A Guy named Shemp

If memory serves... and it doesn't seem to right now... the Stooges haven't tackled the Pearly Gates yet.  They've actually contemplated trying to get there prematurely only a few times, and have certainly behaved throughout their on-screen careers in a fashion that, to describe it as "live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse behind," would not be adequate.  It's a good thing they're living cartoon characters, otherwise they would've perished in early Spring 1935 from injuries sustained.
But I digress.  In Heavenly Daze, here we are at the Pearly Gates.

ACT ONE

I'm not a particularly religious man, and I don't know who to expect at the Pearly Gates, but it would be kinda neat if it was someone either a) familiar or b) friendly.  In Shemp's case, it's at least a).  It's Moe disguised as Shemp's Uncle Mortimer, and Mortimer's got a desk with a phone and a seat just inside the entrance of the Pearly Gates.  It must be the weekend at the Pearly Gates, as there's no one else waiting to get in.  (Also, it was most likely the weekend at Columbia when they were filming this.)  You'd think having a desk right there in front of the Gates wouldn't be so great, especially if you could be seen and heard by the riff raff.  Part of the reason why I probably wouldn't have done well as a bus driver.
Mortimer gets off the phone with God, or God's secretary, whoever... maybe one of the Seraphim or Cherubim.  Mortimer asks the secretary (Miss Jones) to bring in Shemp's Earthly Report.  Oh, that can't be good.  Miss Jones brings the report and flirts with Shemp quite a bit, if I do say so myself.  Shemp gets a wing-boner... I mean, Shemp gets excited by Miss Jones.  Time to start filling in Shemp's Heavenly Report, the part about "Conduct Unbecoming an Applicant."  Uncle Mortimer reads through the report and says "I hope you brought your asbestos suit with you!"  It takes Shemp a while to figure out what that means.  So much for the b) part from earlier.
Uncle Mortimer tells Shemp that he doesn't know the whole story of Shemp.  "I died before you were born," he says, but the report does detail the bad behaviour of Shemp and his "cousins" Moe and Larry have been "pretty bad boys."  At this point, Shemp resigns himself to Hell, asking for "a pitchfork and a red Union suit." I know, I know, a bit unfair to unions, but they were more prominent back then.  What Shemp doesn't realize is that Heaven has as much room for negotiation as any place on Earth.  Take the wager between God and the Devil over Job, for example.  Uncle Mortimer has as much power as well... say!  Maybe Uncle Mortimer's actually God!  Anyway, enough with the deep theological discussion.  Mortimer lays out the scenario: Shemp can get into Heaven if he says he believes only in Jesu... no, that's not it.  Shemp can get into Heaven if he reforms Moe and Larry.  The catch: Moe and Larry won't be able to see or hear Shemp.  Shemp is strangely optimistic about his chances for success.  Shemp gets another eyeful of Miss Jones, and catches the train back to Earth to begin his quest.  All the while, ghostly background music is playing; not usually what they're budgeted for in these things.
To kill some time, Shemp runs into a "rain cloud."  Shemp tries to argue with it, but it just thunders and sprays him in the face.  Never argue with a rain cloud, or wear roller skates in a buffalo herd.  After getting sprayed by the rain cloud, Shemp says "What's the idea?  You think you're in California?"  I'm still scratching my head over that one.  I guess he's referring to the occasional desert flooding or something.  And I thought I knew a thing or two about comedy.  Just then, two other female angels walk by, and Shemp hits on them as well, making that train whistle noise on the second one.  So much for Miss Jones!  Well, never eat where you ... ah, skip it.  I think he's going to miss his train.
Next scene... or is this Act Two?

ACT TWO

Scene: the office of Attorney I. Fleecem, where we hear Moe and Larry crying.  Fleecem, played by the diminutive Vernon Dent, goes through the legal boilerplate that is the last will and testament.  "Whereas" this and "the party of the First Part" that, sheesh.  I'm glad I'm not a lawyer.  They do that thing again where the camera dollies in on a door, the door opens, and action's going on behind it.  It's the whole film's budget in one scene, but sometimes you just gotta be fancy.  Now, amongst the boilerplate is the line "Whereas I, Shemp the Stooge, being of unsound mind, do hereby prove it by leaving all my worldly possessions to my cousins Moe and Larry.  Share and share alike."  In a daring plot twist, Moe and Larry don't immediately stop crying and say "Worldly possessions?  Oh boy!  Park Avenue!  Caviar and dames!"  I guess they knew he was destitute.  They wring out their cry rags into a pot and a flower rises like a phoenix, aloft on wings of salty tears.  Ever the thespian, Vernon picks up a sock and says "This is all of poor Shemp's worldly goods... 140 dollars, to be divided equally between you."
...I spoke too soon.  The boys instantly stop crying and grab for the sock.  Moe wins, and beats Larry with the sock.  Moe removes a big soft roll of bills and says "Hey!  There seems to be some more here!"  And then... SNAP!  Moe cries out in pain.  At first we think it's a mousetrap, but it's only an extra-voracious set of dentures.  The audio repeats briefly after about 5:19.  Larry laughs and... you'll never guess what Moe does.  Yup, he puts the teeth on Larry's nose and squeezes.  "Laugh THAT off!" he ad-libs.
Moe starts quietly thumbing through the bills, and we get a shot of an empty corner of I. Fleecem's office.  Bad filmmaking.  I mean, what is this?  There's nothing happening over there!  The action's on Moe now, and the counting out of Shemp's bills!  Duh!... oh, right.  This is where Shemp's going to materialize.  And he does so in a calm and dignified manner, decked out in a fancy winter coat and stylish hat.  Not quite like Bogey in Casablanca, but a bit more rounded on top.  Geez, Shemp must've been on downers or tranquilizers or something for that scene.  I've never seen him so relaxed!  Even after he gets an eyeful of Moe and Larry!  Oh, this is game changing.
Meanwhile, Moe's devised a fiendish plan to count out Larry's 70, and make a few shortcuts along the way. Two shortcuts, in fact, and Larry ends up with only 13 dollars.  Showmanship, baby!  This isn't Sesame Street, after all!  Alas, Larry was born at night, but it wasn't last night, and he knows when he's getting hoodwinked.  "Hey!  Your pile's bigger than mine!" he says angrily.
At this juncture, Shemp intervenes by blowing the pile of money onto the floor.  Moe thinks Dent did it; after all, isn't the lawyer entitled to a third?  (We'll get to that in a second...) Time for the old "What're you growling about?" routine, but with the latest new twist on it.  Shemp moves the money from the floor to the desk again.  Remember, they can't see or hear him.  Larry divides the money this time, and he does it even faster than Moe, riffling through it like a deck of cards.  Moe says "I think you gypped me!" and slaps Larry in the face.  Now comes another one of those moments that could change the Stooge dynamic forever and ever and ever: Purgatory Shemp says "You've been pickin' on that little guy (Larry) long enough.  It's about time you got a dose of your own medicine."  And Shemp slaps Moe in the face.  Remember, they can't see or hear him.... Alas, this just makes Moe angrier, and there's some more physical violence, until Dent decides he's had enough.  Won't be long before all the furniture gets broken!  "Hey!  That's enough of this nonsense," says Dent.  But that's their whole god damn raison d'être, ain't it?  "Pay me my fee," says Dent.  Damn; this guy's serious.  His fee?  $150.  Figures.  Moe helpfully says "All we got is $140!"  I'm sorry, he says "But Shemp only left us $140!"  "I'll take it," says Dent, adding "Are you sure this is all you got?"  Moe and Larry turn out their pockets.  Fleecem finally lives up to his name.  I wonder if he's Greek or Dutch.
Dent rubs it in a little more.  "Any other lawyer would've taken the case for $20!"  Shemp says "Oh, is that so?" and removes the money from Dent's vest pocket, Harpo style.  Dent leaves his office, with Moe and Larry still inside, saying "Don't stay in the office too long."  Meanwhile, Shemp divides the money himself and gives it to Larry and Moe.  Remember, they can't.... did I say that already?
Shemp messes with their minds a little more until Moe finally gets suspicious; rather, gets the feeling that supernatural forces are at work here.  Only in the movies.  "Shemp said he was gonna come back to Earth and haunt us!" says Moe.  Now, remember what Shemp said before about Moe always picking on Larry, the "little guy"?  All bets are off when Larry calls Shemp a "fathead."  (Disclaimer: The Movie Hooligan is not responsible for the content of third party sites.)  Larry whinily wonders why Moe hit him.  In a rare bit of honesty, Moe doesn't take credit for the bit, confirming the ghost hypothesis for Larry.  Moe's still unconvinced, so he dares Shemp to take a shot.  And POW!  Does he ever.  Moe's stunt double bounces around like a superball until he smashes into the wall, dislodging a potted plant.  Alas, the plot won't let Moe fade to black in peace, passed out, so he comes to, fondles his sore chin and says "I'm convinced!"  Moe takes great pains to keep the plant on his head, standing up slowly.  We see a "painting" of a cowboy on the wall next to Moe.  Moe's convinced that Shemp's returned to haunt him, but Larry's still not, for the sake of dragging this out to a 16 minute short.  "Shemp, if it's really you, do somethin' else to prove it!" shouts Larry to the rafters.  The cowboy fires a few rounds, and Moe and Larry hightail it out of the offices of I. Fleecem, Attorney.  They kill some time by taking turns holding each other back.  Shemp indulges in a little pride of accomplishment.  Fade to black.

ACT THREE

Fade in on Moe and Larry, dressed in fancy clothes and smoking fancy cigars / cigarettes.  They call each other Lordon Larryington and Sir Moe-ington... oh my God!  They've turned gay!  No, they're just pretending to be well-off Capitalists about to ink a deal for their latest invention.  It's a fountain pen that writes under whipped cream... there's probably a thing about it on Wikipedia.  Well, sometimes a true comedian has their own personal windmill to pursue.  For Bob and Doug McKenzie, it was the mouse in a beer bottle that led to a whole movie.  For the Stooges at this stage in their career, it's a fountain pen that writes underwater.  Mocking progress, that's their stock and trade!
"Say, where's that butler of ours?" asks Moe.  Hoh boy... well, he's not forced to do any Dudley Dickerson shtick... YET.  The butler leaves, and Shemp arrives, shaking his head in disapproval when Moe outlines their one last big final score before retiring for good... something like that.  Well, there used to be easy pickins back then, ripping off the De Puysters of old.  They're smarter now, and tend to only arrow corrupt politicians into their inner social circle.
Moe and Larry walk away, and Moe says "I hope the De Puysters are impressed with our butler..."  Here we go.  Bug-eyed time.  Shemp can't actually walk through doors, so he has to stop in front of it before he fades out, lol.  So much for a lack of VistaGlide, or maybe RenderMan to make a fake door.
Now, here's something for us film nerds to jump all over.  Shemp's hat and coat aren't visible when Shemp's holding on to them, but when he puts them in the butler's arms, they're visible and touchable!  There's an inconsistency or two there someplace, not to mention Shemp being able to call on Uncle Mortimer for favors.  Shemp's going to get Uncle Mortimer in trouble with God!  Shemp makes his hat rise briefly in the air and fall back into the butler's hands.  The butler only mildly freaks out, dropping the hat and coat.  Crazy white people.  A hundred years earlier, that'd be a whippin'.  How far we've come.
Just then, Moe and Larry return with drinks in hand... gee, I wonder what's going to happen?  They ask for more proof that it's Shemp, of course.  Shemp obliges their curiosity with pins in the ass.  The butler approaches Moe and Larry.  Is it wrong of me to like this scene?  Probably.  The butler's played by Sam McDaniel, apparently the brother of Academy Award winner Hattie McDaniel.  Sam was on "I Love Lucy" but he spent one weekend slumming with the Stooges, God bless him.  I kinda like the way he says "Did you say 'dead'?"  Is that wrong / racist of me?  Probably.  He's still more low key than Dudley Dickerson, I can't help but notice.
The doorbell rings.  It must be the de Puysters, as Shemp's sitting in the room with everyone... but the butler doesn't know that.  Moe insists that the butler answer the door.  "I'll go, but my heart ain't in it!" quips the butler.
Next scene: while the boys mop up the drinks they've spilled, the butler lets the De Puysters in.  The De Puysters are played by Symona Boniface and Victor Travers, two long-suffering lifetime members of the Stooge Rolling Stock Company.  The butler lets the De Puysters in, but cautiously, prompting Mr. De Puyster to say "Why, you look like you've seen a ghost!"  The butler can't help but quip "Mister, you don't know the half of it!"  And so, the 1989 version of We're No Angels was born.
Moe offers the De Puysters a seat.  Meanwhile, Shemp scares the butler out the door by putting on Mrs. De Puysters' fur coat and walking around.  Rather, through the door.  Still, this scene really calls for that extra special touch that Dudley Dickerson always puts on things.
Next scene: Moe and Larry wheel out the equipment necessary to test their fountain pen that writes under whipped cream.  The fountain pen is plugged in to a mixer where normally a mixing tine would go, and the mixer is set to "Low."  A piece of paper is placed at the bottom of a mixing bowl, and whipped cream is poured over the paper... what a Stooge-ly setup this all is, don't'cha think?  Professor Moe explains to the De Puysters: "Now turn the motor on to low... it MUST turn slowly.  Otherwise, it would overflow!"  Hey, he's a poet and he don't know it!  Shemp knows what he has to do.  And while Moe quickly tries to close the deal, saying to the De Puysters "Now, would you care to make out your check for $50,000 now or later?" ... ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.  Hell in the form of gobs of projectile whipped whipping cream.  No one is spared its sweet, salty fury, not even poor long-suffering Mrs. De Puyster.  It takes longer than she thinks, but she eventually gets hit, too.  And a second time, for good measure.
Now, I hate to be cynical at an occasion like this, but screenwriters take note.  Even the Stooges occasionally like to line up a few more dominoes than usual.  Larry smears some whipped cream on Moe's face, and Moe naturally retaliates.  So Lawrence now has a full forehead of whipped cream.  After a wide shot of the bedlam, ... SPOILER ALERT... Larry gets the fountain pen stuck in his forehead, making the delightful trademark "BOI-OING!" sound.  It's especially painful.  Shemp beams with pride and files another report to Uncle Mortimer.  Just then, the mixer explodes and catches on fire.  Shemp starts screaming "Help!  Help!!!!"

EPILOGUE

SPOILER ALERT: It was all just a dream.  I kinda hate it when they do that.  But Shemp does wake up in bed with a small fire for a companion.  He mumbles himself to consciousness, then starts screaming anew, as his ass is on fire.  Next scene: Moe and Larry at the breakfast table.  Larry asks Moe, "Want a piece of pie?"  They eventually look over at screaming Shemp, see the fire, and run to his aid.  And even though Shemp's wearing an asbestos suit under his burning clothes, I'll bet it was still hot.  Larry gets a bucket of water, and Moe gets the lion's share of it, of course.  Moe tries to put out the fire on the bed with the head of an ax.  Larry returns with a second bucket of water, but before he can douse Moe with it, Moe gives a mighty swing and hits Larry upon the head with the ax; the flat side, not with the blade.  Why, that just wouldn't be as funny!  Moe eventually covers up the fire with the rest of the blanket.  Smart boy!  He's beginning to use a bit of his brain.  Meanwhile, Shemp, moving around on the floor, discovers the full bucket of water and puts out the fire on his ass the only way he knows how: he pours the water on the carpet, then sits down in it.  A mighty plume of smoke rises when he sits down... does that mean that Shemp is the Devil?
The fire has stopped burning, despite Billy Joel's contentions otherwise.  Larry and Moe stand over Shemp, so tall that we can't see their faces.  Shemp, happy that the fire on his ass is out, tells the other two about the dream he had, but just the part about them inventing a fountain pen that writes under whipped cream.  Moe takes the pie that Larry earlier offered him a piece of, and gives the whole thing to Shemp's face.  "There's your whipped cream!" says Moe.  Moe hands Shemp a fountain pen, saying "And there's your fountain pen!"  Larry hands Shemp a piece of paper, saying "Write yourself a letter!"  Shemp puts the pen to his face and begins to write "Dear Ma,..."  Does this mean that the whole film wasn't a dream?  Is this like The Sixth Sense, but different?  Did Shemp elaborately fake his own death by falling asleep in bed?  I better watch this again and look for clues.

Bad double bill with: Bedlam in Paradise

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Popeye on the Flying Trapeze

Hoh boy.  I hate to say it, but I don't care for musicals so much... actually, that's not true.  After all, are not The Blues Brothers and O Brother, Where Art Thou? musicals?  Not to mention I'll Do Anything... sure, it was almost a full musical, but they've still got those parts where you can feel a musical number coming on.  Then of course, the Fleischers' own Poor Cinderella and two-reeler Popeye cartoons.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't care for musicals like Man on the Flying Trapeze, but maybe if I watch it enough it'll grow on me, just like Nothing But Trouble.

ACT ONE

Again, a long slow zoom-in on the title card.  What gives?
First scene: the usual; Popeye singing his theme song... or is it?  Apparently the Fleischers were conscious of a certain sense of monotony setting in, so they switched it up a little bit.  We catch Popeye at the "I Yam what I Yam" part of the song this time.  And, of course, the Fleischers always liked to fight back against the normal easy use of perspective in cartoons.  Popeye's the lone captain of a giant steamer ship that still has an old-fashioned wooden wheel.  We see Popeye steering in between giant waves on the ocean.  The saxophones signify that he's out where we can see him.  Lol.  Next scene: the shore, and I'll be damned if Popeye doesn't make his ship sail onto dry land.  Next scene after that: Popeye makes a turn at the intersection, knocks down a traffic light, and drops anchor in front of the ramshackle Oyl household amidst the newer development in the city blocks.  Popeye knocks on the front door.
Nana Oyl comes to the door, and Popeye sheepishly asks for Olive.  Then... the musical begins.

ACT TWO

We learn that Olive has run off this time with the Man on the Flying Trapeze.  Nana Oyl sings about the dude!  If you're a fan of this song, you just might really like this Popeye cartoon.  Unless you're very picky about how they envision what he looks like.  I can't tell if he's voiced by Bluto or not; kinda sounds like it.  "My love he has taken away," sings a heartbroken Popeye.  He slowly slinks off the Oyl's porch, hands in pockets.
And then, Popeye runs across a temporary soul mate: three young kids and their cat.  We don't know who the kids are, but they know who Popeye is, and they listen to Popeye's heartbreaking tale.  That eats up some time.
We go from a poster of the Trapeze Man to the Trapeze Man himself, where a carnival barker who sounds like Wimpy sings the song for us yet again, but at a slightly faster tempo.  Back to Popeye, who says again "My love she has taken away."  (she?)  He punches the poster, and the part with just the Man on the Flying Trapeze falls out.  Popeye and his four companions go inside to watch the show.
What is it with the Fleischers and bleachers full of people?  You'll like the way Popeye makes room for himself and his new friends.  I know I did.  Cut to the actual Wimpy, who's alternately blowing on a whistle, and eating Homer-sized bites of a hamburger.  I think Homer Simpson was influenced by these cartoons, I really do.  He gets the two confused at this point, lol.  Just like Intolerable Cruelty.
Anyway, Wimpy introduces Trapeze Man, and now it's Trapeze Man's turn to sing the song.  I still say it's Bluto.  And then, we see Olive, who's now part of Trapeze Man's act!  Things always turn out this way for Olive.  Olive sees Popeye in the crowd and tries to say hello.  Oh, Olive, you just don't get it.  The territoriality of guys, and how their hearts get so easily broken.  Popeye turns up his nose, and now Olive's heartbroken.
Oh, it gets worse, folks.  Time for Olive to go to work.  Trapeze Man grabs Olive by the neck with his feet and starts swinging her around!  That's cruelty to people!  This goes on for a while, until Trapeze Man throws Olive to the next trapeze.  The trapeze breaks, and Olive hangs onto the ropes.  Trapeze Man leaps and has to use Olive herself as the trapeze.  Man, Trapeze Man's got glassy-looking eyes!  And that moustache of his is so... masculine.  Dead butch, especially for the time.
Next stunt: Trapeze Man goes to the next trapeze.  He puts a strap in his mouth and dangles Olive from the other end of the same strap.  Olive spins around until she gets totally twisted up like a big wad of spaghetti on a fork.  Or like string on a spool, to use a non-food example.  How the guy's able to sing with a thing in his mouth, I'll never know.  Popeye's finally had enough; time to intervene.

ACT THREE

Popeye turns out to be a rather accomplished trapeze artist in his own right.  He grabs onto Olive and reaches the nearest trapeze.  The strap breaks that was being held between Olive's teeth and Trapeze Man's teeth.  Soon enough, the metaphorical tug-of-war over Olive between Popeye and Trapeze Man now becomes all too literal, as they both end up pulling on Olive and stretching her out like a giant piece of taffy, with Popeye holding on to Olive's feet, and Trapeze Man holding on to her hands.  This happens three times.  She ends up on Trapeze Man's side of the big top, alas.  She struggles to maintain her balance.  Soon after, it's Popeye's turn to struggle to maintain his balance!  Not as good as he thought he was.  Trapeze Man has nerves of steel for this kind of thing, and he has enough presence of mind to give Popeye a good punch.  You shouldn't a did that, Mister!  Popeye flies over one trapeze and grabs onto it with his chin.  And then, it hits Popeye in a flash: this would be a good time to eat some spinach.  Popeye's finally had enough; tine to take his game up a notch to the next level, back in the day.  Epic!  Iconic!  Game changing!  The spinach theme's a little different this time, too.
And so, with complete trapeze skills in his temporary arsenal, Popeye confidently steps from one trapeze to another to give Trapeze Man the beating he'll never forget.  Reminds me of the end of A Dream Walking when Olive steps from I-beam to I-beam to end up home.  Popeye knocks Trapeze Man over to the trapeze that Popeye was just on.  Then, the two swing back and forth, meeting in the middle for a quick punch, then back out again.  If this film teaches you nothing else, it's that it's tough to have a proper fist fight in the air on trapezes.  Olive cheers Popeye on from her lofty but treacherous perch.  We can see her underpants... you might want the kids to leave the room at this point.
And now, the two warriors hang from the trapezes by their feet, but Trapeze Man's apparently out cold.  Popeye gives him a good punch, and his trapeze comes back with just Trapeze Man's shoes clinging to it, lol.  That's probably the second visual highlight of the whole pic.
Don't worry, folks, the filmmakers make sure that no serious harm really comes to the bad guys, as is the case here.  Trapeze Man found his way to another trapeze.  So, Popeye starts kicking a guy when he's down... I mean, kicking Trapeze Man from one trapeze to the next, in time with the music.  Cut to the audience; specifically, the three kids and their pet cat, who start singing "He floats through the air with the greatest of ease..."  Sheesh.  It takes a hell of a song to prop up a 6 minute short like this.  But you will notice that the he of the song clearly now refers to Popeye, and not the other guy.
But the other guy's not quite down for the count yet, and he lands a solid punch on Popeye's giant chin, laughing about it afterwards.  But Popeye doesn't let this aggression stand, and hits the guy twice right back.  Trapeze Man hits the soft ceiling of the big top and morphs into an electric candelabra from Hell!  Clive Barker, eat your heart out.

EPILOGUE

Joyous in victory, Popeye slides down the pole, Aug-aug-auging all the way.  He then gestures to Olive to jump, so he can catch her from the ground.  Oh, if government regulations were more widespread, these things would be riddled with giant "DO NOT ATTEMPT"s all over them, just like episodes of Beavis and Butthead once had.  To make matters worse, she takes Popeye up on his offer and jumps!  At this point, the three kids and one cat run up to Popeye and scream "HOORAY FOR POPEYE!"  Popeye turns and misses Olive, but catches her on the first bounce.  THEY DID THAT ON PURPOSE!!  But I guess it's okay, because this is not Husbands and Wives, and it's not Mia Farrow.  It's Popeye and Olive in The Man on the Flying Trapeze, and they'll be working together for a long, long time.  And no matter how low the bar drops on the quality of the animation, they're in this for life.

Good double bill with: Beware of Barnacle Bill

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Christine Acham

Dang!  Even less than Olivier Abbou!  Well, so far she's got one notch in her directing belt... is it safe to assume that Christine is a she?  That's the risk I'm taking.  Anyway, this new Christine directed something called Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of the Spook Who Sat by the Door.  And I assume it's not the ghost kind she's referring to... yup!  So much history I don't know.  Of course, these days a little FBI suppression would be great publicity; if only they'd do that for this documentary!  That'd get some asses in seats!  A similar mojo is working for Silver Linings Playbook!

Sit down, Stand-Up Guys

Alas, the bottom may have fallen out of the 70-something action market, but expectations were low for the non-Expendables related Stallone action flick, Bullet to the Head, based on the graphic French novel Aubergine de la Tête.  I'm sorry, Du plomb dans la tête.  Aubergine's the only French word that comes to tête right now, for some reason.  God, Walter Hill misses the '80s.  They were his heyday, especially when he started having hits, him and his manly cohorts.
Anyway, according to Variety, (Disclaimer: The Movie Hooligan is not responsible for the content of 3rd party sites) the old-timer action comedy Stand-up Guys was only released to exactly 659 theaters.  And so... after all the hoopla.  All the adverts on the TV, after Pacino had to degrade himself by getting the Letterman fingers-in-the-hair treatment, after ALL THAT... the studio itself still didn't have faith in the project.  The studio in question?  Tyler Perry's Lionsgate.  That's what you get for not casting T.D. Jakes as himself, honkies!  This is God's own judgment on yo white heads.  And once again, I must admit that I'm not down with the young people.  They must've been advertising on Nickelodeon for this week's #1 movie, the zombie rom-com Warm Bodies.  Or Twitter or Facebook or Mashable or wherever.  Meanwhile, Silver Linings Playbook holds strong at #3 for the third week in a row!  NOW do you forgive David O. Russell, George Clooney?  You know you're gonna go back to him soon enough!... oh, wait, that's Marky Mark I'm thinking of.  Well, he's busy with the new Transformers movie.  And Ted 2.  But Russell will wait.  He's good at that, if nothing else.

Short Reviews - January 2013

Well, I know when I've been outmatched by the real experts: Yahoo! Movies.  According to them, January contains the "lamest movie weekend of the year."  However, they seem to be beating up on 'Django Unchained' and 'Jack Reacher' more than focusing on the new fare.

Texas Chainsaw 3D - It'll be gone after two weeks

I'm So Excited - Two much!

Unfinished Song -

Hear my Song -

Fill the Void - Woo-ooo!

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone - If he's so incredible, how come I've never heard of...... ICONQUAKE!!!!

The Place Beyond the Pines - Will there be salmon fishing?

Life Tracker - Not Jack Reacher?

Turbo - Hope it lives up to the word

The Gatekeepers - There's more Barbarians at the gate!

Identity Thief - That fat chick's on a hot streak!

Tyler Perry's Temptation - Not waiting until February for this one?  Dayamn.

Pain & Gain - Hope it lives up to the phrase

The Great Gatsby - I have it on the highest authority: a prodigy teenage girl.  She's skeptical about DiCaprio being right for the part.  I think he can pull it off, though.

The Smurfs 2 - Damn.  We gotta wait until July.  I guess this means the third installment won't be good enough for Raja Gosnell.  What Hanna Barbera mini-franchise is next for him?  Fang-Face?  Inch High Private Eye?  That one with the talking dune buggy?

No - No is no, no is always no, when they say no they mean a thousand times no

Blancanieves - Let me guess... another Luc Besson / Robert Mark Kamen juggernaut to be?

Vampire Dog - Well, 1987's The Hidden had the alien dog, so why not?

Zero Dark Thirty - Naomi Watts doesn't like it, and nobody pisses off Naomi Watts... nobody.  Right, naomiwattsfan4308475669786508347543545SkinnyJeans?

Collateral Damage - Let me guess this straight........... Schwarzenegger outruns the fireball, but the motorcycle doesn't?

Bullet to the Head - Really, doesn't this describe what you want to do after seeing ANY Stallone pic?

Iron Man 3 - Whatever.  Apparently this is the most anticipated movie of 2013.  No love for Inside Llewyn Davis?

Man of Steel

Star Trek Into Darkness - Too cute

The House that Drips Blood on Alex - I don't need to tell you how great this is.  You got your houses, naturally.  Then you got your houses that drip blood; a subset, obviously.  But a house that drips blood ON Alex?  Is it online?  I gotta see that!  Gotta see that right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Splitting Heirs - With Barbara Hershey as Melanie Griffith

The I Inside - Ooh!  Gotta add that to my 'Great Titles' list

Parker - Really?  Taylor Hackford?

Movie 43 - I hate to admit it, but after seeing the director(s), my interest has been piqued!  As long as Craig Mazin's not involved.................

The Croods - Ugg!

The Banks and Braes of Lorna Doone

ACT ONE

Again with the old Curly version of the theme song, with the old elegant cursive Stooges font.  Thinking of the other Columbia shorts, I wonder if people ever walked out on the ones with just Joe DeRita or Joe Besser.  I might have.  Anyway, the lettering of "Hot Scots" is all decked out in clan plaid.  Shiver me begorrah!  It's hoch the lech nech nech le nech!  ...I probably spelt that wrong.
Scene: Scotland Yard, where there's two actors that seem to be genuine Scots!  Maybe it's Alec Guinness in disguise or something.  And as sure as eggs is eggs, the Stooges come pouring in and quickly destroy our suspension of disbelief, just as any highly recognizable icon should and would.  But wait!  Check out those chin-dos!  Even the Stooges like to play pretend every once in a while.
For now, Inspector McCormick's far too cordial, calling the Stooges "gentlemen."  The Stooges rarely call each other that.  But no slight's too small for Moe and Co., and he tells the Inspector "we'll prove we're not gentlemen!"  They do this by removing their chin-dos.  As it turns out, they've been plastered on with a very painful adhesive.  It hurts Larry and Shemp when Moe pulls their stuff off for them, especially Shemp.  The Inspector says "That's amazing!" then throws his assistant a telling look.  Well, that they're secretly gay, and that the Stooges didn't fool them... something like that.  As it turns out, the Stooges saw an ad in the paper for "yard men" needed at Scotland Yard.  The Inspector must be in a good mood, hiring these three mail-order detectives.  I haven't seen such wannabes since 1999's Mystery Men.
Cross-fade to next scene: the Stooges are looking for "missing papers," presumably on the grounds of Scotland Yard.  Shemp and Larry have the pointed sticks, while Moe's gingerly trimming a hedge.  Shemp and Larry complain to each other, so Moe bonks them on the head with the wooden ends of their sticks.  Moe reminds the other two of the importance of doing a good job: there just may be a promotion at the end of it!  As for the Stooges themselves, they get back to doing what they do best, and Shemp ends up lightly stabbing Moe in the ass with the stick.  The only thing that one might consider a promotion for the Stooges was their delightful cameo in Four for Texas.  They got to amuse Dean Martin!
Anyway, back to our lot in life.  After Moe gets his ass poked, he grabs Shemp's nose with the pliers and pulls him through the hedge.  He then cleverly asks Shemp if he'd like to be punched in the face.  Dayamn!  Moe should've been a copyright lawyer.  Now it's Larry's turn, as he's Ayn Rand's worst nightmare.  Hiding litter under a giant divot.  The very idea.  Larry eventually notices that he's being watched, and he freezes.  Larry slowly looks up.  Good time killer!  But David Letterman was once king of the Network Time Killers. I wonder if YouTube... ah, skip it.  Okay, good.  They've got at least one.  Blame it all you want on director Hal Gurnee, Dave.  We all know you're the boss.  And speaking of the boss, Moe starts getting extra-bossy, so much so that Larry asks directly "Hey, wait a minute!  What are YOU gonna do?"  Shemp seconds the question.  Moe gives the right answer: "Nothin'.  What about it?"  The boys get back to work... or do they?  Shemp "accidentally" stabs Moe in the foot.  And why not?  Listen to the noise it makes!  Before Moe screams in pain!  How come the Stooges never did a Twilight Zone episode?  Submitted for your approval: Misters Moe Howard, Larry Fine and... whoever else is still alive.  Men who make funny noises when they get hit.  An unintended consequence of Newton's Third Law in... the Twilight Zone.
Oh, and... incidental laugh of the day.  Shemp politely takes off his hat so Moe can fist-bump his head.  Kinda like Dirty Work.  Next scene: the Stooges have smartly coordinated their efforts now, and switched jobs.  Shemp's on stab detail, with Moe taking what Shemp stabs.  Larry's doing the hedge work now.  Why look!  No conflict, and I dare say I see some smiles... even if they are a bit Stepford-ish.  Is this the end of the Stooges as we know it?  No, thank Goodness.  Moe brings us back to Stooge reality by keeping Larry firmly in his place.  And with just words, too!  Quite the alpha Stooge.  He tells Larry to use the big clippers. Larry gets to work with the big clippers, but ends up cutting a big hole in the bag.  I wonder if anyone will put two and two together.........

ACT TWO

It's a bit early for the Second Act, but something big just happened!  Scene: Inspector McCormick's office, where his assistant just wrote down some info on a note.  He leaves the room and the window open.  The note flies out the window!!!  Cut to the Stooges who get a nice joke out of it.  Shemp says "If there's any more paper in this yard, I'll eat it!"  Cue the piece of paper, to which Moe says "Here comes your lunch!"  Bullseye.  Being the nosey nose he is, Moe looks at the piece of paper before he drops it in the sack.  Nice double take; my friend whose mind is a catalogue of double takes will surely love this.  Anyway, the note details an assignment for three operatives to go to Glenheather Castle on assignment.  "Must be Scotch!" the note says.  Well, they've faked worse to get a job.  Moe regales Shemp about their proud Scottish heritage. I should probably say 'his' instead of 'their,' but don't forget!  They're brothers!  Moe says "Look at the place.  Clean as a whistle!  So let's blow!.... not bad!"  Larry brings him down to Earth, saying "Not good."  What a killjoy.  He deserved that slap.  Now, for you logic-minded types out there, I will agree that yes, their reasoning is neither complete nor sound.  Moe tells the other two "I told you we'd get promoted if we did a good job."  The only problem with that is... THEY STILL CAN'T PROMOTE THEMSELVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  But they will nevertheless spend the next 12 minutes proving me wrong.
Oh, right.  Time to spill the stuff they picked up.  Following the rigorous chain of command, Moe slaps Lawrence, who in turn slaps Shemp, who in turn spills all the stuff... Hmm!  They re-dressed the balcony, didn't they?  I've heard the last three in a row were all filmed on the same set!
Next scene: wow.  They can't even get decent stock footage.  We see a very jumpy shoreline with a castle on it.  Scene after that: the big hall where the trumpets once blew... that is, blew fruit pulp on a buncha guys' faces.  This time, the boys are dressed once again in kilts.  Shemp says "Look at the size of this shack!"  It must be classy.  Normally they call a place like this something like "not a bad-looking dump."  Larry tests out the place's echo, and gets roundly smited in the belly by MacMoe.  Speaking of that, they're not in character at all yet... at least, in terms of accents.  But Shemp's more worried about ghosts.  Moe tries to calm Shemp's fears, saying "There's nothing to be afraid of in castles!"  And then... the creepy butler sneaks up on them, and scares them all half to death.  Oh, delicious, tasty irony.  "The Earle will see ya noo," says the butler.  Shemp asks Moe if his slip is showing.  Moe rightfully knocks Shemp about the head with his walkin' stick.
Next scene: the Stooges are true gentlemen, and wait for the appropriate point in the script to make goo-goo eyes at the luscious Christine McIntyre.  NOW it's time for the accents!  And it's a good thing I did the link to Pardon my Scotch earlier, because Moe recycled the line from that!  And finally, we turn to McIntyre, the secretary.  "And what might your name be, lass?" crudely asks Larry.  She says "Lorna Doone."  Shemp makes a delightful pun out of that, but does Moe appreciate the effort?  Of course not.  She quickly leaves.
The Earl is played by a fella named Herbert Evans.  What an amiable soul.  According to the IMDb, he was born in London, but his accent seems pretty good.  Of course, I'm no expert, but it seems better than the Stooges', at least.  He offers the boys a "snifter."  Shemp gives a very strange reply to say the least, quasi-racist to say the worst.  The Earl asks Shemp "What part of Scotland are ye from?"  Moe says "Southern Scotland, below the McMason - McDixon line," just to drive the point home.  As it turns out, the boys only get to sniff the cork of a dusty, cobwebby old bottle.  "It's a hundred and fifty years old!" says the Earl.  He gets the biggest sniff of the cork, of course.  The old thrifty Scotch for ya, as the ol' stereotype goes!
"And now, lads, I tell ya why I sent for ya," says the Earl.  "I want you to guard my valuables tonight, for I'm off to a gatherin' of the clan!"  That's it?  That's the big assignment?  Good Lord.  Anyway, the Earl's about to give the Stooges more instructions, but the butler tells the Earl something that sends him off and running for the taxi.  But for the life of me, I can't figure out what the guy says!  Maybe someone else could decipher that for me.  Must be something along the lines of the meter's running.  And so that old dude does a little running himself.  Eat it, VistaGlide!
Next scene: the Stooges are in a new room, and the creepy butler is helping Larry get dressed in fancy pajamas?  Good Lord again!  Oh wait, it's got a hoodie!  Why, Larry looks 30 years younger already!  And much hipper at that.  He could hang with the homies with the best of 'em.  The non-Ted Lorch butler tries to leave as creepy an impression as possible, saying "If ya need anything, just wail!" before finally leaving.  So the plan now is that Larry's going to sleep while Moe and Shemp go and look around.  Larry hesitates at first, but Moe eventually convinces Larry that going to sleep's the right move.  Shemp's feeling a little anxious himself and wants to take something for his nerves.  "Like what?" barks Moe.  "A trip home," Shemp says.  A few seconds later, Moe says "Well, if you're so nervous, grab that gun!"  And Wayne LaPierre agrees, of course.  A gun is a sure cure for a lot of things.  Ah, the gun: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.  Of course, Shemp accidentally hits Moe on the head with it, but that can be fixed with a little training!
Next scene: the hallway proper, where Moe carefully guides Shemp by holding on to his nose.  Shemp looks around, and ominously says "Gee, I hope nothing happens."  Just then, a dude wearing a quasi-blackface mask from Eyes Wide Shut joins them in the hallway, but they don't see him.  I'm assuming it's a him, perhaps wrongly!  To make things interesting, Moe folds his arms and says to Shemp "What could happen?  Go on, tell me.  What could happen?"  "Nothing, I guess" says Shemp, intimidated by Moe's reasoning.  Moe slaps Shemp in the head and says "Well, go ahead, then!  Go ahead!" as he often does.  They leave the hallway without seeing the strange masked figure.  The masked figure goes into the room where Larry's sleeping.  The masked figure pulls a cord, and Larry's bed quickly moves into the next room.  The masked figure then picks up a bag and starts loading it with goblets and things off of a shelf like a damn dirty sneakthief.
Next scene: time for a rare dolly shot in a Stooge film.  There was also another one when Moe gets the note that fell from the office window, but this one's much more grandiose.  Moe and Shemp sit down in chairs under a painting.  The camera dollies up to the painting.  At first, we think it might be a guy standing still, but someone starts cutting the painting from behind it... damn, which will lead to a guy standing still.  Back to Larry in the other room.  The thief soon joins him and makes the mistake of not sending Larry back into the other room.  The thief finds fresh stuff to put into the bag, but gets too overeager and drops something, making a huge crash.  Larry wakes up, of course.  He assumes it's the other two and says so, then does A MASSIVE DOUBLE TAKE.  Poor Lawrence, he always gets the worst of it.  Back to Moe and Shemp.  The cutting of the painting is now complete, and a man dressed like the painting's dynamic figure now stands there, hovering, nay... towering over sleeping Moe and bored Shemp.  Shemp hands a "shaving mug" to... who exactly does he think he's handing it to?  To Moe?  Moe's asleep!  That's what I love about the Stooges.  They never look at something until they absolutely have to.  Shemp sticks out his hand again, and the figure hands Shemp a skull.  As HorrorLover98 rightly points out, time for another massive double take.  Shemp looks at the thing in his hands, finally realizes what it is, yells, and throws it away.  The skull lands on Moe's skull, and Moe wakes up.  I need some time to think about that for a second... wow.  I think that's a Stooge first!  A skull hit with another skull!  Shemp is long gone, but Moe seems to be afflicted with a need to talk just to himself, just as Shemp was.  Meanwhile, Larry is now officially the hostage of the masked thief.  In for a penny, in for 180 pounds, reasoned the thief.  The thief deposits Larry in the closet for later usage.  Just then... the thief hears footprints.  Shemp's about to go through the door, but he realizes it's the wrong one.  The thief reaches for Shemp as he runs off... shyeah, right, like the thief was going to do something to Shemp with his bony ol' hand.  Whatev's.  The thief gets into the bed and pulls the cord, and the bed slides back into the other room.  Just in time, too, as Shemp enters the room, closes the door, then sees that the bed is back in the room.  Shemp talks to Larry very loudly, even though Larry's supposed to be asleep.  Larry doesn't wake up, which Shemp should've found suspicious.  Just then, Shemp sees something, does a massive double take, then picks it up.  It's either a bowling ball or a cannonball.  He says "This little marble will come in handy!"  Already planning to drop it on some unlucky head, eh?
Back to Moe, still sitting in the chair under the "painting."  The figure bends over deeply to look at Moe.  Moe gets up, and the figure gets back into position.  Moe backs up to a curtain.  A hand reaches out from behind the curtain and touches Moe.  Moe totally flips out.  Turns out it's Lorna Doone with some tea and cookies!  Suspicious entrance, but never mind.  It's Christine McIntyre.  Ain't she lovely?  She says a buncha stuff to Moe, but ends it by asking Moe "You like cookies?"  Moe says "Oh, that I do, especially blonde ones!"  Oh Moe, you old, old dog.  Then he says "How about you and me makin' with the conversation?"
Enough of that.  Back to Shemp, who's putting the bowling ball on a tiny ledge above the bedroom door.  The masked figure's looking at him.  We get a nice up-close shot of the mask.  I wonder if it's Native American.  Shemp then decides to get in bed next to Larry.  There's a massive tug-of-war over the blankets.  Time to kill some time!  Shemp touches the mask's teeth and says "Say, you ought to see a dentist."  He eventually looks at the figure he thinks is Larry, screams, and runs off.  Shemp then tries to go through the door and................

ACT THREE

About time for an Act Break.  McIntyre asks Moe a question... I'll be damned if I know what that means.  Moe seems to know, though.  So McIntyre fires up an album and... they start to dance!  Time to kill a little time!  Moe goes off by himself into the foyer to dance and... alas.  McIntyre starts handing valuables to the man in the picture.  So many crooks to catch... one for each Stooge!  How come they're never outnumbered?
Back to the masked bandit who returns to the room with Larry in the closet.  The thief takes the bag and starts to leave, when... Lawrence explodes from the closet, knocking the thief against the wall, and conveniently out cold.  So many Stooge plots rely on someone being knocked out cold.  They must have had a good anesthesiologist on staff.  Larry grabs the bag and hops out of the room, and attempts to go into the other bedroom with Shemp out cold against its door.  Shemp thwarts Larry's first attempt to get inside, then whines like a baby "Open up!  It's me, Larry!"  His plaintiff wails are muffled by his gag.  The thief comes out of the room, and Larry screams, hitting a very high note, and plows into Shemp's room.  Shemp helps to untie Larry, and Larry lays out the whole thing.  "I got the knick-knacks!  The guy with the big teeth took 'em!"  I've never seen him so triumphant.
Back to Moe, still dancing away all by himself.  McIntyre and the painting guy have taken the last of the knick-knacks, and just in time too, for Moe's working his way back to McIntyre, babe.  They dance together a little more until McIntyre quickly cuts out.  Moe doesn't notice.  The painting guy now appears on ground level with Moe from behind the same curtain McIntyre came out from behind.  Moe, lost in his reverie, now starts dancing with the painting dude.  "You're a wonderful dancer!" he starts to say, not noticing what a poor dance partner the painting dude is.  Moe finally figures it out, screams, and runs for the phone.  He calls for the police.  Some Scotland Yard man he's turned out to be!  The painting dude finally gets to throw that knife he's been holding for so long.  He hits Moe's hat with it.  Looks like there were no fancy camera tricks like running the film backwards, as far as I can tell!  No, just good ol' fashioned wire work.  Moe hotfoots it up the stairs.  Eat it, VistaGlide!
Next scene: the action-packed hallway, where Moe comes up behind the thief still trying to get in Larry's and Shemp's room.  Moe thinks the thief's one of his buddies, until he sees the mask and gets scared.  Moe turns around only to find the painting dude there with a knife.  A mighty struggle over the knife ensues until Moe kicks the dude in the ankle and runs into the other bedroom.  Moe dives under the covers of the bed. 
I'm watching this on YouTube so I just noticed: the guy from the painting dressed like a sheik seems to be Ted Lorch in badass mode!  Ted goes into the bedroom where Moe's hiding under the covers like a scared little girly man.  Meanwhile, Shemp goes for the shotgun and shoots at the door.  It's assumed that Larry stood aside.  The gun's backfire causes Shemp to fall backwards, catching himself with the rope that pulls the bed into their room.  Lorch just misses giving Moe a good stabbing!  Well, as you may have guessed... Moe's gone from the proverbial frying pan to the veritable fire, as Larry and Shemp tend to clobber anything with a sheet over it.  Shemp uses the butt of his gun, and Larry gives Moe a good macing.  They take the sheet off to reveal an angry-faced Moe.  Triumph turns so quickly to shame in these Stooge shorts.  "You dough-heads!" says Moe, and claps their two heads together.  They hit roughly the same note in pain.
As if that's not enough action already, we cut to the door.  They managed to put one desk in front of the door to block it, but the painting dude manages to get in anyway.  Moe ends up hitting the bad guy on the head with the gun, and Lorch collapses onto the bed.  Meanwhile, Shemp ends up on the other side of the bed post.  Shemp and Lorch are on opposite sides of the end bed post, and they rise up and look at each other.  Maybe the wrong occasion for that gag, but why nitpick?  The struggle begins anew, but Larry's heroics save the day again when he gives Lorch a good head-macing.  Moe even complements Larry on it!  And then, the seemingly invincible masked bandit comes in and starts to strangle Moe.  They all line up just right so Larry hits Shemp with the mace, then Moe.  Larry and the masked thief start struggling.  Who will save Larry's bacon now?  Shemp wakes up and does the honors, hitting the masked thief upon the head with the mace.  Meanwhile, Moe's against the wall, and pulls himself up by the bedstrap.  The bed starts to close, but something stops it from closing completely... oh, right.  The two burglars.  They take the mask off and... it's the creepy butler who helped dress Larry!  And he would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling Stooges.
Just then... McIntyre comes into the room, grabs the swag bag and runs out.  The boys give chase.  Down that same damn staircase she goes.  Unfortunately, she doesn't see the Earl and his three bobbies with him.  Or, as the British say, "lift."  Oh Lorna, how could you have doone this?  The Earl orders her taken away.

EPILOGUE

The Earl's a grateful man, telling the Stooges "Lads, I'm a grateful man."  They're getting an actual reward this time!  This time, they'll actually drink some of the ancient liquor from the cabinet.  Alas, they open it to find a skeleton playing a bagpipe.  The four of them run out of the room.  Next scene: they run through the main hall of the castle and out the windows at about 12 fps.  It seems to really be them, too!  They must've had soft glass in them windows.  Eat it, VistaGlide!

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

Spinach-Drunk Love

Ah, the boxing ring.  Is there any more overused location in cartoon history?  Probably, but Bugs Bunny did it, and then there was the landmark case of Daffy v. Elmer.  And EGGHEAD!  Egghead, for God's sake!!!  So it would only seem a natural fit for Popeye, so much so that there was a boxing scene in Robert Altman's 1980 Popeye movie.  So let's dive right in to Let's You and Him Fight.

ACT ONE

That's gotta be the longest zoom-in on a title I've ever seen.
Ah, so many other things to link to, so little time.  Circle-fade-in on two of those giant amplifiers, just like in an old Betty Boop cartoon.... dang.  That one's going to be hard to find.  (found it!!!!!)  Anyway, to up the ante, the amplifier turns into a hand that points at Bluto.  To kill some time, but not much, we see Bluto wailing on a dummy.  There's not as much time to waste in these things as in Stooge films, after all!  I don't know how Bluto became the champ exactly, but it ain't gonna last on Popeye's watch.  We see him skipping rope with a bunch of sausage links.  And... I nearly forgot!  Tradition has been broken with!  Popeye starts singing his theme late in the game instead of right off the bat!  Boy, I really know my sports terms... hmm.  Popeye seems to be wearing adult diapers, and he starts landing on his ass as he jump ropes.  Oh well.  He scats for the first time in these here toons.  He can do it all.  But I will give the Bluto his due: he takes a 1,000 pound weight and punches it into a car!  Take THAT, Henry Ford!  Popeye will top that feat, of course.  Boy!  He may not know it, but Popeye's really into that psychological warfare!  He gets hoofed in the face by a mule... it's more pastoral, you gotta give him that.

ACT TWO

Next scene: the big banner.  The big fight is to-nite!  The crowd pours into Yank 'Em Stadium... hey, take it up with the filmmakers, not me.  Besides, the best is yet to come.  Popeye prepares for the fight by having a guy massage his rear end with his fists.  What is he, a lump of dough?  Good, 'cause I might knead ya!  And then... the plot thickens.  Olive begs Popeye not to fight.  No particular reason, she just doesn't have a good feeling in general about it.  Ah, weepy dames.  Where would plots be without them?  Popeye says nothing as Olive rants and raves.  She eventually walks out the door, and Popeye sums it up by saying "I yam what I yam."  Our culture has finally sunk to his level, with gender roles being ossified on TV.  Then again, it is a little more egalitarian these days, but everyone has to be a warrior now.  Gotta burn calories somehow, I guess!  All that office work ain't gonna do it.
Popeye is summoned to the boxing ring.  He walks towards the "camera," but the perspective gets a little skewed when his body leaves the frame, and his head follows the same straight line.. something like that.  Guess the Fleischers didn't rotoscope that part.
Next scene: the ubiquitous long shot of the boxing ring.  Popeye parts the proverbial Red Sea that is the crowd to get to the ring.  The crowd cheers.  Bluto leaps down to it from the audience like a giant flea.  The crowd boos... or are they saying "BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-to"?  We better let history decide that one.
Bluto can't just enter the ring, of course.  He pulls up the post and crawls under it like some kind of a big shot.  Popeye has to outdo him, of course, ripping the ring's ropes and hastily tying them back together behind his back.  At least Bluto's damage seemed to put itself back together!
Wimpy's the timekeeper, blissfully munchy-wunching away at a big pile of hamburgers on the floor.  This isn't Russia, but the clock punches him all the same.  Wimpy's head hits the bell, and the fight begins.  The tiny referee gets caught between Popeye and Bluto like a piece of chewing gum.  The referee breaks loose, and bounces out of harm's way.  And then... a loop begins to save wear and tear on the animators.  I guess you could think of this as an early form of rope-a-dope: Bluto keeps hitting Popeye against the ropes, and Popeye hits the canvas, then gets back up again to get hit again.  Repeat often, at least three times.  Then, DING!  Time to stop.  Kinda like the Ralph and Sam cartoons later on, no?  Bluto walks to his corner, while Popeye daintily prances to his.
The Fleischers have a thing about moving tattoos.  Well, they were ahead of their time in the '30s, but CGI technology is finally catching up, and you can see animated tattoos on the hot young models in alcohol commercials on TV.  For us, Bluto has a ship on his chest, and he shows it to the audience as it travels round his body and back to its original place.  The crowd is not impressed or amused... so picky.  Speaking of picky, I couldn't help but notice that Bluto's facial hair next to his right ear is kinda in and out.  For shame, Fleischers!  For shame.  Fix it in post.
Time to start the fight again.  Popeye returns to his place in mid-air, and Bluto gets ready to punch him again.  Lol.  That's probably the high-light of the whole film.  The loop starts again, but without the accompanying music of before.  Actually, the highlight comes later on...
Cut to ringside, where one of Olive's relatives is watching the fight!  2nd Lol.  She's pretty big and strong herself; probably rooting for Bluto... no, she looks worried.  The guy to the left of the announcer has Popeye's smile.  3rd lol.  The announcer has teeth like someone in a Richard Condie cartoon.

ACT THREE

Fade to Olive, listening to the fight at home over the radio (Station WHAM... get it?  GET IT?....)  She's got the radio on the oven, and she's doing everything but chewing her fingernails typewriter-style.  That comes later in a different cartoon.  You hardcore Fleischer fans out there know which one, dontcha?
Olive's tears start flowing into the soup pot.  Mmmm... salty!  Popeye seems to be taking the Gandhi approach in the ring.  And then... Olive remembers!  She's got a can of spinach on her shelf!  She breaks down her own door and hot-foots it over to Yank 'Em Stadium to sabotage God's plan for the boxing match, much like Larry in Punch-Drunks.
Next scene: the ring, where Bluto connects with Popeye, but there's no sound!  The second punch does, however, making a bass drum's "thump."  Popeye slides over to the side of the ring, and Olive steps up next to him.  And in a stunning reversal, she says to Popeye "Fight, ya palooka!  FIGHT!"  But I guess she changed her mind when she decided to bring the spinach, which Popeye eats.  He wolfs it down with a mighty gulp, and lo!  For once, the game has actually been changed.  Good thing nobody saw this small transaction.
Popeye starts connecting with Bluto.  There's some variety to the punches, but soon enough Popeye gets his own loop, hammering on Bluto's head over and over.  I haven't seen many boxing matches, and I've never been to a live one, but I don't think that's a legal move anymore.
And then, time for more morphing.  The music morphs into the anvil song from "Barber of Seville" as often gets played in cartoons.  Bluto's head turns into an anvil, and Popeye's arms get elastic, and his gloves turn into sledgehammers.  For sledging!  That's the real highlight of the film, am I right, folks?  Popeye taunts Bluto, saying "Ya can't take it, huh?  Ug-ug-ug-ug..."  I don't know how to properly spell Popeye's laugh.  I know, I know.. a blogger worried about spelling errors. What an endangered species.
Olive is so excited by the fight now, she jumps into the ring, wildly swinging her arms about, trying to coach Popeye.  She tells him to do the Twister Punch.  Unfortunately, Popeye doesn't.  The bell rings, and it's time for another break.  Olive's so exhausted from cheering on Popeye, she passes out in the stool.  Popeye comes over and waves a towel on her.  Lol.  See how they did that?
The bell rings, and Popeye gets back to work.  The next loop turns into a waltz of sorts, as Popeye hits bluto in the face, then the gut and waits two beats to repeat.

EPILOGUE

Eventually, at the right point in the song, Popeye sends Bluto flying into the corner, bouncing off the post and landing in his stool.  Time for the callback: Bluto again rips the post out of place... it should be a little easier this time, after all.  He beans Popeye with it, and wraps him up with the ropes of the ring like spaghetti rolled on a fork.  My God!  Is spinached-up Popeye down for the count?  Is this film going to have an unhappy ending after all?  What do you think? (he asked sarcastically)  Popeye comes to, and hits Bluto in the gut with his be-capped head.  And then, just to taunt Bluto a little more, Popeye breaks the ropes with his mere chest, just by breathing in.  Oh siz-nap!  Big punch this time: Bluto goes flying out of the ring, breaking beam after load-bearing beam.  I wonder who that is saying "Give it to 'im Popeye!"  Just some loud guy in the crowd, I guess.  Bluto bounces off the wall and flies back, and we see the remnants of the beams he broke.  We don't see the upper deck of the stadium fall, alas.  Bluto lands back in the ring on top of Popeye and the ref.  Because of this, the ref declares Bluto the winner.  "Oh yeah?" Popeye says slowly.  Popeye punches the ref through Bluto.  Both go down, and Popeye sings his theme song, and the inkwell closes up.  Well, it looks like Bluto's still the champ anyway.  What a racket.
...oh, right.  The rating.  Not my favorite one, but still rife with good moments.  Three stars, what say.

***
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Olivier Abbou

Alas, Olivier hasn't done enough yet to merit an IMDb Top 4, but isn't that what's great about the system?  Flexibility!  Newbies alongside old-bies alongside towering icons of old and new.  There's at least a poster for his 2010 offering, Territories.  His take on Rendition, apparently.  But like the Coens, this guy likes to do comedy as well, and 2012's Yes We Can is certainly an example of that.  Based on the hoopla around Obama's Kenyan relatives, what could be funnier than a kidnapping plot involving them?  As long as it's not just for the Tea Partier crowd.  What's next for Olivier?  Maybe a '30s Gangster pic if he truly wants to follow the Coen mold.

Box Office 1/27/'13

Gone so quickly...

Nertsery Rhymes 1948

Long before Shrek and its various knock-offs like Hoodwinked!, the Stooges glommed onto the icons of old, trying to increase their own iconisticity as a result.  Well, their haircuts are pretty unforgettable, of course, but there is yet to be a national Stooge holiday.  Then again, there's no day off for Old King Cole, either!  Maybe the Stooges are just as good.  In any case, we've got the two of them together here in the next Stooge film called Fiddlers Three.  And by the way, all you haters out there: just because the last film also featured Vernon Dent and Philip Van Zandt, and was also filmed on the same set as The Bandit of Sherwood Forest, well, they're still totally different!  Totally!!!  Excuse me, I have something in my eye.

ACT ONE

Back to the post-Curly version of the Stooges theme song.  And just like the last one we saw, Squareheads of the Round Table, we get incidental music during the opening description text, only not as official-sounding, but still quite regal and very very old-timey.  The description of "Coleslaw-vania" made me want to find this clip of Curly saying "where men are men are men are men..." and then Moe claps his hand over Curly's mouth.  Not so easy to find!  Even though the Stooges are all over the net, they're still not that reference-able.  They're not just text, after all!
Cross-fade to ye Royal Court, where Old King Cole's holding court with a bunch of snooty-snoots, but his fiddlers three are right there by his side.  And even though each Stooge has his own fiddle, Larry's the only one who actually knows how to play, so he's playing by himself.  They sing a variation on the iconic old poem, and the camera dollies in closer.  The guard has to move his spear out of the camera's way.  At the end of the song, Moe knocks Shemp and Larry on the head, but in tempo.  Now that's class.  Close-up of Vernon Dent laughing.  He's got a different beard this time compared to the last one, Squareheads... reminds me!  I better change the title of my post. 'Scuse me!... Okay, I'm back.  Ah, the Age of Blogs.  Who needs steel, indeed!
Anyway, Dent looks more like Santa Claus with that gnarly beard!  I don't think I've ever seen him play such a jolly character.  Surely he'll sour later on!  Amused by the Stooges' antics, he's reminded that it's time for the citizens of Coleslaw-vania to have their Daily Laugh.  Well, I hate federal over-reach as much as the next person, but it's still preferable to the Two-Minutes Hate any day.  And I have to admit, they don't kill time like this too often.  And so, we get a montage of people laughing.  If I had to pick a favourite, I think it's probably Moe; someone seems to be tickling his feet.  Shemp, on the other hand, is faking it.  Totally faking it.  The guard's laugh here has been digitally remastered for THX-quality clarity.  And look!  It's the guy who turns and looks as another guard!  Awesome.  This must've been one of his last Stooge flicks.
And so, it's a portrait of a happy kingdom, much like the beginning of Akira Kurosawa's Ran... based on Shakespeare's King Lear, but I've never seen the beginning of that.  The implication being that this happy, ordered kingdom will all too quickly turn sad and chaotic.  But who will light the fuse of this powder keg?  As it turns out, the Stooges in general, and Shemp in particular, for it is he who suggests that they ask Coley-ol' boy for a favour "now that he's in a good mood."  See?  This is how it begins.  The favor, as it turns out, is that the Stooges want to marry their sweethearts before they're "given the gate."  This in itself is not a problem, and Old King Cole gives the boys permission... but only after Princess Alicia has wed Prince Gallant the Third of Rhododendron.  Oh great!  Now it's The Taming of the Shrew!  Cut to the Black Prince from the last one, who here plays Murgatroyd the evil Royal Alchemist, or something.  When he hears of the wedding of Alicia, he gets pissed off, and he hatches a plot similar to the one of the last film.  Unfortunately, he finds guards all too willing to help him out.  The Stooges, meanwhile, sing a song similar to this one in Dizzy Pilots.  Oh, Mergatroid can't marry her!  He's old enough to be her... her great great grandfather!  Heavens to Merlin, indeed!  Princess Alicia is granted permission to leave, and about two dozen people follow her.  Wotta dish.
And now, back to the stooges, who kill some time for the King with another song.  They do a slight study about how all these guys in the Mother Goose catalog seem to be named Jack.  Same thing goes for buddy cop and Steven Seagal movies.  Shemp acts out Jack and the candlestick.  I wonder if that was really Larry playing the music when Shemp gets his ass burned!  If so, cool!
Next one: Larry as Little Miss Muffet.  This may be worth the price of admission right here.  Betcha Moe can't top that!
...nope, didn't top it.  But they worked out the timing well between the song and the skit.  It also seems to be the longest...

ACT TWO

"Capital, capital!" says King Cole.  I thought only Mr. Burns said that!  But then... the plot thickens.  Princess Alicia has been princess-napped!  Time to break the spell of the period piece.  "Phone the newspapers, call the FBI!" says Cole.  Slightly less merry is he, but it's yet another opportunity for the Stooges to stop acting like brainless idiots and start acting like heroes.  God bless the bad guys and the bad things they do, for there would be no heroes otherwise.
But to find the princess and maybe the bad guys what took her, a man must not go unprepared!  He will need tools and provisions!  The Stooges have a horse.  A horse named Sue.  Sue?  Si.  But Sue has no shoes!  Take THAT, Danny Kaye!  Then, the Stooges make a train out of there.  There's no whistle, but Larry does have a squeeze bottle of powder.  Hopefully that will cheer the dour King up a bit.
Cross-fade to the Smith's workshop, and it ain't Cedric this time.  There's wagon wheels everywhere!!  Make me crazy!  No, his name is Will Idge, and he's not there, but he left a nice note in cursive.  Moe takes charge of the Smith-less situation and orders Shemp to fire up the forge... gee, what could possibly go wrong?  Time to dip a limb into molten hot lava!  Before things turn violent, Shemp runs afoul of a talking bellows.... no, not going to do it.  I could link to a cartoon or two, but am trying to cut back.  Anyway, back to the Stooge film.  Shemp fills the bellows up with water.  They start using ye Olde English rather aggressively at this point.  This may be worth the price of adm... nah, I already said that.  Still, lol.  The second shot in the face did it for Moe.  "Giveth it to me.  Thou art a lamebrain!"  Lol.  And then, Larry has to go and be collateral damage.  The circle of violence wideneth.  Moe tries to spritz Larry a second time, but the bellows is empty... or so it would seem.  Larry starts to laugh.  Frustrated, Moe hits Larry in the head with the bellows.  Larry runs backward much farther than he should of, hits the wall, falls on his ass, and gets hit in the head with four horseshoes.  He'd probably rather go back to the bellows at this point.
Shemp's turn now.  He's in for a much worse fate.  Hotter, anyhow.  They take some hot horseshoes out of the fire and place them onto a stool.  They put one on an anvil and Moe asks Shemp to beat the shoe with a hammer.  Shemp refuses on ill-founded principles, as if he's a vegetarian being asked to eat meat.  Moe hits Shemp with the hammer instead of the horseshoe and Shemp steps backward, and ends up sitting on the stool of hot horseshoes.  Shemp be not nimble, but Shemp be in great pain.  Shemp be quick to sit in the barrel of water!  A mighty steam rises from said barrel, and Shemp gets a few seconds to soothe his burning ass.  Moe grabs Shemp by the nose with a mighty smith-sized wrench.
Time for the horse proper.  Larry's apparently awoken from his horseshoe-induced sleep, so he and Shemp get Sue the Horse to be shoe'd.  This must be the part that kills time.  Sure, it cast a spell for a while, but now I'm feeling the lack of budget and time.  Moe tells Shemp, "Lift the mule's foot and pass it to me!"  Great.  Now the horse is a mule!  We can see the horseshoe prints on Shemp's pants here.  No... he wouldn't.  Yes, he would.  I know I should find this part funny, but I don't.  And Shemp's screams are a little too convincing as well.  Of course, I didn't much care for the part in Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box when Ollie steps on the board with a nail in it, either.  I don't know why, for I've never had a terribly traumatic foot injury personally.  "Thou made me shoe the wrong mule!" says Moe to Shemp.  Of all the mistakes Moe's ever made, this is probably one of the worst.  Shemp even says "I think you didst that on purpose!"  To compound it, Moe does the "See that?" routine while holding a hammer.
Time to kill some more time.  This time, Moe actually goes over to the mule, and picks up the mule's foot himself.  While trying to pound a horseshoe in, Moe runs afoul of the mule's tail.  A rather strange camera angle with Moe in the foreground near the mule's hindquarters, and Larry in the background near the mule's head.  Moe comes up with an elegant solution: he ties the heavy hammer to the mule's tail.  Why not?  He's not using it or anything!  Moe'll never guess what happens............
Moe reminds me here of Jack Lemmon for some reason.  Dazed and confused, Moe wanders over towards Shemp.  Larry goes over to Moe.  It's at this point when the mule gives a mighty kick.  Two fake mule legs gently push Larry, which sends the three Stooge stunt doubles down to the first floor.  Apparently, it's a two-story Smith shop.  Go figure.  Must be embedded into a hillside.  It all happened so fast, I was slightly taken aback.  Or maybe I'm just tired.
The Stooges pick themselves up off the floor, dust themselves off, and decide to "get out of here."  They go to the first door they find, and... whoomp!  (There it is)  The princess bound and gagged, and four guards enjoying mugs of mead, laughing it up without royal decree.  Fortunately for the Stooges, none of the guards turns around and sees them standing in the doorway, gawking openly.
Moe gently closes the door and takes charge of the situation: the Princess must be saved!  Larry acts the Wet Blanket in Chief saying "They're heavily armed and they outnumber us!"  Shemp gets tough, saying "Let me at 'em!  LET ME AT 'EM!  I'll tear 'em apart!"  Something like that.  Moe calls his bluff: "What's stopping you?"  Shemp says "Me!"  Priceless.  Probably worth the price of ad... ah, skip it.  At least his foot's not hurting anymore!
Next scene: the King at his throne, being entertained by Muhrgatroide the Magnificent.  Why, he's got a monogrammed cape and everything!  Try not to think about the geography of this scenario too much; it might make your head hurt.  So Murgatroid's got an empty box in front of the King, and he's going to make the Princess appear.  I can't wait to see him pull this off.  But first, a warm-up act.  Mergatroyd makes a fetching young lady appear first.  For a second there, I thought it was Christine McIntyre, but according to the IMDb it's someone named Sherry O'Neil.  Yowsah!  The King certainly thinks so.  And she gets a second scene, no less!  They go and spoil the magic trick, showing the girl as she sneaks out of the box before getting sawed in half.  But who's going to scream?  Where's the showmanship?

ACT THREE

Back to the Stooges, who are still thinking about what to do.  Shemp starts getting inspiration percolating to the front of his head.  Ah, the old "a terrific headache" gag.  Wonder where they came up with that phrase?  They go with Moe's plan instead.  I kind of admire the simplicity of it.  Moe and Larry, the most senior of the Stooges at this point, walk right up to the guards and make childish faces at them, saying "Nyaah nyaah!"  As opposed to Curly's "Naaaah-aah!"  Moe and Larry run off, and all the guards give chase.  Shemp cuts the princess loose and she runs off.  Shemp rubs his hands together in pride, then spies a mug of ale, and decides to quench his thirst.  A guard walks up to Shemp, but Shemp's too busy to care.  Besides, he has to take a drink to do a spit take!  The guard grabs Shemp by the hair.  The other guards return, holding Moe and Shemp by their hair as well.  They finally notice that the princess is gone, the idiots.
And Sherry O'Neil gets a THIRD scene!!!  Well, you gotta hand it to her: she's working harder on this than she probably thought she was going to.  Ain't show biz a bitch?
And so, the guards are going to take the Stooges to the dungeon... again with the dungeon.  But before that happens... Sherry O'Neil gets a FOURTH scene!  The guards forget about what they're doing and decide to follow Sherry instead.  Unaccompanied by guards, the Stooges take off.
Next scene: the ladder that Sherry O'Neil just climbed down.  Shemp gets his head stuck in it.  Lol.  This may be the highlight of the film, second only to Larry as Little Miss Muffet.  The three of them climb up the ladder and into Murgatroid's box.  Larry whispers "'Twas a narrow escape!"  I think they dubbed that in later.  The Stooges' microphones aren't that good.
I haven't given notes to future screenwriters lately, but here's the perfect opportunity.  If you've been keeping track, part of Mergatroyd's act is sawing the box in half.  Moe sets up the irony by saying "I think we're safe in this box."  Note to screenwriters: this kind of blatant irony's not popular today, so avoid it if possible.  Or, if you're doing a script for Michael Bay, make it more obvious than this.  And so, Moe runs afoul of Mehrgachroied's giant saw.  All Larry and Shemp can do is watch the saw as if they're watching a tennis match.  There's a metaphor for the sexes here someplace, and if I were better I could delineate it more clearly.  Something about the Sherry O'Neils of the world get spared such indignities that the Stooges go through.  But, Mother Goose doesn't cover this ground, so neither shall I.  I'm slightly tempted to find the link to this Tom and Jerry cartoon where the cat gets sawed in half, and then in the next scene he's got huge bandages wrapped around his torso.  Somehow that's worse than Itchy and Scratchy.
Now it's Larry's turn, and the saw goes for him with gusto: first sawing him in the head, then raked across Larry's ass, then raked across Larry's, uh... crown jewels, so to speak.  That's the last straw, of course, so Larry grabs the saw and flings it at Moe's face.  I haven't seen a scene like this since Daniel Stern in Home Alone 2.  I don't know why YouTube seems to think that Moe's face tangling with one mere cleeted shoe is their most violent sequence ever.  Anyway, Moe flings the saw back at Larry, who gets hit with it twice.  Then, Larry gives the saw a mighty push, and Moe and Shemp get hit with it twice each, for a total of four saw hits.  Here's my question: only four?  Why not six or eight?  Save that for the remake, I suppose.
Moe pushes the saw down on Larry, then they all start shushing each other.  Cut to Murgatroid trying to pull the saw.  He tries to assure the King that everything's okay, then gets back to struggling with the saw.  Murgatroide pulls the saw out, and it has a pair of boxer shorts on it.  This scene is overmilked.  Cole asks again for his daughter.  "Patience, Sire!  Patience!" says Merguhtroid.  Now it's time for swords to be stuck into the box.  Can someone else do the link to Racketeer Rabbit?  Shemp finally gets a part of the action, as one sword goes under his neck, and one down in front of his face.  He asks Larry for help, but Larry gets stuck in the ass with a sword.  Whatever Larry got paid for this one, it clearly wasn't enough.
Now it's Moe's turn.  Moe gets stuck with a sword right on the top of his head, kinda like Tommy Lee Jones in the first Under Siege movie.  Cut to Murgatroid trying to jam the Moe sword further into the box.  This is the greatest Stooge film ever.  Mergatroyd gets a hammer and pounds that one in.  King Cole sits up.  Murgatroid tries pulling the sword back out, and ends up hitting himself in the chin.  The sword's a little bit bent now.  Moe must have iron in his skull!  I'm sorry, here's the right link.  I think we can hear the sound of Moe moaning softly to himself.
More determined than ever, Murgatroid quickly puts another sword into Moe's end of the box.  Time for another sword for Shemp, who gets lightly stabbed in the torso with this one.  Larry starts getting lightly stabbed at the same time.  Epic!  It's at this point when the Stooges have finally had enough, and they erupt out of the box, in the wrong sitting order, of course.  Shemp screams "They got me... THEY GOT ME!!!"  But then, he's relieved that there's no blood.  That Three Stooges documentary produced by Mel Gibson, however, tells a different story.
Just then, Princess Alicia runs into the room.  Oh, it's really going to hit the fan now.  Alicia tells Cole that Murgatroid's the real culprit.  Screenwriters take note: the Stooges weren't actually suspects, but we'll let the implication stand.  As it turns out, Mergatroyd's not that good of a magician, so he tries to make a break for it.  The Stooges grab him and start spanking him with swords.

EPILOGUE

Now this is just getting silly.  Sherry O'Neil gets one last scene.  I lost count already; what is it, five or six now?  She's already got the guards still following her, and now she gets all the other guys in the room to follow, with King Cole at the end of the line.  There's just Princess Alicia and Shemp left now.  If you recall, Shemp was thirsty when he was climbing up that ladder.  He's still thirsty and takes a drink of water from a chalice.  A few seconds later, gallons of water shoot out of Shemp's sword holes.  Princess Alicia sits in the throne, smiling.  Sloppy direction.  For a second there, I thought Shemp and Alicia would be wed, but no, Gallant the Third it still is.  This is the first time I've seen Fiddlers Three and it's now in my Top 10 Stooge shorts of all time.  Besides, the original Grimm faerie tales were violent, right?  Screenwriters take note: a solid footing in a trusted genre!  Especially if you're writing for Michael Bay.  I better go now.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan