Leisure Suit Lawrence

Well, seeing as how I'm skimping on the Stooge reviews, the least I can do is use larger images.  I've got Volume Seven!  Tee hee hee... Time for one of Larry's most colorful roles in He Cooked His Goose.  The real-life Lawrence, however, was a man of integrity, and this apparently wasn't as favorite a role for him as Scrambled Brains was.  To give you an idea of the kind of character he plays in He Cooked His Goose, he tells Moe "I never saw your wife!  I'm engaged to three beautiful girls!"  There's a contradiction in there someplace, but I'm not perceptive enough to see it.
In the opening scene, we meet Millie, a delightful young girl who's engaged to Shemp... now, I'm probably starting to sound like a broken record here, but it's time for a little more math.  Millie is played by the fetching Angela Stevens, born 1925.  Shemp was born in 1895... that's thirty years, isn't it?  And Louis Feinberg... I mean, Larry, was born in 1902!  That's slightly better at twenty-three years difference.  Holy Elektra Complex, Batman!  I'm just sayin'.  Okay, next topic.
And so, Millie sees through Larry, and forgives Shemp his faults (so far, kleptomania and gingivitis).  Larry fails to woo Millie, so it's back to work at his pet shop, where he smokes a cigar longer than his head.  Never eat anything or smoke anything bigger than your head, I'm always told.
Meanwhile, angry Moe barges into Larry's office and tells Larry to stay away from his wife.  Larry calms Moe down expertly, and offers him smoke and drink.  Alas, Moe engages in neither of the two main gentlemen's pastimes.  Surely, Moe will accept at least one token of Larry's belated friendship!  "I'll have a little bird seed, if you don't mind!  It always calms my nerves," says Moe, and grabs a handful of bird seed.  Social fabric rewoven.  Moe eats that bird seed like it's a bit of the old Southern comforter and starts chirping away.  Larry can see that there's something wrong with this guy.  A blind man can see that.
Oh, I almost forgot.  The neat feature of this Stooge short is the inclusion of Larry's interior monologue.  When Larry starts to think, eerie hypnosis music starts playing.  With Moe, Larry gets a notion, and tells him that he's going to find this ratfink that's horning in on Moe's wife.  Oh, another thing I forgot to mention: the Stooges aren't close friends in this one like they normally are.  Moe and Larry are downright adversarial, in fact!  But they nevertheless slap each other and poke their eyes with the greatest of ease.  In fact, at one point in the proceedings, it looks like Larry pokes Moe right in the eyes, as opposed to Moe's eyebrow ridges just above the eyes, the way it's supposed to be done.  In Larry's defense, he's more often the pokee rather than the poker, especially when he does his God-awful "I had my eyes closed!" routine.  Gee wiz.
There's also a part where Shemp dresses up as Santa, but I've already said enough about this one.  Four stars.

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan