guys try to get out.  The Stooges, forgetting their lofty position, see some guards coming and instinctively run away.   Again, to stretch this bitch out to 16 minutes.  The guards apparently only answer to Rhadames, who orders the Stooges gotten "dead or alive."  "Search every room in the palace!" says one of them.  Seeing as how they're only about 15 seconds behind the Stooges, it shouldn't be that hard.  But the bad guys need all the help they can get, apparently, and they ask an oxen-headed Oracle where the Stooges went.  The Oracle tells them, and off they go.
When the coast is clear, the Stooges run back into the tomb with the hidden goodies in it.  Moe's reasoning: "They won't look in there again!"  And off they go.  Two guards are in the adjacent hallway and hear the Stooges close the door behind them.

ACT THREE

Back in the musty old tomb that's been seeing a lot of action lately.  Moe and Larry are hiding in the basket, which seems to be empty of goodies now.  Remember, there are two guards hot on their trail.  Now, there's a crucial split second here that you might have a problem with, as do I.  Moe and Larry duck their heads down, and the lid of the basket goes down.  The one guard turns his head and can see for that split second that those two idiots ducked their heads down into the basket, but the guards proceed about their business as if nothing happened.  Not to mention that all they have to do is LIFT THE LID OF THE BASKET TO LOOK INSIDE!  But we'll leave all that aside for now and proceed as if none of that happened.....
So, the guards approach the basket, suspicious of something.  The guard pushes on the lid of the basket and says "Hmm!  That's funny."  And so, rather than lifting the lid of the basket and looking inside, they decide to give it the ol' stab test.  It's more fun that way, and will kill some more time.  Stab #1: Larry gets it in the... I'm sorry.  For some reason, I must not be in the mood for this right now.  The basket gets stabbed five times, and one Stooge has to cover the other Stooge's mouth when the one gets stabbed.  "Nothing in there," concludes the one guard.  And frankly, who could blame him for reaching any other conclusion?
On to the rest of the room.  The mere peasant of a guard opens the King's coffin.  The King, mind you.  Boy, those Egyptians must be rolling in their graves!  Anyway, spoiler alert... we get a glimpse of Shemp in disguise.  He was able to quickly wrap himself in a bunch of gauze, move all the swag that was in the coffin, and hide in there.  Lol.  "Good ol' Puddin-takeit!  He sure was an ugly old cuss!" says the guard.  What a dolt.  I'm assuming that that's the correct grammatical spelling of that strange comedy name: Puddentakitt.  Alas, Wikipedia and the IMDb don't have everything.
And now, a shot for film students to take note of.  After the guard closes the coffin back up, we get a shot of the inside of the coffin, and... wow!  Look at how that's lit!  Worthy of James Wong Howe or whoever worked for Michael Curtiz.  Of course, Lucien Ballard moved on to working for Kubrick; he cut his teeth on a few Stooge shorts!  Anyway, Shemp starts to get a noseful of dust.  If he sneezes, the guards might notice that, who knows.  And indeed, the guard notices.  But Shemp's ready to bonk him on the head with a hammer that looks like the kind that geologists use to tap on a chisel to split open rocks.  Alas, not as noble a cause here.  The other guard draws his sword and prepares for battle, but Moe emerges from the basket and bonks that guy on the head with ... a bottle, apparently, or a very brittle brick.  DAMN YOU, YOUTUBE AND YOUR TINY PICTURES!!!!  Moe goes to open up the coffin and... yup, you guessed it, Shemp hits Moe with the specialized hammer.  Time to kill some more time.  A shame, too, because Shemp uses that hammer with such authority and quiet dignity.  They all start to leave the tomb, when three more guards show up.  Shemp takes off.  Meanwhile, the guard that got hit with the bottle comes to, so Moe has to hit him anew.  And just when you think they're going to start the old "Let me in!" routine again with Mummy Shemp... it doesn't happen!  Nice pass fake. Here's what does happen... the doors of the tomb open, as if being opened by two or more production assistants and... the basket slowly emerges from the tomb and stops.  I haven't seen anything like it since the "Eat me" cake from Animal House.  And here's the capper: a periscope emerges from the roof of the basket.  Comedy, thy name is The Three Stooges.
A shot from inside the basket ruins the illusion.  Moe tries to work the periscope with little success.  Back to a shot of the basket (exterior), which now sprouts two pairs of legs and moves considerably faster.  They better get their ass wallside if they hope to maintain an illusion!  If you look quickly enough, you'll see that one pair of legs is pointed one way, and the other pair the other way.  Lol.
Back to Shemp who's running as fast as he can at his age, and in a mummy outfit, no less!  Surely he must be guilty of a crime most heinous, even for a newly appointed Chamberlain.  Shemp's got a bit of mummy wrapping dangling behind him, and a guard standing at attention does the smart move: he dives for this bit of dangling wrapping.  I mean, anybody could just tackle Shemp as though it were a game of football.  Shemp runs the other way when he sees another guard.
Back to the basket, still walking happily along, periscope sticking out for the whole world to see.  But as with all baskets, this one eventually finds a place to settle down, so Moe and Larry find a nice place next to the wall to stop and sit.  Just before that happens, however, Rhadames and Tutamon (according to Wikipedia) appear in the same hallway, and have ample opportunity to see the incendiary basket with all the illegally hidden goodies that were once in it sitting itself down in the hallway.  I mean, you know how the human brain works!  How much visual stimulation do you need?  I get one glimpse of a basket sitting itself down, a half-second at most, and that's it for me.  I'm changing my paradigm right then and there.  Alas, Rhadames and Tutamon are too busy fretting over their ill-gotten gains to notice the big anthropomorphic basket sitting itself down, literally right in front of them.  Perhaps it's for the best.  Thank goodness they're not sweating the small stuff right now.  "We cannot allow those rascals to get to the King," says Tutamon.  Oh, they won't, but why don't they go into the next room and look for them there?  Tutamon leaves, and Rhadames finds something nice to lean against.  For the Chief of the Palace Guards, he's old and tired, and his current retirement plan doesn't provide enough excitement apparently; hence, this ad hoc deal with Tutamon for hush doubloons.  And so, Rhadames leans against the very thing that could alter his fortunes considerably, were he curious enough to lift the f... the darn ol' basket lid.  Rhadames doesn't even notice the periscope that sticks up out of the lid; he might have heard it, but isn't interested enough to turn around.  Well, he eventually turns around, but the periscope has already vanished, just like his lust for life.  But Rhadames does get suspicious of this giant vase next to him, so he gets up and looks at it.  A perfect opportunity for Moe and Larry to move the basket a little farther away.  Rhadames goes back to his leaning position and... DOWN GOES RHADAMES!!!!!  That does it.  FINALLY it's time to open that basket lid.  Moe quickly punches Rhadames in the forehead.  Rhadames grabs his face in pain.  Larry makes with the rock hammer and... DOWN GOES RHADAMES AGAIN!!!  And this time... he's out cold.
Back to King Vernon Dent, who's getting served a beverage by a "pretty girl."  I think it's Suzanne Ridgeway, as I recognize her from Loose Loot.  Alas, the scene ends far too quickly.  Back to the hallway, as Tutamon has returned.  "RHADAMES!" he exclaims.  Just then, in an inexplicable bout of insanity, Larry leaps from the basket and makes a distracting noise to distract Tutamon.  At least he's not in his underwear making chicken noises and flapping his arms like a bird.  But, can't argue with results!  Moe smites Tutamon upon his head with that same hammer!  They may not have been using this tool for the last ten years, but it's sure come in handy.  Now, normally a guy that gets hit on the head with Moe Howard's Silver Hammer will be out cold... but as we're learning about the Stooge-iverse, ass burn trumps head injury.  Tutamon steps backward and sits on a vase with a fire burning in it.  Tutamon lets out a mighty yell and stands up, away from the fire.  (I'm telling you!  Jerry Stiller!)  But Larry and Moe are too busy congratulating each other to notice yet.  When they do notice that Tutamon's not out cold, Tutamon has already aimed his sword, and he charges at Moe like a bull in the ring.  Tutamon ends up stabbing the wall next to Moe, which is actually a curtain... the curtain that King Vernon Dent is behind.  For the sake of finishing this film, we'd better set aside yet another plot inconsistency.  When you're King, the first thing you have to learn is to shut out as much of the rest of the world as possible... especially whatever's behind you, apparently.  King Dent gets stabbed in the ass with a mighty BOINGGG!!! sound, and his mug flies far into the air.  Alas, the mug smashes over Dent's head... but at least it doesn't have anymore liquid in it!  That would be far worse, getting hit with a full mug.
Back to Tutamon who's trying to extract his sword from the spot it's in... apparently, Dent's ass has turned into stone, and only King Arthur can get that sword out.  Either that, or the basket lid's tougher to get a sword out of than previously thought.  Ample time for Moe to smite Tutamon on the head anew with the same old hammer.  And this time, there'll be no stepping back onto that open flame!
Back to Mummy Shemp, who's found a new room to run into.  But it's got a guard in it with the same old strategy: if you see a rogue mummy running around, pray to Ra that it's trailing a bit of the wrapping behind it.  This time, the guard stabs the wrapping with his spear... rather, the rug next to it, and he reaches down and picks up the wrapping.  He starts pulling on the wrapping and it makes the sound of a fishing pole line being reeled back in.  We see Shemp unraveling and spinning around at... oh, I hope for his sake that it was 8 fps, but it might be 12.  We get a shot of the guard pulling on the wrapping... dude!  I hope for his sake that it was at 8 fps!!!  Second segment of Shemp spinning and spinning, which ends with him heading towards the guard... somehow, I don't think that was supposed to happen.  A shot of King Dent and his three floozies watching as Shemp spins around.  Third segment of Shemp spinning around, and this time it looks like they didn't rewrap him to do the scene.  Shemp collapses and King Dent approaches him with sword drawn.  This time there's no doubt.  The punishment for impersonating a mummy and getting caught grey-handed?  Death.  "You shall DIE for this!" exclaims King Rootentooten.  In real life, though, Shemp and Dent were apparently good friends.

EPILOGUE

King Dent's about to put Shemp's red red vino on tap, but Moe and Lawrence intervene at the last minute.  Moe and Larry carry the basket in, exclaiming "Don't shoot!" for some reason.  Larry shows the King the bag of tax money, and they both lift up the bodies of Rhadames and Tutamon so the audience can see without repositioning the camera so that it's looking down into the basket.  "Splendid!  Splendid!" says the King.  A second royal decree for the Stooges?  Unprecedented!  This time, the King offers his daughter's hand to one of the Stooges.  Well, it's better than the usual inbreeding that occurs at the royal level.  Like idiots, the Stooges assume that the daughter's the pretty floozy standing next to the King, and they try to stand next to her like garter snakes in heat.  The Stooges try to establish a pecking order amongst themselves; Shemp says "Ain't I the First Chamber Maid?"  Ah, the ol' callback.  "Call in the princess!" declares King Dent.  "(Wait a minute!)  Ain't this the Princess?" asks Larry, pointing to one of the non-Suzanne Ridgeway floozies.  "No, no, she's only a slave!" says the King.  She puts a hand to the King's cheek, but he shakes his head in disapproval.  Nice moment.
Alas, the boys have even less of a sense of decorum.  To set the stage for all of us, Moe says "If she's a slave..." then the Princess must be ten times hotter than that!  Well, she knows how to sashay into a room, anyhow.  Alas, it's Dee Green, and somehow her teeth are worse than the last film.  Go figure.  The boys wince, and even start to cry a little bit, but the King's far too happy to notice this insult to his daughter.  "Let the lucky man take one pace forward!" says the King.  Moe and Larry take a step back... take a step back, but that's good enough for the King.  Boy, he must not like his daughter that much either.  Dent congratulates Shemp, calling him "my son."  "What's the matter with him?" Shemp asks the other two, but it's too late.  Princess Dee's got Shemp in a headlock, and Shemp's trying to get away.  Final shot of the film: Shemp's struggling to get out of his headlock, and he says "Do something!"  Someone.. or rather, several people off screen, start gently pelting Shemp with rice and old shoes.  And even though Shemp's nose was apparently completely lacking cartilage... dang!  That second one must've hurt.  Frankly, that first one probably more.  The fourth volley of shoes contained about twenty shoes.  Boy, those Egyptians really knew how to celebrate.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Hold yer Hosses

Awright, time to dive in to the next Popeye short, Shoein' Hosses.  Not one of my go-to shorts, but who knows?  Maybe it'll be good.

ACT ONE

Things are looking up!  As with Bridge Ahoy!, the title card sequence has a song with lyrics to accompany it!  Sounds like it's being sung by the voice of Bluto... as with Bridge Ahoy!  This current one's got big shoes to fill already.  "How the smithy must feel when there are no wagons to wheel..."  I love it.  Yes, the automobile put a lot of people out of work initially, didn't it?  DAMN YOU, FORD!!!!!  And with Olive Oyl working as a blacksmith, well... Popeye was pretty chauvinist back in his heyday.  Why, he was against sailors dating mermaids in the cartoon strips, for God's sake!  "It ain't eti-cute!" he probably said.
First scene: the exterior of Olive's "Ye Blacksmith Shoppe."  See?  She was a job creator back then.  The '50s tamed her, making her nothing more than Popeye's sidekick.  No life of her own.  And always with Bluto saying "How's about that kiss?" as if he's Clark Gable or something.  Anyway, check out the tree next to the shoppe.  The Flesichers kick ass!
Olive's trying to hammer on a hot horseshoe, but Wimpy's holding it with tongs.  He keeps going in for a bite of his endless ... hamburger?  Looks more like a pita bread dealie.  Nice to see someone's trying to eat healthy for a change.  They get stuck in an endless loop, with Olive getting angry at constantly just hitting the anvil and not the damn hot horseshoe.  The good news is the loop gets broken.  The bad news is Olive's ass gets burned by the horseshoe  to do it.  She doesn't take it standing up, however, and she chucks the burning hot horseshoe right back at Wimpy.  It bounces off Wimpy's head and falls into his pants... and his ass gets burned!  He runs out of the shoppe, but returns to pick up his hamburger, of course.  See the way Wimpy's running?  That's the way cartoon characters are supposed to run, damn it.  Call me old-fashioned if you will. Olive puts up a "Help Wanted" sign, advertising for employees that are strong, handsome and willing.  How 0 for 3 Wimpy got that job I'll never know.
As often happens, these plot developments come in pairs, and no sooner does a fresh job opening at Olive's blacksmith shoppe open than it's time for Popeye to reintroduce himself to audiences waiting for the double feature to begin.  Even Popeye gets bored with the same ol' song, and this time he changes the "Strong to the finich" part to "The way to get wealthy is to always keep healthy."  Makes a little more sense than the Book of the Talents, anyway.  Popeye's theme ends with Popeye ending up at the entrance to Olive's shop, and the song ends with Popeye sneezing, rather than one last whistle blow.  Again, the boredom, and the next new way to fight it.  Popeye reads Olive's "Help Wanted" sign, and knows right away that this is the job for him.  Seeing Olive sweeping up seals the deal, of course, and he dolls himself up as best he can, spitting into his hand and rubbing it into his hair.  Sheesh.  Well, can't argue with results... you know, I just noticed something but never thought to actually articulate it.  Does Popeye have nipples on his kneecaps?

ACT TWO

Meanwhile, somewhere across town, but not far enough away that he can't see the same job offer at the same time that Popeye does... these plot developments seem to come in pairs... Bluto leaves a saloon, trashes its swinging doors, bends a lamp post out of shape to light his cigar, hikes his pants and heads out into the world, looking for "a good time," as George Carlin would often say derisively about α-males.  Popeye's down to scrubbing his shoes when Bluto arrives, reads the sign, and declares "That means me!"  He then breaks the sign in two and throws the halves away.  Good thing Olive didn't see that... then again, she'd probably like that, who knows.
Popeye and Bluto are in lockstep now.  They bend the entrance to the shoppe slightly as they enter at the same time.  They march up to Olive and say "I wants ta join!"... I mean, "I wants the job!"  Olive is confused at first, and understandably so.  She invites the two of them to demonstrate their skills, and yet another pissing contest between Popeye and Bluto begins in earnest.
Now, it doesn't happen often, but every once in a while the rules of cartoon physics get violated.  That's the least of the problems of, say, Catch as Cats Can, for example.  That one holds a special place of infamy in my heart because it makes cartoon violence seem like a bad thing, but we'll save that for later.  As for Shoein' Hosses, well, Bluto picks up a hot flat piece of iron... and holds on to the hot part with his bare hands.  On top of that, he bends the hot part around his arm.  Kids, do not... well, what percentage of kids these days will ever be around molten steel?  Maybe more likely in the South.  Anyway, as I get older, that's the kind of thing I have a problem with.  Also, the YouTube's Gio Ranada points out that 2:36 represents the first light saber.  Not that I'm on Bluto's side of anything, but technically, it shows up at 2:19.  But I suppose it makes it a light saber because Popeye undoes Bluto's curly fry effect with the same piece of iron.  I mean, if a cartoon character's going to get credit for inventing the light saber, it should be Popeye over Bluto, am I right?
Frankly, Olive should hire both of these guys right now.  Think of the money she'll save on safety equipment! The next feat of strength: the I-beam segment.  Bluto lifts a small hunk of I-beam onto an anvil and beats it three times with a sledgehammer.  The I-beam splits in half.  Bluto looks over at Popeye.  Popeye lifts his own hunk of I-beam onto an anvil of his own.  In two sledgehammer hits, Popeye splits the I-beam, the anvil, and the pieces of wood the anvil was anchored to.  Frankly, I think Olive should hire Bluto.  Popeye might have some trouble with finesse work and end up inadvertently destroying the entire shop.
Next feat of strength: something involving the proverbial wagon wheels that were sung about earlier.  Bluto struggles, but manages to wrap a piece of metal around a wagon wheel.  The metal piece is a bit longer than the wheel's circumference and there's a bit of overlap to drive in a rivet.  In a bit of Popeye-esque freakishness, Bluto clamps down on the rivet with his teeth so hard that, not only does he drive the rivet into place, but the metal strip now appears seamless!  No sign of the overlap!  Popeye does the same thing, but faster of course, but he's got the help of gravity and Newton's laws on his side.  Popeye throws his metal strip at his wagon wheel, and the wheel kinda does the rest somehow.  Why, it even sets itself into place on a wagon and self-fastens with a square-shaped nut!
It's at this point that Bluto realizes he can't win playing by the rules, so he's going to have to play dirty and knock out Popeye somehow.  But... one more strength feat first: the horseshoeing of horses, as hinted at by the film's title.  Bluto goes over to a sad-looking white horse and pounds in horseshoes into its two front hooves, then into its two rear hooves... all with just his fist.  And, on top of that, Bluto's horse is smiling now!  Kinda makes me want to see an educational film about how it's actually done.  Certainly not the way Popeye does it, who carefully arranges the four horseshoes on the ground, then gently slams the horse down onto all of them at the same time.  Popeye is indeed automation personified.  (...they're not on backwards, are they?)
Popeye gives the laugh he gave in Blow me Down.  Okay... at this point, not only does Bluto realize he can't win, he wants to f... to strangle Popeye with his bare hands.  "Oh me, oh my... CURSES!!!" says Bluto.  I've seen Bluto mad before, but usually not this mad.  This is indeed an outlier... hah!  Finally, all those statistics classes comes in handy.

ACT THREE

And so, the reign of Bluto's new-found paradigm begins.  He rips one of the anvils out of the floor and throws it at Popeye.  Popeye's head splits the anvil into two equal-sized pieces.  Oh, and Popeye gets a little faint and falls to the floor.  Hmm!  Maybe Popeye's head could be used in some unforeseen industrial process.
And then... as part of Bluto's new-found paradigm, he's strangling Olive, asking "Well?  Do I get the job?"  Dayamn.  I haven't seen Olive strangled like that since Learn Polikeness... I've seen a lot of these out of order, you see.  Now, there's probably some room for discussion about the political or sociological ramifications of this section, but... what's the point, really?  If, for example, you were to point out that Bluto seems to be acting like an evil Democrat hell-bent on taxing the rich, they would either wholeheartedly agree, or give you some line about Bluto fulfilling his manifest destiny, or something about the "Promise Keepers."  Sheesh.  Some '90s references are best left alone.  Besides, Olive needs to be shown the foolishness of her lifestyle choice; the more tough love involved, the better.  But no.  Popeye has to come to and protect the vested interests of the goose-stepping Diversity Nazis.  Popeye interrupts Bluto in the midst of his strangling, taps him on the shoulder and says... too bad YouTube doesn't have closed-captioning.  I think he says "Dont'cha know that the female sex is the weakerist?"  Frankly, that's even more chauvinistic than what Bluto was doing.  If women want to be truly equal, getting strangled is the biggest part of that package.  Of course, Bluto's not exactly a right-wing intellectual; he just tends to hit the things he doesn't like, and he now turns his attention on Popeye.  "Sez you!" says Bluto and he bonks Popeye on the head, mashing him down like a coiled spring.  Popeye rebounds in a stunned state, but he's got a fist pointed at the sky, and he manages to deck Bluto in the chin.  This loop repeats a second time, but on the third iteration, Bluto has the presence of mind to get out of the way of Popeye's fist.  I hate to use the phrase as you might know, but this is indeed a "game changing" moment for Bluto.  As Popeye heads back to Earth from his latest bounce, Bluto sends him flying into the wall.  Popeye destroys a brick kiln that was under a ventilation pipe.  As with Ollie in Dirty Work, Popeye lies there for a while amidst the rubble of brick and cement, preparing to rise like a phoenix.  His head emerges from the bricks, and is glowing like a piece of steel.  Blaring trumpets accentuate Popeye's sorry state.  Bluto laughs and pulls the glowing hot Popeye from the bricks.  As it turns out, the heat of the kiln fire has transferred to Popeye, and Popeye's upper half now shines bright as if he were a piece of steel.  Bluto lays him on the last undestroyed anvil in the place and starts beating Popeye on the head with his fist to a tune similar to that ubiquitous anvil song from Barber of Seville, but just different enough to throw off the copyright lawyers.  It's spinach time.
For some reason, Bluto never sees it coming.  As Popeye's getting hit on the head, he downs a mouthful of spinach, then lands just one punch in Bluto's large gut.  Bluto holds his gut like a little sissy baby.  The next punch from Popeye sends Bluto against a wall, where he dislodges a large box full of about a thousand horseshoes.  Bluto rises from the giant pile of horseshoes on the floor and tries to fight back in vain.  Bluto quickly mumbles "You can't do that to me and get away with it!!!" and starts throwing the horseshoes like a machine gun firing bullets.  Cut to Popeye caught in a hail of horseshoes; Bluto's not as accurate with them as it first seemed.  Popeye catches a bunch of horseshoes on both arms and fires them right back at Bluto, who ends up with horseshoe imprints on his gut and forehead.  Bluto regains his composure, and starts throwing some more horseshoes.
It's at this point that Olive Oyl reappears, trying to get these two idiots to stop fighting each other, as they're kinda destroying her shop.  Frankly, she needs to call off their job audition right now.  Olive now gets pinned to the wall by horseshoes: first her ankles, then wrists... then her neck!  Any more than that would just be cruel.  She could probably get her abdomen pinned by a horseshoe and still have room to breathe, but never mind.  Cut to Popeye who's starting to turn the repelling of horseshoes into a musical art form.  Bluto's too busy throwing the horseshoes that he doesn't do as good a job protecting himself from the ones that return, of which there seem to be quite a few.  Bluto gets hit on the head and grows a giant lump so tall that, you know, it'd be perfect for a game of... damn, those Fleischers are always three steps ahead.
Bluto recovers from his latest indignity, then comes up with a brilliant idea of his own.  Sorry, I mean "brilliant."  One of those ideas that would only work in a cartoon.  He starts loading horseshoes into a giant bellows.  He fills up his bellows, squeezes on it and... it works!  He sends a steady stream of horseshoes at or near Popeye.  The only drawback is that he has to keep pumping it very rapidly to send this machine gun bullet-esque stream of horseshoes at his target.  Also, it sounds like a cowbell, which frankly is much worse, am I right?  Too much cowbell!!
Popeye's standing out of the way of the stream of horseshoes, but quickly turns it into horseshoe lemonade.  He starts hammering the horseshoes into a chain.  Patriotic music starts playing... oh, God!  I admit it!  I don't know what it's called... but I think this is the first time it's used in a Popeye short.  After Popeye makes about 28 links in his chain, he hammers the anvil itself into a giant Navy-grade anchor.  See?  Again, no finesse work.  He punches a hole in the floor with the anchor, thereby holding it in place.  He gathers up all of the anchor's chain, which seems to have grown about 5 to 6 times the length that Popeye originally gave it, and throws it at Bluto.  The chain now has a hook on the end of it, and Bluto's got a new chain belt.

EPILOGUE

Bluto's got one last shot at this thing.  He runs over to Popeye with his new chain belt, but it was over before it began.  Popeye sends Bluto flying upward, knocking a hole in Olive's ceiling.  Bluto would normally fly around the world at this point, but the anchor and chain constrains his range.  Popeye sends Bluto straight up again.  No new hole in the ceiling this time!  Third time's the charm, however.  Popeye sends Bluto at a 45 degree angle now, knocking a new hole in the side of the ceiling, and leaving Bluto dangling in the entrance of the smith shop.  Popeye goes over to Olive and she kisses him.  Popeye frees Olive from the wall with one punch.  No finesse.

***1/2
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan