...Coming through the stroke

So tasteless.  But things are arguably just as bad today.  You think YOUR health care package is bad... Curly suffered a mild stroke and had to keep working!  Contractual obligations, you know how it is.  It can all be read about on Wikipedia, of course, but who's got time to read anymore?  I barely have time to write this blog!  But let's try to dive in to our next Stooge pic called If a Body Meets a Body.  Spoiler alert: as you may know, I'm a sucker for Stooge films deeply rooted in specific genres.  I should probably recuse myself from reviewing this one, but I'll go ahead and do it anyway.  And for all of you Comparative Literature students out there... see if you can guess the similarities between this Stooge film and the reference in its title!

ACT ONE

We see the boys sitting around their humble, modest abode, scouring the newspaper for a job.  Something I should probably be doing right now.  Moe pooh-poohs Larry's choice of job, and kicks Curly in the face for making a bad joke.  To be fair, Moe does lightly tap Curly's cheek with the top part of his shoe... ah, skip it.  Moe finds a job that offers free cigarettes.  Ah, those were the days.  Moe and Larry start to swoon from the job description, but Curly uses logic to bring the boys back down to earth: "What, no matches?  I wouldn't work for that piker."  Larry seconds that motion and provides Curly with a segué to lunchtime.  The humbleness of the surroundings grows more pathetic as the seconds pass: Curly's cooking soup in a bucket.  The bucket is warming over an open flame in a makeshift barbecue pit, and the "pit" sits inside an open bed frame.  Curly describes the food, and Moe looks disgusted at about 1:11.  At least they have a dinner table.  Curly serves the soup.  It goes downhill from there.
Larry pushes away his bowl of soup after smelling it.  Moe finds a horseshoe in his bowl of soup.  Go figure.  Curly might've spotted that when he... oh, there I go thinking again.  I forgot to check my brain at the door.  Moe hits Curly in the head with said horseshoe.  Larry takes advantage of his not having had a stroke, telling Moe that Curly was trying to poison them!  Moe banishes Curly from the house.  Curly pleads no contest to the poisoning charge, apparently.
I don't get it!  They've been through worse before!  Why are Moe and Larry being so harsh to my man?  Curly blows his nose at 2:00, and he appears to be close to tears.  Not as close as Bam in Jackass 2, but close.  Suddenly... Moe's reading the paper, but he's shocked by the words in it.  Apparently, their roommate is an heir to a three million dollar fortune!  Well, three million was worth a lot more back then.  Curly wishes them a fond farewell, but the changed economic circumstances changes Moe's and Larry's tune.  They switch to sweettalking mode but manage to keep the plot moving forward quickly as well.  A rare feat.  Larry and Moe begin to count their chickens.  Larry says "We're filthy with dough!"  Moe points out that he's filthy without it.  In a nice way, though.  Moe shows Curly the newspaper and tells him in so many ways that he's rich.  Curly's got the right idea, though, saying "Why am I bothering with YOU two hobos?"
Curly, however, isn't above the influence of peer pressure.  Larry, then Moe, start to heap on the physical and verbal abuse.  Curly calls a time out and asks "Wait a minute!  Can't I be a millionaire without you two guys?"  Moe and Larry say "NO!" in unison.  That's the nature of the Stooge relationship right there in a nutshell.  The boys break into a chorus of that old 1912 show tune "Let's go and get the moolah."  Well, songs were a lot simpler back then.  The song culminates, or is abruptly terminated, depending on your view, when Curly "stomachs" Moe at about 3:26, causing Moe to get his ass burned at about 3:27.  Ever the showman, Moe stays on the beat of the music when he screams in pain.  Looks like he kinda got actually hurt there!
Next scene: the Link estate, under siege by rain and lightning, but a plague worse than storm clouds is about to enter the estate: the STOOGES!!!  The butler, played by Theodore Lorch, gets the worst of it.  Moe's coat looks an awful lot like the Dude's sweater.  Moe wads up his coat and hurls it at the butler, and hurls his hatful of water at the butler.  Larry and Curly shake the excess water off their raincoats onto the butler.  And to think that Lorch played the master of the house in Spook Louder some two years earlier.  Fallen on hard times he has!  Right, Yoda?  The Stooges' greed is palpable.  Moe talks about hocking the Grandfather clock, for God's sake!  Talk about new money.  Worse than new money: he's still thinking like a tramp!  Curly makes a pass at the maid who looks strangely mannish.  Must've been the stroke.  Moe reprimands the lustful Curly by pinching his ear.

ACT TWO

It's still a little early for Act Two, but there's a major revelation about to be revealed... so it might as well be here.  Cross fade to a Clue-type setting, where Detective Fred Kelsey announces that Professor Bob O. Link was MURDERED!  Curly woo-woos upon hearing that.  Also, the dead dude's body disappeared.  Second woo-woo from Curly.  Curly stands up to ask a question and the detective goes to work.  "Who are you?" he asks Curly.  Curly says "I'm Curly Q. Link!"  The detective says "Oh!  You're the missing link!"  I'd capitalize the Link in that last one, but... nah, it's too good.  It's going to be a long night.  Curly says "No, I'm the found link!"  Moe hits Curly in the stomach for telling such a bad joke.  Now comes the part where time is stretched out to make this a 16 minute picture.  The detective puts Moe in his crosshairs and says "Who are you?"  Moe takes a beat and says "Don't tell me you haven't heard of Link, Mink and Pink?"  The detective, like the rest of us would like to, says "Never heard of 'em.  What do they do?"  Moe takes another beat and says "We're in the sausage business!  Link sausage, mink sausage and pink sausage!"  Then they go into some shtick that didn't work even in Vaudeville.  Curly and the detective have a brief Mexican standoff at about 5:26.  Everyone in the room looks on in horror.  Thank God this outbreak of manliness is interrupted by the sound of someone being strangled to death!  Everyone runs to a door where the sounds are coming from.  Detective Fred Kelsey opens the door, and makes a gasping noise at about 5:43.  There's a dead guy on top of a desk with a knife in his chest.  Man, what a violent Stooge flick!  The detective says "They got the lawyer, too!"  Everyone responds with shock.  So much for that joke about a million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean.  Besides, the war's still on at this point.  Kelsey's voice is dubbed in at about 5:53 when he says "And they stole the will!"  Kelsey proves himself to be a good fit for the Stooges when he clears the room by saying "C'mon!  Get out of here."  Kelsey orders everyone to stay out of the room, and orders the Stooges to guard the door.  The blind leading the blind.  What could possibly go wrong?  The detective calls in the murder and helps the plot along by saying "Yes, I'll file a complete report later."  Protocol is so important.
The detective approaches the door.  The Stooges do their duty by preventing the detective from just entering the room.  But as my college professors might have told me a few years ago, the Stooges lack phronesis.... I forget what that means.  Anyway, Detective Fred Kelsey gets a second chance to prove he's as much of a Stooge as the Stooges, and gives the three of them a slap on the face in one graceful gesture.  The boys clutch their red, pulsating cheeks and say in unison "Pass, friend!"  Kelsey enters the room and makes the same gasping noise at about 6:31.  If only there were some easy way to compare these two incidents with each other... anyway, the camera pans over to the desk, and we see that the lawyer's body has disappeared!!!  Kelsey goes over to investigate.  Yup, it's really, really gone, all right!  Kelsey gets scared by the Stooges at about 6:38 and makes the gasping noise in reverse.  The Stooges slowly back out of the room and Kelsey says "That settles it."  I guess they wanted William Demarest to play the part or something.  Detective Kelsey tells ... hoh boy... he tells "Jerkington" the butler to give everybody rooms for the night.  Is that also like Clue?  Which came first?  Probably not this film.  The Stooges have been guilty of many a crime in their time, but originality in plots isn't exactly one of them.
And so, groups of people are assigned rooms in this huge mansion.  Curly barks at the detective one last time, but the detective barks back!  Hella bark!  Next scene: we see a hand cut the power.  The Stooges are following the butler, but almost instantly freak out when the lights go out.  Curly yells out "It's dahk in here!"  He ends up on the shoulders of Moe and Larry somehow.  Lorch takes charge, saying "Storm must've put out the lights!  Come... this way."  There are no small actors.  Why he never played Lincoln I'll never know.  I forget who did... Gary Cooper?  Lance Henriksen?  Liam Neeson?  Damn.  I've come unstuck in time!
Next scene: the Stooges' room, where all the furniture has sheets over it.  Lorch gives more spellbinding orders, saying "I wouldn't go into that room if I were you!  That was the master's laboratory!"  Moe says "Laboratory?"  Lorch says "Yes!"  Genius.  "Jerkington" tells Curly that poor Mr. Link was murdered in that room... on the very spot where Curly's standing.  Never mind how "Jerkington" knows that for now.  Curly jumps away as if being controlled by a greater power.  Eventually, the butler leaves, saying "I hope you have a nice, long sleep."  The ever psychic Moe channels the spirit of the moment and says "Thanks, Dracula."  The way the butler leaves after that doesn't do much to prove Moe wrong.  But he does get in a brief look of disapproval right after Moe says that, as if to say "Oh, that wasn't nice..." at about 8:26.
Next scene: the Stooges get ready for bed.  Moe says "We might as well go to bed."  Now you might be thinking to yourselves that old saw about the unexamined life... Wikipedia?... no, not the album by the Supreme Dicks, released in 1993.  Time to get my Yahoo on.  Apparently, it was Socrates who said that "the unexamined life is not worth living."  Some two thousand odd years later, that smartass and friend of Jerry Seinfeld Colin Quinn said "Of course, the examined life isn't worth living, either."  The point is, you might be wondering if the Stooges were as aware of their own legend as the rest of us are now.  Some might say no, but I now say yes, and my evidence is here in If a Body Meets a Body.  Curly says to Moe "Suppose the murderer comes back again?"  Moe tells Curly "Shut up.  You got nothing to worry about.  If he stabs you in the head, he'll wreck his knife."  I guess all those saws that Curly's head ruined over the years DID make an impact after all!
As if that wasn't enough, more hell is about to break loose.  Curly's either wearing a nightie or a chef's outfit under his clothes.  He goes to bed with his clothes and shoes on.  Moe says "Hey!  What's the idea of going to bed with your clothes on?"  Curly says "I wanna be ready in case something happens!"  Larry scoffs at the idea, saying "Oh!  A fraidy-cat!"  Curly says "Yeah!"  And then... Moe and Larry see the logic in it and do the same.  I tell ya darling!  ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE!
Ah, this one's got a great script.  Moe says to Curly "Blow out the candle, or I'll blow out your brains!  Or a reasonable facsimile thereof!"  Sorry, but I'm condensing a few of the details for time.  Larry's already snoring... even though he's probably not asleep at all!  Just making fake snoring noises!  Like Hans Moleman who was locked inside the Kwik-E-Mart for four minutes, I DEMAND SATISFACTION!  Anyway, Moe wakes up Larry and says "Wake up and go to sleep!"  Curly adds "... or a facsimile thereof."  Larry says to Curly "SHUT UP!"  Jealous.  They go to sleep.
Arguably, hell starts to break loose now.  First up: their room door starts to open, and it creaks loudly as it does.  Focus in on Curly at about 0:24, who opens his eyes wide and looks very, very worried.  Curly wakes up Moe, but Moe's too tired to heap much physical abuse upon Curly.  Curly calms down and tries to fall asleep.  Second volley: we see a bird cage with a parrot in it... hoh boy.  A gust of wind knocks the cage over.  Hoh boy.  Curly hears the bird's squeals and, much like Katy Perry today, is wide awake.  We see the bird heading towards a skull... hoh boy.  We then see the bird climbing up a skeleton.  That's one talented bird!  Meanwhile, Curly's full throttle scared now.  He wakes up Moe and says "Let's light a candle and look under the bed."  He sounds a bit drunk.  Poor Curly.  Okay, I gotta stop beating this dead horse.  Moe lights a match with the back of Curly's head.  Curly has a delayed response to... sorry.  And so, Moe and Curly go to look under the bed.  Which brings me to one of my all-time favourite Stooge scenes, and it was the scene where I first came up with my Stooge Time Stretcher theory!  On the one hand I'm proud of myself, but on the other I'm also ashamed because I dare question the Stooges' logic.
The filmmakers skip ahead a few steps, much like the way they did with Crash Goes the Hash, and we see the skull that was lying on the table start to enter the room courtesy of the Wheel of Feet (TM, copyright and trademark held by Norman Maurer).  A dubbed Moe tells Curly "I don't understand why you should get so spooky just because a guy got croaked in this room."  Now you and I might question the logic of such a statement in our post-modern era full of cable shows about psychics and ghosts that linger too long after death.  All you really need to know is that they needed some dialogue to pad out the time as the befooted skull makes its entrance from the other room.  I'm still trying to figure out how they keep the skull upright with just one wheel of feet.  Anyway, Moe launches into his spiel about how there's nothing under the bed.  He tells Curly "Now look under there!  There's a mattress!  And a spring!  And a bedstead!  And a few termites."  Curly says "I don't see no termites!"  Moe says "Well, look under here, I'll start again."  And he does.  LMFAO.  Moe says "There's a spring!  A bedstead!  And some bed slats!  There's a rug.  And a mattress!  And a few ter..."  Meanwhile, Curly sees the skull, looks in horror, and interrupts Moe as he's about to make that bad termite joke again.  But alas, Curly's too late.  The skull has gone behind something before Moe could see it.  Moe reprimands Curly: "If you don't stop seeing things, I'm going to gouge your eyes out!  Now there's nothing around here, you understand?  Here.  Take a look under the bed.  There's nothing under there but a MATTRESS!  A spring, and there's some slats....."  I dunno.  Maybe it was the weed talking, and there are those that swear by Micro-Phonies as the best Stooge short ever made, but if they don't have this sequence of If a Body Meets a Body in Heaven for me to watch at least twenty times each night before I go to sleep, it ain't Heaven, I tells ya.  Not that I expect to make it to Heaven in the first place.  What presumption!  At this point, Larry wakes up... sorry, wrong link.  Larry wakes up and says "Hey!  What's going on around here?"  Curly tries to explain about the skull head, but it's just about to go around another corner.  Moe and Larry look, but alas, the skull head has disappeared a second time.  I would say that the timing on that is exquisite, but I dunno... there were a few milliseconds there that they might have seen it.  As they ask in the Post Office about an accident, was it preventable?  (I'll give you a hint: always say yes.)  Sorry, another non-sequitur there.  Moe has to take charge.  "Now look... once and for all we'll show you THERE'S NO GHOSTS BEHIND CHAIRS!.... hey, is there?"  Larry the Enabler's no help, of course.  The three head over to the chair.  Meanwhile, the skull heads for the bead.  Lol.  Curly holds the candle down near Moe's ass and says "Oh, I can't look at this.  I can't, I can't..."  Curly sounds like... Moe gets singed by the candle.  He gets burned a lot in this one!  Now I'm as big of a wuss as the next guy.  I couldn't do like Travis Bickle with his fist next to the blue flame, or Gary Busey in the first Lethal Weapon... of course, Gary Busey did need to seek medical attention after his incident with Mr. Flame.  Just remember, kids: a candle next to your ass can be painful.  Moe slaps Curly's neck with both hands.  In his new-found fury, Moe goes behind the chair to look for Curly's ghost.  They dub in his line at 3:09: "Skeletons... Bunk!  That's what."  Maybe Cecil B. DeMille could afford to put a microphone behind the chair, but not Cannery Row.  Meanwhile, Larry the Enabler thinks he hears something and motions to Curly to keep quiet.  Apparently, he didn't see what Moe was going to do... yup, just checked the instant replay.  He wasn't looking at Moe, and didn't see him go behind the chair, hence the confusion at about 3:13.  It's at this point that Moe and Larry go tag-team on Curly.  Larry opens with "Now... where's your ghost!"  Then the physical abuse begins.  Now, Curly said a lot of things, but I don't think he said anything about a skeleton with little feet.  But Moe says to Curly "A SKELETON WITH LITTLE FEET, EH?" before hitting him about the head.  Larry gets in his own shot, and they frog march Curly back to the bed.  Moe says to Curly "If you so much as breathe, I'll rip out your tonsils and tie 'em around your neck for a bowtie.  GET IN THERE!"  You know, there's stories about how Stan Laurel would f... mess with Oliver Hardy and his ritual golf game after work.  I wonder if Moe was late for something that day.  Maybe that line was in the script, but I hope not.  A line like that, I have to believe it was improvised.

ACT THREE

We're about overdue for an Act Break.  We've got about five minutes left, but trust me.  They're about as action packed as a finale in a Robert Zemeckis film... from the 80s.
Next scene: they scramble back into bed.  Moe says "You're a sleep wrecker!  GO TO SLEEP!"  Moe and Larry are still steaming, but Larry's about to have his proverbial conversion on the road to Damascus.  He drifts back off to sleep saying "Ghosts, spooks, skeletons... kids stuff!  There are no such things as ghosts!"  He may be right, but there ARE such things as skulls on the mantlepiece!  The camera pans up, and we see that the skull is hovering right over Larry's head.  The skull falls, the camera pans back down, and at about 3:47 we get the long awaited wood block sound.  Larry says "Ooh!" from getting hit on the head.  The skull conveniently slips away, Stage Right.  But let's take a moment and savour that camera work.  The Stooge shorts aren't known for flashy camera work or long unedited scenes, but here we have a twenty second long single take, where the camera pans up and follows a skull back down.  Busy day for the cameraman on that one!  Okay, back to the plot proper.  So, Larry didn't realize what was the true cause of the head bonk, and makes his first mistake by accosting Moe about it.  His second make was, as the Joker once said, a rather poor choice of words.  Larry says to Moe, "Hey!  What's the idea of hitting me on the head?"  I guess Larry didn't have much choice, but he's set Moe up all too perfectly, and Moe retorts with "I didn't hit you on the head... YET!"  Second bonk.  "Go on, go to sleep!"  Larry makes a disgusted gesture at Moe, rolls over, and sees the skull on the end table next to him.  Larry proceeds to FREAK OUT.  Larry wakes Moe up anew.  Meanwhile, we see the skull bounce towards the edge of the end table.  Lol.  Good puppetry work.  Larry has become a true believer, and says things like "He's right!  It's a ghost!  It's right there, it... wha?"  Moe gets in another good couple of lines: "Oh, you too, eh?  I'm going to have trouble with you?  Well, let me give you a little advice!"  Larry asks, "What?"  Moe slaps Larry on the forehead this time, saying "THAT!  Now go on, go to sleep before I murder ya!"
The screenwriters must've been using a thesaurus that week, as Moe adds "What are you guys, somnambulists?"  Or is it "somnambulas" or "somnambulers"?  Something like that.  I just can't handle these East Coast accents.
And just when you think Moe's not going to join the Ghost team, the magic happens at 4:21 when a little more hell breaks loose.  The skull now has the power of flight, and a cape to boot.  It appears to have bat wings now; it's hard to tell on YouTube but they still don't look like parrot wings.  The skull flies twice over the Stooge's bed, but twice is quite enough.  Curly's advice to stay dressed in this particular bed has finally paid off, and the scared threesome take off into the next room, woo-woo-wooing all the way.
Next scene: the next room, where it's time for some more fancy camerawork.  Curly says "See?  I told you there was ghosts!" and the camera dollies in on the three of them, starting at about 4:38.  Perhaps it's providence, or just good luck, but dolly work in a Stooge film rarely draws attention to itself, or helps to accentuate the mood.  Why, even Scorsese must've picked up a thing or two from this scene!  Moe once again captures the zeitgeist of the scene, saying "I ain't scared... but LET'S GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE!"  They go to the nearest door to find it's locked.  Larry, at full throttle scared, says "There must be a key!  Let's see if we can find it!"  Like idiots, they look around for the key instead of smashing down the door.  Well, it wasn't their set to smash, I suppose.  At about this point, we see that they're in the laboratory they were warned about not going into.  Moe accidentally triggers a not-so-secret door in the wall, revealing a dead body behind it.  The dead body leans forward on Moe, and Moe thinks it's one of the other two.  Moe pushes the dead body back, but only to have it return for a second helping.  Now Moe gets mad, saying "I see I'll have to take action."  Moe finally TURNS AND LOOKS, only to have the crew turn on the industrial-strength vacuum cleaner over his head.  I mean, he turns and looks, sees the dead body, and gets even more scared than before.  Cue the vacuum cleaner at 5:26, and cue the frame blow-up at 5:27.5.  Boy, I tell you, if they can figure out a way to make the Flash player start at a certain fraction of a second... that's the next billion dollars for some undernourished geek.  As the dead body falls to the ground, no longer braced by a blissfully unaware Moe, there's an unholy chorus of Curly gobbling and giving slow "nyaah"s at the same time.  At least, I hope that's Curly on Slow Nyaah duty.  The boys run off, crashing through one door, but finding the second one locked.  Larry starts screaming "Let us out of here!"  Hmm... probably should've capitalized that one.  Anyway, Detective Fred Kelsey fortunately happens to be in the hall at the time.  Unfortunately, he opens the door and walks through just as Curly tries breaking the door down with a chair.  DOWN GOES KELSEY!!!  A dubbed-in Moe says "It's the detective!  Get some water!"  Larry gets a vase and douses both Moe and the detective.  The detective has an honest reaction at about 6:02.
Damn!  It's late.  I gotta get some sleep for a few hours... 'night!
..okay, back to work.  It's 1:45am, and I gotta wrap this mother up.  The boys try to explain to Detective Kelsey about the body in the next room.  Detective Kelsey says "WHERE IS HE?  SHOW ME!!!"  Curly brings up the rear as the others step into the next room, and Curly goes through the door proper!  Running through an open door frame after bashing it out.  The very idea.  But, yup... you probably guessed it.  The detective doesn't get to experience the thrill of the dead body.  The Stooges try and explain, but it's all in vain.  The detective pushes the Stooges into... well, towards the corner, saying "What kind of a gag do you birds think you're pulling on me?"  We get another dolly shot, but it's clearly not as effective as the first.  The detective thinks the Stooges are cuckoo, and he goes out the door that the Stooges found to be locked.
What happens next is where all this haunted house stuff finally pays off.  Let me put it this way: Scare #1, Scare #2, Scare #3, Scare #4, and Scare #5.  (Arguably, scare #4 is probably the weakest one.) 
Curly... at least, I think it's Curly!... leads the charge down the stairs into the lobby of the house, where he runs into the maid from earlier.  Well, I hate to spoil any more surprises...

EPILOGUE

The murder is solved, and Curly's holding the will and reading it.  Moe tells Curly not to shake.  Will Curly inherit a huge fortune and live on Easy Street the remainder of his days?  I hate to spoil it, but I'll merely suggest another film with a similar ending.  I know I say this about most of the Stooge films, but this one's got to be among the top 5 haunted house ones.  This is still one of the ones we'll typically watch when we're desperate and drag out the Stooge DVDs.  A classic.

Good double bill with: The Wabbit who came to Supper

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Mads Brügger

Apparently, he's the most provocative filmmaker of the week, so why not.  His new film's called The Ambassador.  For a second there I thought it was Pitbull!

Again with the Expendables...

Sly must be proud.  Of course, he'd be prouder if he directed the thing himself.  Guess he's got bigger fish to fry.  The Dark Knight Rises rises from #6 to #5, and several movies hold their numbers: The Campaign stays at #4, and The Bourne Redundancy stays at #2.  The Odd Life of Timothy Green rises from #7 to #6.  So really, it's a bad week to debut a movie.  No one's calling Premium Rush a Quicksilver remake out of respect to David Koepp.  JoGoLev's got TWO movies on the top 10 this week!  Not bad for the guy who was the normal one on 3rd Rock from the Sun.  These days he can afford to stop taking Patricia Arquette's call to do a sequel to Holy Matrimony.  Oh, snap!  Meanwhile, in the midst of a presidential campaign that supposedly has the most dirty money ever, the Right Wing's still not willing to pony up for some decent propaganda, which is why we get things like 2016: Obama's America.  They were lucky to score a review from Variety, however, but I don't think the guy liked it very much!  Obviously, he's in the tank for Obama, as is most of America.

You're a Good Man, Harry Brown... you blockhead!

Always a good time for a Peanuts reference, because it's time for another Death Wish reference.  This time, the locale is the slums of somewhere in England, where Michael Caine and a token best friend decry the decline of the neighborhood as they might have once known it.  Young drug-dealing, drug-taking punks are blocking a tunnel that Harry Brown would like to walk through someday.  They're real nasty pieces of work, and they make the Adam Sandler O'Doyles look like amateurs in comparison.  They taunt the cops as much as they taunt the protagonists.
Harry Brown parts company with Death Wish in several ways, beside the change of locale.  First of all, Harry's immediate family isn't attacked, and no young woman's naked posterior gets spraypainted.  The focus groups kept that out, thank goodness.  Second, it's in Harry's past, much like Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.  Paul Kersey was an architect.  An architect, for God's sake!!!  For Harry, there's lots of hemming and hawing about returning to the life bloodthirsty, as today's modern celluloid hero is required to go through.  But once Harry gets started, there's no stopping him.  He's a justice machine and he will not work for nobody but us.
First stop: to procure some weapons.  The setting's grisly and real enough, and I hope the two baddies weren't professional actors, but I guess you do what you gotta do these days.  Still, it's nice to know that some of the old school ways are still effective: Harry points at a TV screen and gets the bad guy to turn his head before he makes his move.  My viewing companion complained, however, that it didn't seem likely that the young punks would invite this old dude into their innermost den like that, and I agreed, but the audience would feel cheated, so we can't have that.  And like D-Fens in Falling Down, Harry emerges triumphant with a jimbag full of guns and whatnot.
It'll take finer minds than mine to comb through all the references to other films, especially the Luc Besson / Robert Mark Kamen ones, but the filmmakers at Marv Studios do what they can to keep the proceedings as fresh and immediate as possible, even though it's a Death Wish remake.  I hate to say that they leave no cliché unturned, but there's one character who's not quite what he or she seems, which might force some of you to rewatch the movie to see how different the spin is on things a second time.  I think I got it all the first.  Michael Caine does great as always... but, to my shame, I couldn't help but wonder what Brian Brown would've done with the part.  I guess they'd have to change the title to Harry Caine, for one...

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Finally! An appropriate title!

You know, when you think about the great courtroom dramas... To Kill a Mockingbird, The Verdict, A Time to Kill, Jury Duty ... meanwhile, the Stooges are slaving away in the quicksilver mines of Hollywood, doing every genre under the sun.  Yes, the courtroom drama as well.  There was Disorder in the Court, which took place entirely in a courtroom yet somehow managed to sustain interest.  The boys appear in court at the beginning of their plumbing-related masterpiece A Plumbing We Will Go... then there was the one where they appear in court in Medieval times and end up getting shipped off to the Colonies in America... the title escapes me.  And so, in this last film before Curly's stroke, they don't go full Rashomon with three different viewpoints of the story.  Moe's on trial for aggravated mayhem, so let's say that it's a case of Rasho-Moe... did I use that already?

ACT ONE

The opening title cards changes style yet again, but it's now the style that will carry through the Shemp years and probably through the Joe Besser months; I have yet to study on it myself.  Anyway, before there was The People's Court, judge Vernon Dent presided over the case of many a knucklehead in his time.  Here, he hears testimony in the case of Larry Fine and Curly Howard vs. Moe Howard.  The camera starts off on just the gavel and pulls back to reveal the Stooges crowded around the witness chair.  It's bedlam in this courtroom, and the bailiff has to step in to break it up.  We see Larry and Curly in bandages and with scars, and they return to where the plaintiffs sit.  Actually, they sit in the front row of the very sparse audience.  They don't appear to have a lawyer of their own.  That's fitting somehow.  Judge Dent says "Mr. Moe, you're accused of assaulting your two roommates with intent to commit mayhem."  Curly says "You mean murder!"  Larry adds "Yeah, and he tried to kill us too!"  Moe oversteps his bounds and beats the gavel himself.  Vernon throws him a disapproving look.  Things go from bad to worse for Moe as he takes the State's exhibit A, an axe, and accidentally hits the bailiff on the head with the METAL END of it.  "A born killer, eh?" exclaims a shocked Judge Dent.  Don't worry, the axe hit the guy on the side, not the blade end.  That comes later, and indeed, it's an event that spits in the face of the Hays Code in particular, and years of silver screen tradition in general, ushering in a whole new era of screen violence.
Moe changes his fortunes by telling his side of the story.  "I'm a sick man, your Honor.  A very sick man," says Moe as calmly and as sincerely as possible.  Moe and Judge Dent bond briefly over similar surgery scars, and Moe continues to spin his tale which sounds a bit like the conceit of Laurel and Hardy's Saps at Sea.  Just a teeny bit.  Cross-fade to the flashback where Moe's hitting the nerve tonic pretty hard.  To drive the point home about needing peace and quiet, we get an introductory episode where a black cat is "stomping around."  Moe throws his head pillow at the cat and scores a nasty direct hit.  The cat is none too pleased.  Cue Larry and Curly's Two-Man Quartet!  Larry is drunk with the thrill of performing as he does double duty on clarinet and drums.  Curly hits the bass drum, and it sounds vaguely like the dozens of stomach hits that came before.  Normally, this is the part that stretches out the film for time, but c'mon!  Who doesn't like a good musical performance?  As it turns out, much like the annoyed roommate in All the Vermeers in New York, Moe's not in the mood.  Living with virtuosos isn't all arias and bravuras; there's lots of monotonous practice as well.  The Stooges' performance ends in violence, thankfully, as Moe's neck gets assaulted by Curly's trombone slide in addition to the aural onslaught. 
Spoiler alert: the trombone slide has considerably grown in width by the time Larry and Curly enter the room with a pissed-off Moe.  It's big enough to fit around the necks of both Larry and Curly, and Moe ties it in a knot for good measure.  Larry and Curly slowly untie the knot and set the plot in motion.  Technical note: the Stooges experiment with frame blow-ups on this film rather than film two takes of the same action.  There's a frame blow-up of Larry and Curly untying the trombone slide at 3:21, and there appeared to be a brief one of just Moe at about 2:19.  Hard to believe that it's a less expensive technique, but it must've been.  I know it was used in a couple places in 1979's The In-Laws, and of course a "skip print" used to zoom in on the odometer at the beginning of Used Cars.
Because Moe is sick in this one, Larry gets a chance to take a more central role in moving the plot along.  After Moe drinks the nerve tonic directly from the bottle instead of trying to put it into a spoon first, Larry informs Moe that he and Curly were planning on taking a trip into the country.  Much like Laurel and Hardy's Them Thar Hills.  Sorry, but I can't help myself.  I want to give a shout out to my sordid viewing past when we used to watch the part at 3:41 over and over, mostly because there was a glitch in the videotape at that exact spot, ruining Curly's perfectly good cough.  Larry's sales job continues, and Moe's openly going for it.  Curly has to break the spell, of course, but it's Larry's fault for setting up the punchline.  Larry says "...and off in the distance, we hear the call of the wolf."  Ah, the days before modern politics, when wolves were a more respected part of nature instead of a Republican boogey-species.  Someone whistles for Curly, and Larry exclaims "Quiet, Wolf!" at 4:01 or so.  See what I mean about Larry taking a more central role? 
Moe enlists the other two to help him take his medicine, and it's a cross-fade right to their car in front of a cabin.  Larry and Curly are unloading the car, and Curly's singing much like he will after the stroke happens.  Sigh.  Moe comes out of the cabin, hands shaking, and says "Grub will be ready in a minute!"  He's making eggs, and in his condition they'd have to be scrambled.  Larry continues his alpha-ish ways at 4:36, pushing Curly around.  Curly gives payback with a shovel to Larry's head.  The dinner bell tolls and they run inside.  Curly exclaims "Oh, boy!  Hot groceries!"  THAT'S where I got that from!  Shame on me.  I can't remember the last time the Stooges ran over to a big table full of food.  It happens quite often, but not in the last one where they're trying to catch fish.  They're making up for lost time with a big table full of condiments.  So far, Larry and Curly seem to only have bread to work with.  Moe brings over eggs and says "And dont' touch 'em until I come back with the potatoes!"

ACT TWO

But just before that, Larry says "There ought to be plenty of shooting around here!  This is game country!"  Curly asks "How do you know?"  Larry says "I saw a sign that said 'Fine for hunting.'"  Normally, Moe says "I think you got something there!" but this time he's on griddle duty, so Curly has to say it.  And now, the part of the film that stretches the action out to two reels... Larry's got a piece of bread and dumps about twenty different bottles of stuff on it until he's damn near got a piece of French toast in his hand.  No time to cook it or tools to cook it with, though, so past the gums, etc.  And now, the OTHER part of the film that stretches out the action to two reels, or about 16 minutes... a bear comes up to the open window and eats the plate of eggs, starting at 5:35.  Cut to Moe who's still at the oven.  Cut back to the bear who's finished the eggs and wanders away from the window.  So cute, even though it's a godless killing machine.  Meanwhile, Larry's dumped about three pounds worth of condiments on his soggy piece of bread, but needs some sugar in addition.  He goes out to the car to get it.  Get it?  The bear is gone, and Larry's gone.  Curly's all by himself, and Moe comes up to see the empty plate where eggs once were.  Get it yet?  Moe starts admonishing Curly, and the bear returns to eat the potatoes.  Curly's no match for Moe when it comes to a duel of words, so Curly just sticks his tongue out.  Moe grabs a giant salt shaker and dumps some powder on Curly's tongue.  YouTube obviously has a non-director's cut of Idiots Deluxe because the sound Curly makes at 6:22 gets repeated a second later.  Not so here!  On behalf of Martin Scorsese and the Film Preservation Society, I protest.
I should point out that Moe tells Curly that his word is "no good."  Dude, he's pissed.  Meanwhile, Larry returns with a container of sugar that looks like a modern-day container for soy milk or rice milk, what have you, and is dumping it on his piece of bread.  Just as he's about to take a bite, Moe accuses him of stealing the potatoes.  Larry tries to protest, but Moe grabs him by his overly curly locks, lifts him out of the chair, and orders the boys to do some cooking for a change.  Moe sits down and says "Oh, my nerves!"  Larry and Curly start cooking.  Now, I'm no Mario Batali, but it's the kind of thing that makes you just want to cradle your face in your hands, elbows resting on the hard surface in front of you.  May you be blessed with the presence of a table of some sort, because you'll definitely need it as Curly cracks eggs open with a hammer and dumps the shells into the skillet, along with the rest of the egg.  Then he uses the hammer like a spatula.  Oh, MY nerves!  At least Larry seems to be doing a half-decent job with the spaghetti.
Next scene: Moe's lathering up a piece of bread with way too much honey and, in my aggressive opinion, way too much ketchup!  Moe says "If there's anything I like better than honey and ketchup, it's baloney and whipped cream... and we haven't got any."  This has got to be one of the best Stooge scripts ever.  The bear returns at 7:45 to partake of the honey in a drinking glass.  This goes on for FORTY SECONDS.  Talk about a time stretcher!  The bear has to take a break from licking the honey to cleanse its pallet.  Lol. 
Screenwriters, heed this next scene well.  Curly's finished with Larry's spaghetti and is heading over towards the table with it in a bowl.  Curly sees the bear and, frightened, ends up unloading the spaghetti onto the plate that is Moe's head.  The bear runs off with the glass of honey before Curly can point it out.  Second lol.  Curly suffers some of Moe's abuse, then tentatively begins to explain what happened.  Finally!  A funny comment!  Curly tells Moe about the bear, much like George Thorogood singing "Bad to the Bone."  Thanks, dmm784!  Moe says "There's no bear around here!".  He looks out the window and gets slapped on the head by the "bear" and offers Curly some quick retribution.  "You're right!  There is a bear around here!"  What a script.  I haven't seen anything like it since Moe's performance in Sock-a-Bye Baby.  Moe gives Curly a bear trap and Larry a shotgun, and gives them their marching orders.  None of this could possibly be helping his nerves.  Larry and Curly tentatively head outside to confront the bear.  Meanwhile, we see Moe indoors.  He starts getting the shivers, so he puts on a very dark, heavy coat... wait for it!  Back to Larry and Curly, who find themselves at the window that the bear so often sat for lunch.  They decide to set the trap there, and camouflage it for good measure.  In the long shot, they use a guy in a bear costume to sneak up on the two.  In the next scene, we see Curly and the real bear!  No wonder he had a heart attack.  Curly ends up standing next to the bear while gathering twigs and leaves to cover the trap.  Curly eventually realizes he's standing right next to the bear, and slowly builds to a full turkey gobble at about 1:14.  The audio seems to get repeated a couple times.  I'll leave it to finer audio scholars than myself to fully break it down.
Now, you might be asking yourselves, what's Larry up to while all this is going on?  Well, he gets scared by the bear, but has a more, uh, self-preserving response.  He quickly leaps up into the cabin and closes the wooden window-door behind him at about 8 fps.  Curly the Automaton forgot to reprogram his LifeScript (tm) and he tries leaping through the closed window-door, but instead takes a bad bounce and... yup, you guessed it.  The very bear trap that was supposed to protect now becomes that thing that punishes.  In his agitated state, Curly confuses the bear trap for the actual bear.  "The bear's got me!"  His agony is palpable.  Moe and Lawrence are safe inside, but they hear what's going on outside... but they can't see it because of the lack of windows.  In perhaps one of his finest dramatic line readings ever, Moe tells Larry "Go on out and save him!" at about 1:43.  Larry says "I'll go, but my heart ain't in it."  Did this not inspire Woody Allen's whole life?
As often happens in these screwball-esque comedies, plot events line up just right.  Moe's cuddling up in the chair in his bear-esque coat.  Larry steps out, and the actual bear steps in.  Moe's about to drink some more nerve tonic when he sees the bear.  He quickly gets up out of the chair and hides behind it at about 12 fps, making sure to keep himself covered in his black furry coat.  The bear looks around and steps out through the window.  Cut to Larry and Curly, where Larry's coarsely removing the bear trap from Curly's posterior.  (See?  I didn't say "ass" that time!)  Larry removes the trap, throws it on the ground and proceeds to scold Curly.  "What's the idea of scaring us half to death?"  Suck it up, man!  You're a Stooge!  A crocodile bit you on the ass, for God's sake!  Of course, he was a slightly younger man back then, and the older you get, the more scared, apparently, if you're a Stooge.  Curly states his case and Larry quickly changes his tune, turning back into a bloodthirsty game hunter.  Off those two knuckleheads go to find that damn bear!  However, they go the way opposite to where Curly was pointing.
Next scene: back inside, where they spy Moe crouched behind the chair in his big furry black coat.  Larry shoots, and a great puff of smoke rises from the Moe-shaped lump.  Moe starts crying out in pain the way he typically does, with emphasis on the letter "o".  Perhaps to save time now, Larry and Curly walk towards Moe rather than run as fast as possible the other way when they realize they shot him in the ass instead of the bear.  Moe takes the gun and, surprisingly, doesn't use it on the other two.  Instead, it gets knocked against the floor.  The gun fires, and bits of ceiling rain down upon the unlucky threesome.  Some seconds later, a duck falls from the sky.  Curly holds out his hand and looks up.  Moe asks Curly what he's doing.  Curly says "Waiting for the dressing and cranberry sauce!"  Moe begins to clamp the duck's beak on Curly's nose, but it's ultimately a private moment amongst the Stooges, as we cross-fade to the next scene.

ACT THREE

Scene: the Stooges pull up to a wooded spot in their car.  Each Stooge has a big shotgun... probably not a good idea.  Moe's nerves have calmed down, and he's able to enjoy this semi-natural spot Thoreau style.  Ever the patriarch, Moe tells the other two to go and shoot their bear, he'll just wait in the car.  Curly stokes the fire: "Oh, still afraid, eh?"  Moe changes his tune right quick.  "Afraid?  Me afraid?  Now I'm mad.  It's either the bear or me!"  Now I know what David Mamet used for source material when he wrote 1997's The Edge.  The boys head off into the woods of the Columbia backlot, just past the barrage of "No Hunting" signs.  Cue the swinging branch bit!
A few seconds after the swinging branch bit (...spoiler alert: only one!  I feel cheated.) they stumble upon the bear.  Moe and Larry run away, while Curly's down on all fours and spots the bear last.  Curly eventually realizes he's all alone: "Hey fellas, I got the... hmmm!"  You know how it is.  Armed with only his frightening bark, Curly launches a vicious counterattack.  The bear runs off, yelping like a puppy!  Emboldened, Curly calls the other two back, and the three of them go up to a small tunnel that the bear ran into.  Moe says to Curly "Well, go on in after him!  What are you afraid of?"  Curly says "The bear!"  Curly uses the barrel of his gun to block the eye poke.  Meanwhile, before that gets a chance to escalate into God knows what, Larry comes up with a half-brain idea.  "Hey, wait a minute!  Look at these rocks!  Let's barricade the cave and... smother him to death!"  Moe slaps Larry's forehead out of happiness, and off they go about the untidy business of collecting rocks.  Larry tries to turn it into fun by pretending a particularly big rock is a football.  He hits Moe in the back of the head.  DOWN GOES MOE!  Curly gets worried.  Larry says "The excitement must've gotten to him!"  What a way to usurp Moe's throne, clever bastid.  They stretch the time out for about ten seconds picking up a passed-out Moe and carrying him over to the car.  Next scene: the car, where they throw Moe into the back seat... or is it just a Moe-shaped dummy?  I'll leave that for others to decide.  Back to work Larry and Curly go.  Curly says "Let's get the bear locked up..."  We'll leave that alone for now.  Meanwhile, we see the bear outside of the cave now, and at Stage Right to the boys.  Larry once again tries to make this boring task fun.  He throws a big rock at Curly, but he throws it too hard, and Curly falls down.  Curly hits Larry in the ass with a small rock.  Larry keeps the momentum going and throws another big rock at Curly.  The rock hits the bear instead.  The boys investigate.  They assume the bear's dead and carry it to the car as well.  But before that happens, another classic Stooge exchange.  Larry: "Taxidermist!  TAXIDERMIST!"  Curly: "Taxidermist to you too!!!"  What a script.
Next scene: we'll never know how long it took Larry and Curly to load the bear into the car, but we now see them driving back to civilization with Moe and the bear in the back seat.  Larry marvels at their accomplishment: getting a bear without firing a single shot!  Now that's what he calls hunting.  Meanwhile, Moe wakes up to find he's in the back seat of the car with a bear.  He leaps out of the car which, fortunately for him, isn't going that fast.  We see him land and hear him say "Oh my nerves!" at about 12 fps.  Either that, or he inhaled a bunch of helium to make his crash landing out of the car a little bit safer.  Meanwhile, back at the car, we see the bear in the back seat hit Curly on the head with his paw.  This scene from 6:43 to about 6:45 is interesting because it appears to have been shot with just a camera on a stationary tripod.  Sometimes the simplest method is the best.  Cue the confusion!  Curly thinks Larry hit him on the head.  Usually they do this bit with Moe, but the plot has thickened without him this time.  Curly gets hit a second time, then Larry gets hit.  Larry asks Curly what's the big idea... Curly answers "I hit you on the head because you hit me!.... I didn't hit you..."  Larry's still pissed off.  Even though it's too late to make a long story short... Long story short, they finally see the bear and they leap right out of the car.  They look up to see the bear in the driver's seat, driving the car!  And SIGNALING!  The bear's new found hobby, however, is short lived, as soon after the bear begins his drive to a new inter-species superiority paradigm, there's a huge crash, and the technological dominance of Homo sapiens is once again assured its rightful place in the natural world.  But the car still has sentimental value to the Stooges specifically, and all of us in general, so we cut back to the car, and the bear walking away from it on all fours.  Now I know what the makers of 1993's Falling Down were inspired by when they set up that one big car crash.
Larry and Curly run up to the crash site.  Curly wonders what Moe will think of all this.  Larry declares that the bear ate Moe, and leads the duo in a period of mourning.  They'll deal with their part in bringing Moe's demise about later on.  Meanwhile, the audience knows how it went down, and we're rewarded with the return of Moe, brandishing an axe.  He takes a mighty swing at Larry, but Larry steps out of the way at the last second.  And so, we get to the Stooge axe swing heard round the world.  We've seen our share of swinging axes in Stooge films before, but never one quite like this.  Curly gets hit on the head with the blade end of the axe, and not one of the traditional non-blade sides of the axe's metal part.  I hate to use the phrase "game change," but I'm sure that even the most casual Stooge fan will agree that this is an epic, iconic game-changing axe hit, and there's a reason it comes here at the climax of the film.  Maybe the censors missed this one, maybe the boys realized they needed to step their game up a notch or two, maybe they were just bored... but ultimately, they take their responsibility to their fans seriously.  They must've realized that it's a taboo thing, as they don't do it that often, at least with an axe.  I'm thinking now about the giant saw raked over the back of Curly's head in Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise.  Man, that one's pretty grisly as well.  Then of course, Moe took a swing with a real axe at Curly in An Ache in Every Stake.  Curly was a little more spry back then and ran out of the way just in time, of course.  Maybe that's worse.  Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and getting old, but I'm telling you!  An axe hit on the head with the blade end is a rare thing... and, of course, Curly's head mangles it beyond usability in very strange ways.  Moe looks at the axe blade in horror, and we cross-fade back to the courtroom.

EPILOGUE

Moe tells the judge that he'll have to stay in bed for another six months.  Worse than 4F, I tells ya.  Judge Dent finds Moe not guilty and dismisses the case.  So much for trial by jury.  Only in a Stooge film.  Moe steps down and takes his axe with him.  Cut to Larry and Curly, who are clearly unhappy with the decision.  But these three have been together for a long time now, having been through the Great Depression and World War II, and since old habits die hard, they fall right back into their usual gravitational pull that keeps most of the rest of the world safely out.  Moe's ready to dispense a little justice of his own and knows just how to set the stage for it and everything.  Hiding Exhibit A behind his back, Moe tells Larry and Curly that he has something for him.  Like Shelly Levene clamoring for fresh leads after telling Ricky Roma about his sale to the Nyborgs, Larry sets the tone by sticking out his open hands, exclaiming "GIVE IT TO US!!!"  Curly follows close behind, sticking out his hands with grabbing fingers, saying "C'mon!"  Moe takes another swing with his axe.  In the courtroom!  They must be in Texas.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Steven Soderbergh

Well, I'm officially out of sibling duos, but Soderbergh is practically a duo unto himself.  If you think of peoples' careers in terms of having three Acts, I suppose the end of Soderbergh's Act One would be about the time of 1996's Schizopolis, where about the same time the Farrellys were also wondering if they had a future in this business or not.  In Soderbergh's case, it may have also been 1995's (The) Underneath.  But he rose like a phoenix and, after collaborating with co-conspirator George Clooney, both of their careers got much needed shots in the(ir) arms.  Clooney has struggled to keep up, but Soderbergh has apparently cloned himself.  How else to explain his burst of productivity in 2000?  Two Academy-Award nominated films in the same year?  Not everyone can be their own cinematographer, though.  Well, it is a little easier these days with digital video cameras, but back then it was basically him and Peter Hyams.  Soddie's staving off his Third Act for as long as possible, but after a biopic about Liberace, he may be close to jumping the shark.  I mean, really?  Liberace?  What next, The Family Circus?  Or did John Hughes do that one already?

RIP Tony Scott?

Oh, right... the box office roundup.  But before we get to that, reports are coming in that Tony Scott jumped to his death from a bridge in California.  A damn shame.  I thought he was doing well!  Maybe he was working too much or something.  Well, I guess this means his brother Ridley will be going within the next couple of days.  Otherwise it wasn't true love.  Seriously, though, Tony will be missed.  It's still kind of baffling to me.  Also, it hasn't hit the IMDb yet, but his name will be up near the top with his years, of course.  If it's true, then farewell, Tony.  The zoom and telephoto lens industry has lost its greatest champion.
Anyway, back to the box office.  Speaking of high-octane action thrillers, mostly for the guys, The Expendables 2 took the box office this weekend.  Go figure.  It's not even in 3D or anything!.. is it?  The Dark Knight Rises could've taken a page or two from the Expendables' book.  Not as much staying power as the one with the Joker in it, clearly.  The other big debut is ParaNorman, with almost as many product tie-ins as the Expendables.  Action figures, special unique Play-Doh colors, what have you.  And I'm told that Sparkle is a remake of a film from either the 60s or the 70s, the decades that will never die.  And someone named Tom Green... I mean, Tim Green, has apparently had an odd life, so Disney immortalized it through celluloid.

March 17, 1945 (two films remain)

If only!  No, no, we've got many, many more yet to profile.  I lost count a long while ago.  Thank God for Wikipedia, though!  They even make the source of the homage extra explicit with Booby Dupes.  Does the plot sound familiar?  Fish salesmen want to cut out the middlemen.  See, they think that the fishermen that do all the work are the middlemen.  Go figure.

ACT ONE

Even though this is a virtual remake of Laurel and Hardy's Towed in a Hole, writer/director Del Lord officially takes all the credit.  Apparently, the Stooges are ripping off their own Cookoo Cavaliers as well.  We see the boys driving through the studio back lot in a van with the word "FISH" painted on the side.  Moe's driving, Curly's riding shotgun, yelling "Fish!" out the window til he's hoarse, and Lawrence is snugly in the middle, blowing a horn into Moe's tender right eardrum.  In Towed in a Hole, Stan was on horn duty.  Incidental music is playing, but suddenly stops.  Curly tells Moe to stop the "car."  The three open the hood and investigate the motor, which turns out to be a turntable with a record.  After revealing the comedy name of the song, Moe throws the album away which turns out to be more like a boomerang than he thought.  Moe gets hit by the record and he and Curly exchange n'yuk n'yuks.  Curly covers his head, because he senses that Moe's going to start destroying the records on it, but unfortunately for the records, Moe's a little smarter than that.  Moe hits Curly in the stomach first.  Curly covers his stomach with his hands, leaving his head exposed, and smash go the records.
A customer interferes with the Stooges' ritual violence.  She asks what kind of fish they have.  Moe and Larry engage in a different Stooge ritual: listing things.  They list a bunch of fish, more or less.  The woman asks for catfish.  They do their three part harmony and open the back door of the truck.  A bunch of cats get pushed out of the truck.  Curly picks up a fish skeleton that still has a head and says "Oh, look!  A skeleton fish!"  The woman leaves almost instantly, undoubtedly on her way to alert the Better Business Bureau.
The Stooges have a problem on their hands.  Their inventory's been eaten by a bunch of cats, and they need more!  Moe words the problem perfectly for the setup by saying "We need to go out and BUY more fish!"  Enter Stan Laurel's original conceit that the boys go into the fish catching business in an attempt to save money by not buying it themselves.  Curly says it right the first time and, like Oliver Norville Hardy before him, Moe says "Say that again!"  Moe stops the repeat a little sooner than Ollie, saying "When you didn't know what you were talking about, you really had something!"  There's a modern-day parallel there someplace, I know it... Anyway, Moe sits on the fish skeleton, and there's the sound of a thousand pin pricks.  Not a lot of time is stretched at this point, surprisingly!  But Larry and Curly put a little fun into the job of extracting fish bones from Moe's ass by turning it into a case of "She loves me, she loves me not..."
Next scene: a uniforms store that also does cleaning and pressing.  We see Moe and Larry dressed up in sailors' uniforms.  The bickering gets started right away when Curly complains that, since this was his idea, he wants to be Captain of their impending fishing vessel.  Moe steam-presses Curly into submission.  Larry salutes Moe as quickly as possible to avoid similar treatment.  Moe and Larry storm off, leaving Curly alone.  They seem to do that an awful lot!  Curly's head may have cooled off since his incident, but he's still steaming in his mind about his demotion.  Fortunately, fate intervenes on his behalf, as similarly sized Vernon Dent gives his suit to Curly, mistakenly thinking that Curly's an employee of the uniform store.  Vernon goes behind the ... you know, one of those partitions you step behind when you have to change clothes.  Curly asks Vernon for the pants and proceeds to steal Vernon's clothes in earnest.  Moe and Larry have a brief scene outside the tailor shop where Moe karate chops Larry on the side of his nose.  Aye indeed!
Screenwriters take note: now, I don't know what it's called officially, but it's the ancient ritual of establishing a pattern.  Curly steps out of the tailor shop in Vernon Dent's snazzy duds.  Two bikini babes... 1940's era bikini babes... walk by.  A guy in uniform says "Hi babe!" and walks off with both of 'em.  Only in the movies.  This teaches Curly what to do, and alerts us to the all-too-likely possibility that Curly's going to get slapped in the face instead.  Spoiler alert: it works just as well for Curly!  At least, when the two ladies he approaches see the uniform.  Who's going to steer this comedy out of the Blue Lagoon and back on course?  Enter Moe and Larry who know that Curly's not a real captain.  They start to go to work on Curly.  The girls go to work on Moe and Larry who get knocked way off of Stage Right.  Yet somehow they end up in garbage cans a little further upstage.  Continuity error!  Curly puts a little icing on the viciousness cake when he slams the garbage can lids on the other two's heads.  As Gordon Sumner once observed, love is stronger than justice.
Was I the only one who thought of Steve Lawrence in 1984's The Lonely Guy?  He seemed to spend the whole film with a gal on each arm.  This was just before AIDS put a chill on the tail end of the late 60s sexual revolution.  Curly, despite his phony rank, isn't able to hang on to both girls for long.  The three of them end up on a bad-looking beach set.  We see a few other pairs of female legs already there.  One of the girls leaves, and the other one, well... disappointment seems to set in at about the 5 minute mark.  Curly gobbles like a turkey for the same reason as the last one.  But then... the plot intervenes.  The girl can see her boyfriend from very very far away... you'll never guess who it is!  That's right!  It's VERNON DENT!  And he's wearing Curly's clothes and hat.  The girlfriend tells Curly to "get out of here" and he does... or does he?

ACT TWO

Much like the token white people in The Gods Must Be Crazy, I guess just the fishing subplot alone wasn't enough for this Stooge flick.  Vernon Dent once again vows to kill the guy who crossed him.  But before that happens, Vernon takes a little break, and sits down in the sand, leaning up against a Curly-sized hill of sand behind him.  This is the part of the film that stretches time out to two reels, or about 16 minutes.  Another continuity error: Curly's hiding a makeup box over his face, but the box moves off the hill and closer to ground level at 6:26!!  And then... the epic struggle as Vernon tries to plant an umbrella in the thin layer of sand covering Curly's stomach.  Maybe this part doesn't last long enough.  Curly reaches his pain threshold and rises up out of the sand.  Vernon flies off Stage Left, and does a handstand right into an ice cream man's inventory.  They're just trying to keep it fresh.  After all, Vernon did cake duty in An Ache in Every Stake.
Next scene: Curly made his getaway, and now the three of them are with a candidate fishing boat.  Curly hits the side of the boat, but salesman and longtime Stooge foil John Tyrell stops him, saying that he might ruin the paint.  The Stooges get screwed in a lot of business deals, but this time they do it to themselves, as Curly and Larry outbid each other on how much to pay Tyrell for the boat... including their car.  I haven't seen anything like it since Laurel and Hardy's Thicker than Water.  And much like The Yoke's on Me, the Stooges laugh loudly to themselves because of their lemon of a car.  Tyrell laughs and tells them the boat's a lemon!  Not a lot has changed since WWII, has it?  The Stooges rush to inspect the boat.  Curly's foot goes through the bottom of the boat and lands on Moe's neck.  Let the games begin!  Moe tries biting, but grows weary of the taste of Stooge flesh, and goes to the backup: a wrench.  For some reason, the editors break from tradition and don't show a Curly reaction shot.  It's all one take, and Moe ends up c'mere-ing to Curly through the hole in the boat.  Finally!  Now we get an edit!  Well, I had a feeling Curly wouldn't be able to stick his head through the hole in time to get in that same shot.  Curly's head comes through the bottom of the boat and Moe puts his wrench on Curly's nose.  Curly gobbles like a turkey yet again.  Curly comes down to ground level, and Moe destroys yet another saw, this time on Curly's neck.  Curly gobbles like a turkey YET AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's not getting old, is it?
And now, the wince-worthy part.  Well, I'm getting on in years, and I might have found this funny younger in life... actually, probably not.  Ollie gets a nail in his foot in The Music Box and I didn't care much for that either.  Here, Moe gets crucified... I mean, he gets nails in both feet.  Well, I suppose he had it coming, getting in the boat while the other two are fixing the bottom, but still... For the Stooges, revenge is a dish best served piping hot right out of the boiling oil.  Moe politely asks the other two for a spare hammer, which he promptly uses to hit them in the head with.  Funny here, not so funny on the New York subway... I'm not even going to look for that one on YouTube, but I'm sure it's probably there, with a comment by Sado360 about how f@@@king hilarious it all is.  Weird people out there.  Moe makes a half-hearted attempt to catch the other two, but they crawl under the boat, so he gives up and sets himself up for the next injury.  He gets in front of the back of the boat, and bends over in front of the propeller.  Larry, subliminally sensing Moe's position, says "Hey!  Let's try the motor!"  Let the grinding begin!  Why does this remind me of Cinemax?... Anyway, Moe's pants are ripped to shreds, but fortunately for us, his boxer shorts are intact.  Moe's much more motivated to catch Larry and Curly this time.  Apparently, his dignity's more important than needing to get a tetanus shot.  Let the chase begin.
Next scene: Just outside Warehouse 23, where the damn boat's finally in the water!  Good Lord.  Well, you gotta hand it to this film.  In Towed in a Hole, they never even made it to the water!  What's that all about?  Anyway, Moe says "Turn her over!" to Larry.  Larry says "Turn her over!" to Curly!  Curly starts to try flipping the boat.  Alas, this isn't Pirates of the Caribbean 3, so it doesn't happen.  Larry helpfully adds the qualifier: "The MOTOR, you dope!"  To save time, Curly knows what that means, so he turns the motor on and makes a foghorn noise.  To stretch the time out further, the boat's still tied to the dock.  Moe notices that, and tells Curly to "pull that rope off" of the pole it's tied to.  Curly ends up pulling the pole down onto Moe's head.  Part of the pole snaps off, and Moe's damn near in a coma.  This is one of those injuries where Moe's too shook up to seek swift retribution against the aggressor (Curly in this case).  Fortunately for all of us, he quickly shakes it off, and continues steering the ship, even though the wheel came off.  He pushes it back into place, and the boat limps on into the next scene.
Next scene: the boys are away from the pier.  Curly gives a half-ass normal human laugh at about 2:25!  We can't have that!  Moe orders Curly to throw out the anchor.  Curly obliges, and tries to tell Moe that it didn't have a rope tied to it.  Moe orders Curly to START FISHING!!!! (my emphasis)  Curly uses a heavy metal sinker on his fishing pole, for some reason.  He swings his pole, hitting Moe in the head with the heavy metal sinker.  Oh!  That's the reason!  Moe rips off the steering wheel and heaves it at Curly... rather, about 45 degrees away from Curly and right into the water.  Curly yells "WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO NOW?"  Moe says "We'll FEEL our way home!"

ACT THREE

This is probably not a good place to call for an Act break, but it's kind of significant in the Stooge mythology, or ethos, or whatever word you'd want to call it.  There's a brief window of opportunity in the bicker-fest between Moe and Curly, and Larry tells Moe to "Shut up!"  Let's just let that sink in for a second... okay, that's over.  And even though Larry steps back from his declaration, Moe still gives him a good slap to the face for good measure.  The scene goes on longer than it should, and the two riff at about 3:14.  But then, the focus shifts to Curly who thinks he's getting a nibble.  Let the fishing begin!  Curly must've found a pocket of flying fish, as one sails over his pole.  He moves the pole to where the fish landed in the water, but they're too smart for that, and another one taunts Curly by leaping out of the water.  A third one leaps.  Then, Curly loses his pole and he grabs a big stick to beat the fish with.  Gee, I wonder who or what will actually get hit?  Hmmm.....
Curly picks up a piece of bait and says "Bait!"  Armed with his magic fish-beating stick and a piece of bait, there's nothing Curly can't accomplish.  Time to see if I can blog and have my cat sit on my lap at the same time... so far, so good!  Anyway, first it was flying fish, now it's spitting fish that Curly's fighting with.  The first volley misses Curly by a good mile or two.  He n'yuk-n'yuks in victory until the second volley hits him.  He regroups with another piece of bait and gets hit in the face a second time with the third spit.  The fish starts biting the bait in Curly's hand.  A mighty, time-stretching struggle ensues, but Curly eventually lifts his mighty fish-bitten limb up and hauls in the first fish.  Moe's impressed!  At least, until the first bad joke.  The fish starts leaping around in the boat, as if it were being lifted by some mighty invisible string.  Curly grabs his fish-beating stick and... yup, right on Moe's head.  I feel a profound sense of closure.
And yet, the struggle continues.  This is the second traumatic injury that Moe has suffered that he hasn't seeked retribution for.  Economics trumps all as they struggle to keep the struggling fish in the boat.  Curly's sense of mayhem leads him to bloodthirsty new heights as he puts down his giant fish-beating stick and grabs an ax instead.  He hits Larry in the back with it.  Fortunately or unfortunately, Larry's just hurt a little bit, and manages to scramble out of the way towards Stage Right.  Curly continues chopping away at the bottom of the boat in a pathetic attempt to catch that fish.  The mortal blow to the boat comes at about 5:01, and the water starts fountaining in.  The situation would be more tragic if they didn't have a backup boat next to their boat.  Moe and Larry use tiny pots and pans to bail out the boat.  Meanwhile, Curly tries to use modern scientific methods and logic to bail out the boat without exerting as much effort as Moe and Larry... and he proceeds to drill holes in the bottom of the boat with a "water-letter-outer."  He's not as concerned this time when the water starts pouring in through drilled holes as he was when the water was pouring in through an ax-chopped hole.  Moe intervenes, but all Curly says is "I'm letting the water out!"  I feel cheated out of a comical explanation.
Next scene: the boat is in the process of completely sinking, and the three of them each have a tiny pot to bail out water... I'm going to be really embarrassed if it's 'bale' instead of 'bail'.  Better not look it up.  Anyway, Larry's line gets sabotaged by a faceful of water at about 6:02 or so.  He says "We're getting some... PLACE!"  The emphasis on place seems to be water-oriented, I'm just sayin'.  Moe and Curly are giddy from impending failure, and soon after the boat finally completely sinks into the briny deep.  Moe and Larry head for the backup boat, with Moe declaring that it's "every man for himself."  Moe and Larry proceed to crank up the dramatic tension by awkwardly climbing in to the second boat.  How soon is this one going to sink?  Moe tries lifting Curly up into the boat by his nose, but alas, Curly's too heavy.  The boat starts to sink when both Moe and Larry get to the end of the boat that Curly's closest to, and the tiny boat starts to quickly fill up and sink.  Next scene: the boat's now fine, and the boys are bailing out the rest of the water.  I guess the script didn't anticipate the developments of the last scene. 
Time for the big WWII-related finish.  A plane's flying overhead and the boys desperately try to thumb a ride with it.  Fortunately, they have a bamboo pole and a sheet to make a makeshift flag out of.  Curly notes that the sheet has some paint on it, but doesn't note that it looks like the flag of ... you guessed it, Japan.  I guess a swastika would've been too passé at this point in the war.  The bombs start falling, but they're not exploding.  Just kicking up a lot of water.

EPILOGUE

The boys eventually put two and two together, but the bombs keep falling.  Moe says "It's the Stooges!" but to no avail.  The bombs fall twice as hard now!  I failed to mention it, but Curly said, rather prominently "I saved the Victrola!" once they all get settled into the backup boat.  Moe uses quick thinking to put a propellor on the turntable, and stick it in the water, and the boys make a quick getaway out of harm's way.  We see a tiny boat sail off to the end of the tub, and that's the end.  This one seems to fall in that range of not too terrible, but not too remarkable either.  Three stars out of four.
***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker

Alas, but here's how these knuckleheads' work can be summarized: "Mad Magazine - The Motion Picture."  Except for Ruthless People... does this mean the Zuckers created the Coens?  Perhaps.  Since their Naked Gun heydays, they have split up into their separate camps, Jim Abrahams going the quasi-John Milius route.  With the Hot Shots series, did he think he was actually saving the world?  David stayed the truest to the old nutty formula with Scary Movie 3 and 4, then threw it all away on An American Carol.  They might never recover.

...for what is Batman but an attempt to control the Box Office?

Can't hold 'em off forever, Bruce Wayne!  We've got some serious contenders this week!  I forget who... lemme check Ebert... Bourne Legacy?  Puh-leeze.  Ferrell? Galifianakis?... well, it'll take the R-rated portion of the market.  #1 comedy this weekend, that's for sure.

January 19, 1945 (three films remain)

For those of you hacking my account, I don't need to tell you, but I thought I'd boast about it anyway.  I passed my 1,000th post a while ago!...
...okay, back to the films.  Time for the next Stooge short called A Pest in the House.... I mean, Three Pests in a Mess.  Really, it's an apt description for any Stooge short, dont'cha think?

ACT ONE

We start with theme music that sounds more like a Shemp short.  A sign of things to come.
Scene: the offices of Cheatham Investment Company.  As you can see, Truman should've been investigating shady business dealings that weren't war-related.  There's Christine McIntyre, some dufus in a hat, and another shady-looking guy on the phone... damn!  Who does he look like?  A cousin of Grady Sutton, perhaps.  It's Brian O'Hara, and this is one of the films he's known for, according to his IMDb résumé.  Well, we'll get to Mr. Noisy soon enough, I suppose.
Well, as Thirteen Conversations About One Thing tried to warn us, they come out of the woodwork when someone wins a sweepstakes ticket.  In this case, three guys have a ticket worth $100,000.  A lot of money back then.  And it's up to the three crooks to liberate these innocents of their winnings.  You know, tip the scales of justice back to where they belong: with the Mafia having both feet on it.
Meanwhile, the Stooges are at the patent office trying to patent their latest invention.  Moe explains it better than I ever could, but it's a rather dubious flycatcher.  Patent manager Victor Travers is the unlucky victim of this explanation.  I think he'd rather have a face full of mashed potatoes, don't you, folks?  Moe is interrupted twice during his spiel and has to say "That's enough!!" to the other chuckleheads.  Moe gets through describing how it works and says "...and at a penny a fly, there's millions in it!"  The patent man says "Well, when you make your first $100, bring it in and I'll give you your patent."  And off he goes, back into the safety of his office away from the influence of knuckleheads.  He'll probably not escape as Einstein did, however.
Time for some Stooge math.  SPOILER ALERT: Since an amount is part of the plot, we don't get a wacky number this time.  For example, in Income Tax Sappy, Larry asks Shemp how much is ... I think it was 100,000 times 7.5 cents.  Shemp's answer: $89.575.  In the one where they have to raise $100 over the weekend by hanging posters, they'll make the money by 1992.  In this one, Curly starts hammering away on his invisible typewriter, pulls the handle of his invisible slot machine, and pulls out an invisible piece of ticker tape.  Moe reads the figure from it first!!!  A hundred thousand.  Of course, any fourth grader will tell you that 100 times 100 is 10,000, but this is Stooge math we're talking about.  Screenwriters take note: as the boys arrive at their figure, Christine McIntyre emerges into the hallway, hears the boys say "A hundred thousand" over and over again, and off to work she goes.  She starts crying and tells the boys about her troubles, bare cupboards and what not...  Warning flags should've gone up when she opens with "You wouldn't understand, not with all that money."  That's the American people in a nutshell, Mitt Romney.  We must be ruled with your Mormon iron fist.  Sorry, I inserted modern-day politics there!  Love trumps all, and Curly gets to take charge thanks to the earlier established plot device.  Christine says "Nobody loves me and I haven't any food!"  Curly says "I love ya!  And they'll get you some food."  Nice delegation!  More warning flags should've gone up when McIntyre borrows lines from "Old Mother Hubbard," for God's sake!  The Stooges' waterworks get going in earnest, and Lawrence and Curlington make car horn noises when they blow their noses.  There's a nice play on words involving "getting a bottle."  I thought Prohibition ended about 1930 or so, but never mind.  Must've been WWII rationing at work or something. 
The boys are off to their respective tasks.  We stick with Curly, and the tone of the scene changes instantly at about 3:20 or so.  Christine changes from sorrowful to playful!  What fun.   Christine must have some of her jujitsu strength left over from the last one, as she dislocates Curly's shoulder when she pulls him to sit on the couch.  Curly gobbles like a turkey at 3:35 and Christine ruins the take.  They start moving down the couch, and Curly's ass approaches impending danger.  He falls off the couch and sits on a big bunch of long-ass knitting needles.  Christine takes it in stride, but clearly she'd prefer that that didn't happen. 
As you may recall the description from earlier, the bald-headed one of the lottery ticket threesome has two hearts tattoo'd on his chest.  Christine tries to check to see if Curly has that tattoo, but he demurs.  Well, it was a different era, and there was that pesky Hays Code to deal with.  After the knitting needles episode passes, it's back to work on the tattoo.  As it turns out, Curly's a man of many hats, and in this case, many shirts as well.  Christine starts rudely ripping his shirts off, and we go through shirt after shirt after shirt.  The last layer is some kind of metal breastplate, probably from a gladiator pic Columbia was doing that week.  Christine changes her tactic, saying it must be swell to have all that hundred thousand... and then, without realizing it, Curly ruins his chances by telling the truth.  Christine quickly gets angry, and slams her hand on Curly's metal breastplate.  She picks up the mangled mass of ruined knitting needles and throws it at Curly's head.  In keeping with the Ancient Rome theme, Curly now looks like Medusa.  That mass of needles on his head may look harmless, but he drinks a glass of water to prove that a) he's got holes in his head, and b)... he must be built upside down!  Does anyone you know get water on the brain right after drinking a glass of it?

ACT TWO

It's probably a little premature for the Act Break, but this Stooge short's a rambling one, and just rolls on from one damn thing to another... sorry, Spoiler Alert.  Moe and Larry return from the grocery store that they stole their provisions from.  They get to the door of the offices of I. Cheatham and hear domestic dischord within.  Moe's chivalrous nature takes over.  He pushes Larry aside, opens the door, and gets hit with a bottle of ink... wait for it.  Meanwhile, Curly leaves through a door marked "Private."  Larry engages in some politically incorrect humor... hmm!  Much like he does later on in Slaphappy Sleuths.  Sorry, SPOILER ALERT.  Compare these two scenes for me, maybe I'm crazy.  Three Pests in a Mess, Slaphappy Sleuths.  Nope, still can't see it. 
Fortunately for the Stooges, there's usually a bucket of water close by that they can use, much like the folks in The Wizard of Oz were fortunate to have a bucket of water to use on the Wicked Witch.  Moe heaves the water on Christine as she comes out.  His reflexes must be getting dull, even now.  Instead of consoling her, Moe and Larry decide it's time to run off.  They pick the closest door.  Moe and Larry run inside.  Moe and Larry just as quickly run back out, with Curly following.  They all run into the wall and go boom.  They make a quick recovery, and Moe proceeds to tear into Curly for womanizing gone wrong, until... Cheatham and his goon show up!  The Stooges pick a door on the other side of the hallway and quickly run inside.  They slam the door and get a hunting rifle dropped on their heads.  Notice that there are two rifles above the door.  This will come in handy later on.  Somehow, the following group of actions is repeated: the two bad guys struggle to open the door, they stop, step back, and start to ram the door.  The Stooges come running out, see that the bad guys are there, run back inside and hold the door some more.  Let's call this "Stooge Macro 1".  So, Stooge Macro 1 plays out, and the Stooges get the second gun dropped on their heads.  Curly picks up one of the rifles, and uses the butt of the rifle to hit the door.  The rifle fires and we see a man at a window who now has only a smoldering half of his hat left.  The hat man runs off.  This is what is known as an "establishing shot" or "establishing episode."  Moe warns Curly about proper gun safety.  Curly hits the butt of the rifle against the door again, saying "All I did was this!"  This time, a mannequin falls over.  In their panic, the Stooges assume it was a live human being.  As with most Adam Sandler comedies, just go with it, but arguably we're not past the point of no return yet, so I wouldn't blame you if you bailed out now.  I almost wish I could.
Anyway, Stooge Macro 1 repeats again.  To be fair, it's not the exact same footage, and the bad guys have to help the Stooges close the door all the way.  I forgot to add that, for some reason, Moe gives the two thugs a Heil Hitler sign.  The boys decide to leave the offices of Ajax Sportswear through the window, but their sense of morality and, more importantly, the need to pad out the film to 16 minutes compels them to take the body of the bullet-riddled mannequin with them.  Meanwhile, Christine tells the other two knuckleheads that the three with the winning ticket had only $12 left after paying income taxes.  Must've been higher taxes on winnings back then, or maybe they're still the same.  If it were inherited wealth, that's another matter.
Back to the Stooges, struggling with their newborn mannequin.  They try to leave it in the alley, but a policeman intervenes.  The boys start to explain that it was all a horrible accident, but the cop points to a sign that says "DUMP NO RUBBISH HERE."  The Stooges almost get away with it, but the cop puts two and two together when some of the mannequin's limbs start to peek out of the bag.  The cop says "Come back here, you murders!" and the boys start running some more.
Next scene: the Ever Rest Pet Cemetery.  The boys eventually decide that this is a good place to leave the body, even though he might not have been someone's pet.  Curly gets scared by a particularly aggressive tumbleweed.  Moe and Larry take time out to console him, when Larry comes up with a good idea: "Why don't we bury him out on the street?"  Curly cuts through the logic of that one: "What?  And have someone run him over and kill him again?"  The funeral march continues.  To kill some time, we focus on Curly, as he runs afoul of the mannequin's hand, which seems to have become a little more human in the interim!  Curly keeps getting slapped on his head and shoulder, and then in his face.  He drops the uncooperative mannequin/corpse, runs up to Moe and starts choking Moe's neck.  Larry seig-heils Curly on the head to knock him loose, then the dialog begins.  Curly: "You know that dead guy?  He just slapped me!"  Moe: "Like THIS?"   Curly: "Yeah, just like that, only on the other side!!"

ACT THREE

A mustachio'd cemetery worker hears all the commotion and makes a phone call, but he doesn't call the cops: he calls Mr. Black, the cemetery owner.  Unfortunately, Mr. Black is giving a masquerade party, but comes over anyway.  I never saw Six Feet Under... is this the kind of thing that would happen on that show all the time?  Back to the cemetery worker, played by 'Snub' Pollard.  You remember him from such films as It's a Gift (1923) and It Happened in Flatbush.  For me, though, his best role was probably in... I just reviewed it, too!  What was it... that's it!  As Sheriff Hogwaller in Phony Express.  Anyway, the cemetery worker's trying to investigate what's going on, but he gets in over his head.  The Stooges are approaching, and there's nowhere to hide.  Enter the comedic solution: the cemetery worker finds a bag big enough to cover himself up if he squats down.  Larry points to the squatting cemetery worker in the bag and says "There!  There's the body..."  Curly killed it, so Curly has to carry it to the hole.  Curly kicks the dog, so to speak.  "This is all your fault!," says Curly, and kicks the cemetery worker.  Curly leans down and makes the carrying pose, and the cemetery worker kicks back!  Curly asks "Did you kick me?"  The cemetery worker says "No."  Priceless.  Almost worth writing a blurb about!...
Next scene: the cemetery owner (Vernon Dent) and his two awful friends show up to find out for themselves who could be breaking into the pet cemetery this time of night.  They have costumes similar to the ones of the three bad guys in Spook Louder.  One was a devil, and one was a skeleton in that one, too.  What's the third guy supposed to be?  A magician?  The guy's hat in Spook Louder is shorter, anyway.  But back to the instant case.  Here's Vernon's plan: "We'll spread out and search the grounds.  If you spot anyone... whistle!"  I guess that's about what the police would do.  Close enough. 
They get to work.  Vernon is about to run into Curly.  Curly almost gets his head bashed in.  Twice!  The phone rings.  Curly finally answers it, then yells out "CALL FOR PHILIP BLACK!"  Vernon can't resist and steps forward, saying "I'm Mr. Black!"  Curly says "Phone, sir."  Curly then realizes what's going on and hits Vernon right in the hat.  He doesn't need a giant stick like Vernon does.  That's what separates the heroes from the villains.  Vernon has a lot of trouble getting his hat off, and tries some short, hard breaths.  We cut to Moe and Larry before he can get his hat off.  LOL. 
Next scene: Moe and Larry are in trouble, and they have no idea the severity of it.  The Devil... I mean, the guy in the Devil costume approaches.  Larry must be a very religious man, because he quietly steps back in horror, not bothering to tell Moe about it.  That's Larry for you: always hard at work trying to take Moe's place.  Moe says to the Devil "I think I see something over there.  Follow me."  Finally realizing he didn't just see Larry, Moe stops.  The Devil puts his two-pronged pitchfork on Moe's neck.  Moe turns around... ooh!  Good cinematography.  Moe took a page from Dudley Dickerson's book.  Moe runs off and ends up competing with Larry for the same door, even though they supposedly went in opposite directions.  They get another opportunity to do the ol' switcheroo at the door gag that happens so often in these "haunted house" shorts of theirs.
Meanwhile, Larry runs into the guy in a skeleton costume.  Eventually, after gestating in fear for a suitable period, Larry makes a grand escape, going under the door he just came through.  The skeleton is confused.  Back to Curly who shouts out "HEY MOE!  HEY LARRY!  I FOUND THE BODY!!!"  Don't think about it.  Fortunately, Moe found a human-sized grave that hasn't been filled yet.  The three costumed socialites have also found the hole.  Vernon gets the ultra-bright idea that the three of them will hide in the grave in the hopes of "catching" the Stooges.  Don't think about it.  The Stooges approach with their mannequin in a bag.  Moe orders Curly to throw the mannequin in the hole.  Curly throws the mannequin in.  Curly turns around.  Suddenly, the mannequin gets un-thrown and lands back up next to the Stooges' feet!  Curly turns back around, sees the bag and says "NAAH!! No, no!"  Moe says "I said, throw him in and cover him up!"  It's going to be a long two minutes.  Curly gets his marching orders again, and Moe and Larry leave the scene.  Moe says it's to "keep a sharp lookout," but you and I know that it's in times of crisis like this when Curly works best alone.  The game of cadaver ping-pong continues in Moe's and Larry's absence.  The stakes are upped when Curly gets hit in the head with the mannequin and the mannequin falls back in under its own potential energy.  Moe and Larry return, and Moe promises to kick Curly in the mouth.  Well, Moe's rubber and Curly's glue, I suppose. 
Anyway, the three cemetery-owning socialites must've gotten weary of the game of cadaver ping-pong, so Curly wins in sudden death overtime.  The boys start the second phase: piling dirt on top of the body.  The three socialites yell "HEY!!!"  Moe asks Curly, "What are you yelling about?"  It's going to be a long 36 seconds...

EPILOGUE

The two groups of three finally look at each other in earnest.  The Stooges get so freaked out, they jump out of their very shoes, running off in socked feet, with Curly woo-woo-wooing all the way home.  I guess the Stooges never really had a big budget, and they never got to make the epic-length Slacker-esque shaggy dog story, but this one's close enough.  Also, this is one of those shorts I used to watch all the time, so I probably should've recused myself from reviewing this one, but I'm just a sucker for these haunted house Stooge shorts.

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