Auteur Watch - Harmony Korine

Damn!  Almost forgot about him.  But it's about time to do another boy genius.  There was a YouTube one that was being called the new Ernie Kovacs, but I don't know his name.  But Harmony!  Wow.  Smoking a cigar next to David Letterman on the TV, no less!  Nowhere to go but up.  Alas, after Julien Donkey Boy he wasn't content to merely pump out a feature every two years like a normal auteur.  Time to delve into short films, probably for the YouTube and WhatNot, working with David Blaine.  But 2007 was the time to get back into the game, and he did his version of Insignificance, called Mister Lonely.  Ah, to be at play in the Lord's field of icons.  How cliché.  I guess his Fight Harm never came to fruition, an idea he told John Pierson where he would pick fights with people... and film it.  Kinda like what Ross McElwee does, but just with words!

Christmas in Connecticut

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the horrific events that took place on Friday in Connecticut.  There seems to have been a spate of school shootings lately, but never one like this.  Also, this is not a typical random spraying of bullets with a machine gun, either.  Shots up close, and on children.  I hate to imagine one any worse. I think the Lanzas would do well to pull up stakes and move out of their once idyllic community, but that's just my humble opinion.  They should probably change their names, too.  Maybe now it's time to talk a little more about that Second Amendment of ours.
Anyway, the business of the box office rolls along, and The Hobbit is probably going to kick ass, even though it's another three hour tour.  Take that, Cloud Atlas! (11:52am, Sunday) Boo-YAH!  84 million, with second place (Rise of the Guardians) making a mere 7 million pittance.  That's an old fashioned ass-kicking.  No other debuts to speak of.  However, I would like to point out that Life of the Pi has been at #5 for four weeks in a row.  Is there a '5555' sequence in ¶?  No, wait, that's the "new paragraph" symbol.  π.  There we go.  Also, Silver Linings Playbook makes a triumphant return to the Top 10, coming in at #10.  This kind of thing tends to happen when one film crushes the competition like that damn Hobbit movie.  I'm afraid the Oscar community's going to again wait until the third installment to laud you with more golden statuettes, Jackson.  Nothing personal, it's just tradition now.

There's gonna be a backache tonight, a backache tonight I know............

Just as Peter Gabriel helped introduce the world to armpit-haired Paula Cole, so too did Betty Boop introduce the world to Popeye... or maybe they just forgot to change the banner!  And as with the eventual evolution of things, the Popeye shorts didn't come right out of the gate with the theme song.  What is this strange thing?  "Strike up the band for Popeye the Sailor..."  What gives?  Oh well.  Enjoy it while it lasts.

ACT ONE

Well, the acts in this one should be shorter, anyhow.  About two minutes apiece.  Anyway, there's a few films that come with their own built-in advertising: Ghost Busters 1 and Jurassic Park spring to mind right away.  There's others, I'm sure.  The first Popeye short starts with a shot of a newspaper that says "POPEYE A MOVIE STAR: The Sailor with the "Sock" accepts Movie Contract."  Of course, the films will be a little bit different than the strips.  No Sea Hag.  No Popeye with a thousand million arrows stuck in him.  And I hate to say it, but I'm about as fond of William Costello's raspy voice as Jack Mercer's.  But I'm sure any number of anonymous posters will change my mind on that score.  And so, we begin with Popeye stretching himself to life, not right out of the Fleischer inkwell, but close enough.  The first rendition of Popeye's theme begins in earnest.  The note he strikes with his pipe's a little bit lower.  Again, we haven't finished evolving yet.  Man, he's one ugly son of a bitch.
Some say Popeye was the first superhero.  After Jesus, of course.  For his first feats of strength, Popeye turns an anchor into a pile of tiny fish hooks.  Then, he turns a clock mounted on a ship's steering wheel into a bunch of alarm clocks.  Then he turns a mast into clothespins!  Such destruction.  But so far the ship can take it.  For his final act to finish the song, he punches a mounted fish into sardine cans.  Blow me down indeed.  (Note: do NOT eat those sardines!)
The Fleischer wit's ever present in these things.  An anonymous sailor goes to put the... you know, that ramp that people use to get off and on the boat.  It doesn't quite reach the pier, so he raises a special valve on the side of the ship that lowers it by filling up the ship with water.  It's a cartoon, damn it!  A cartoon.  Meanwhile, Olive Oyl waits for Popeye to de-boat.  She's hit on by an adult Bimbo, and a one-legged Pig that sounds oddly enough like Popeye!  After that comes Bluto (Brutus for the Disney lawyers out there).  Bluto tickles Olive under the chin, and right away Olive starts slugging Bluto in the face.  Then, she sits on her back and kicks him in the face.  Both feet!  She's got the right idea already.  Popeye finally shows up, shoves Bluto aside, and Popeye and Olive walk off together.  Popeye says "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man!"  His lines get better down the road, thankfully. 
Anyway, now Bluto's mad.  He's so mad, his tattoo of a ship on his chest sinks!  One end of Bluto's shirt grabs the other, and hides Bluto's chest again.  This ain't over.

ACT TWO

Scene: a typical Fleischer carnival, where groups of people jump onto the Ferris wheel, then onto the rollercoaster.  OSHA's nightmare.  Bluto's extremely rude to the peacock taking admissions to the carnival.
Now, as often happens between Popeye and Bluto, it's time for feats of strength.  First feat: that game where you hit a lever and the metal thing goes up... man!  Some college education I got!  Bluto merely hits the top, while Popeye gives the sun a black eye.  Who's alpha dog now, bitch? 
I gotta stop using that phrase.  Too much like Lay's potato chips.  Next game: one that's probably banned from regular TV.  It seems to be something like "Bean the Negro."  Let's leave it at that.  There's a dude at the end of a long room bobbing his head.  Olive throws a ball at him and misses.  Bluto hits the dude and catches the ball in his teeth.  Popeye grabs a bunch of balls, makes a pyramid stack in his arm, and hits the dude repeatedly with balls.  Popeye: 2, Bluto: a big zero.
Next part: time to recycle the footage of Betty Boop as a hula dancer, but the gathered crowd seems excited.  Animaniacs be damned.  Yeah, that's right, I said it.  Even Olive jumps for joy!  Nasty.
Popeye joins Boop on stage, and the riding of coattails is complete.  Betty's doomed to wither and die under the foot of the Hays Code, while Popeye is meant to thrive and prosper.  But both still do well, living on as merchandising, if I may be so bold.

ACT THREE

While Popeye tangles with a snake, Bluto sees his chance to steal Olive away for his own.  Well, they gotta fight over someone, anyhow.  "Marry me!", Bluto bellows.  Betty, Popeye, and everyone else look on in horror.  Popeye revs up and the chase is on.  Bluto destroys a rope bridge in his wake, but Popeye moves mountains to get Olive back, dragging the other end of the chasm over to him with a mere rope.  Meanwhile, a bird flies by and squeaks.
Back to Bluto, who's tying Olive to the railroad tracks!  However, he's using the iron rails of the track to do it, which actually might protect Olive to a point when the train comes.  But before that, Popeye approaches from the distance... cool!  That's one move Gene Deitch could never do in a million years, at least not as well as the Fleischers.  Bluto decks Popeye, and Popeye flies far away, hitting his head against a big rock.  The rock breaks into pebbles.  Popeye hits Bluto under the chin with both feet, turning his neck into the game from earlier.  Bluto starts spinning Popeye around like Gale spins H.I. in Raising Arizona.  And then... on comes the train.  The Fleischers have some fun with it, though.
A mighty fight erupts between Popeye and Bluto.  Bluto ends up repeatedly jumping up and down on Popeye's back, nearly squashing him like a bug.  Popeye appears to be bored with the whole thing.  I wonder how audiences back in the d... back then handled such a sight.  And so, Popeye goes for the spinach for the first time, which evidently didn't happen so often in the old Thimble Theatre strips.  But movies require simplicity, and the simplicity of a dude eating spinach to get superpowers originates with ol' bucktoothed Dr. Kellogg... something like that.  Popeye pulls the spinach from the can, and it looks a bit like a pile of loose grass clippings, much like what Moe had in G.I. Wanna Home.  It's all loosely connected.  While Popeye's eating the spinach, Bluto goes for the big tree next to them, pulling it from the ground like a dandelion, and raising it over his head to hit Popeye with.  Popeye punches the tree first, then Bluto.  Both fly into the air, and down comes wood to make Bluto's coffin with.  Is this the end of Bluto as we know it?

EPILOGUE

There's something about the way Popeye saves Olive from the oncoming train that I really dig.  A slight endorsement of procrastination, perhaps.  The only bad thing about this YouTube link is that it's the old AAP version of the cartoon for television, and doesn't have the whole inkwell ending the Fleischers intended.  Anyhow, a classic cartoon, and a classic beginning to a classic series.  I highly recommend watching them all yourself!

****
-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

New Feature time: Popeye the Sailor

Welp, regular features are what keep people coming back, so I'm going to dip my toes into another one.  I've actually got all the Popeye DVDs I think I'd care to own, all due respect to the bastardized Gene Deitch shorts and all.  Still, some freeloading so and so's uploaded them all to YouTube, so I guess I'll just stick with that for educational purposes. 
Yes, time to go through all the Max Fleischer cartoons, as many as possible.  They've got energy, ingenuity, and creativity, and are not guarded as viciously by lawyers and marketing.  They made me want to be an animator... but I guess not that much, seeing as how I'm doing this instead.  But let's dive right in to the first one here!

Hold hands, you lovebirds! or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the Public Domain

How do these things happen, exactly?  Only at Cannery Row, I suppose.  There's the three or four Stooge shorts that come on every two-bit Stooge DVD: Malice in the Palace, Disorder in the Court, Sing a Song of Six Pants, and our next entry, Brideless Groom.  It's a re-telling of the age old Buster Keaton classic Seven Chances (also co-written by Clyde Bruckman) and, while it doesn't feature the awesome boulder climax, it still has its moments, and I think it may be one of my favourite Shemp shorts.  Let's take a look!

ACT ONE

At the offices of Professor Shemp Howard, Teacher of Voice, we hear the fetching Christine McIntyre singing the last note of the number from Micro-Phonies, also directed by Edward Bernds.  It's what we call in the biz an homage.  We see Shemp conducting by himself, worthy of Leopold.  He goes over, turns a record player off, then consults with his voice student, Miss Dinkelmeyer... great comedy name!  We can see that Dinkelmeyer's got a crush on Shemp.  Ain't that always the way with the less-than-pretty girls?  Just sayin'.  Maybe she's got a little Elektra complex thrown in as well, who knows; Shemp's old enough to be her ... her grandfather, for God's sake!  Larry's asleep at the piano, and Shemp beats him like Moe's beating him!  Dayamn!  Well, Shemp's the older brother.  Ah, sibling rivalry.  Chico was a year older than Groucho, and they always made it a point to one-up each other.  Always.
Lawrence starts playing the piano... even though he seems to just be miming it.  And Dee Green... I mean, Miss Dinkelmeyer starts in with the singing.  This eats up a couple minutes.  Shemp does double take after double take in response.  The song gets stopped when Dinkelmeyer hits the high note too hard.  Ah, that takes me back to band practice.  Shemp gives her some hilarious advice, and she treats it with the gravitas it deserves.  Meanwhile, Larry instantly falls asleep again.  He gives Shemp the bird, and Shemp gives Larry some broken fingers; all quite accidental, I'm sure.  Shemp repairs Larry's hand, and gets him back to work.  Now Larry seems to be actually playing now!  Go figure.  Chico's got nothing on him.  As for Dinkelmeyer, well... this has got to be my new favourite part of the whole film.  She revs up for the big finish, then finishes.  I haven't laughed so hard in a while... now I have to let it sit for a while, of course.  You know how those things go.  I haven't been able to locate any info about Dee Green, but you've got to be pretty darn good to be so bad.  Like Jack Benny, almost!
And so, Dinkelmeyer leaves, and Shemp and Larry have some small talk.  Larry lays the groundwork for the plot, saying "How would you like to be MARRIED to a dame like that?"  Almost as if on cue, Moe makes an explosive entrance, knocking Shemp off his delicate balance.  Moe's dressed like Bogey in The Maltese Falcon or something, and has an extra-hard shell to boot.  What's the dilly-o?
Didn't we just do this plot?  Shemp's Uncle Caleb died, leaving him half a million bucks... PROVIDED they get it from Ichabod Slipp... I mean, provided that Shemp gets married.  Shemp faints in a conveniently located chair, and is awoken by Moe's codicil: Shemp gets the dough if he gets married 48 hours after the reading of the will.  The Stooges are heavy into lawyer territory now that Curls has departed.  The will was read 41 hours ago, giving Shemp seven chances... I mean, seven hours to get married.  Shemp tells Larry "It's impossible.  No woman is interested in me!"  Larry encouragingly tells him "Maybe not pal, but if you look real hard, YOU MIGHT FIND ONE INTERESTED IN HALF A MILLION BUCKS!!!!!"  The key word here is interested, obviously.  Plus, a half a million bucks was worth more back then.  Today you can barely buy a McMansion with no yard.  Shemp's got some phone numbers, and he tells Moe that there's a phone down the hall.  Moe grabs Shemp's hair about as hard as it can be grabbed, and drags him to it.  Good Lourdes!  It sounds like fabric's being torn!

ACT TWO

Probably as good a place for an Act Break as any.  This part's going to eat up some time, anyway.  Once I began my deep study of the Stooge films, I believe it was this scene where I first realized that this was how they stretched their shoestring budgets: with long, epic gags that help add a film up to about 16 minutes in length.  I wonder if commoners ever picked up on this, or was it just the embittered industry types?  Shemp gets some nickels from the other two, and goes into the booth proper.  Moe and Larry start pacing in front of the booth as though they're at the hospital waiting for the bad news.  Shemp dials "Susquehanna 2222."  Seems strange, seeing as how he's using a dial phone.  Oh well.
Cross-fade to an hour later, as Larry helpfully points out.  Moe tries to reassure him, saying that no woman can resist Shemp when he pours on the charm.  I think Gilbert Gottfried once did a stand-up routine about this, before he went totally off the rails... damn, not easy to find on the YouTube.  Anyway, we get a sample of Shemp's charm.  A few seconds later, we get the loudest sound of a phone hanging up OF ALL TIME.  Epic!  Iconic!  Game changing!  All the louder because we hear it from the other end of the line!!!!!!!!!!  Epic!  Iconic!! G... did I say that already?  I guess I did.  Epic!
Shemp takes a break from the phone, and opens the phone booth, which sounds like someone unzipping their fly.  Moe is filled with some hope at this point.  Those hopes are dashed when Shemp says "I've got one phone number and one nickel left."  "Well, start using it!" barks Moe.  Shemp must be getting nervous at this point, for no sooner does he go to insert said final nickel, when... clank!  DOWN GOES NICKEL!  I mean, the nickel drops to the ground.  And so... time for another time stretcher!  Moe and Shemp prove that two is NOT always better than one, at least when it comes to getting a nickel off of the floor of a telephone booth.  Larry chews his nails and spits them out while all this goes on.  I'll spare you a total play-by-play, and just point out two Moe rages: rage #1, rage #2.  Oh, and Larry gets the right answer to a dumb question.
Moe ad-libs and says "There's not much time left!  You know that, dontcha?"  I guess they have other plot points to get to.  The phone booth has finally had enough, and splits apart, sparing itself from any more trauma than it's already endured.  Phone booth: 1, Stooges: 0.  The exchange between Moe and Larry is dubbed in at this point.
Cross-fade to next plot development: enter the fetching Christine McIntyre.  A bellhop is taking her luggage into her room.  He volunteers her name to the Stooges to save valuable plot time: Miss Hopkins!  Miss!  Proposin' time... but just as Shemp's on his way, Moe grabs Shemp's hair once again.  Shemp needs to dress up and clean up a little nicer for this one.  And so they do.
Next scene: Shemp borrows a gag from former co-star W.C. Fields and shaves by a mirror dangling in the middle of the room.  The other two are busy as well: Larry's ironing clothes, while Moe's doing alterations on Shemp's pants... with Shemp still in them.  Moe's using the old fashioned needle and thread; gee, I wonder what's going to happen?  Shemp shoves a dabber full of shaving cream into his left eye.  Shemp eventually says "Get a towel, Moe!  Get a towel!"  Moe obliges... must be a gag coming up.  The drawer gag?  Didn't we just do this?  Well, it's different this time because the drawers don't move by themselves.  Lawrence gets Moe's sloppy seconds, so to speak.  Were Moe a younger man, he would've been much quicker off the mark.  Back to Shemp, who's waiting for that towel.  Then, Moe makes the plot more complicated: Moe tells Shemp that he gave the story to the newspapers, probably in exhaustive detail of course.  Meanwhile, Shemp begins a particularly brutal shave regimen.  My squeamish friend would cover his eyes and hold his nose bridge in response.  Even Larry's shocked!  Larry gets distracted and irons his own hand.  What a goof.  As in It's a Gift, the mirror starts spinning, so Shemp has to walk around in circles, with Moe following at his feet like a little lap dog.  Shemp gets stabbed with the needle again, and Larry sets up some proverbial dominoes by leaving the hot iron on a chair.  The proverbial dominoes are just as quickly knocked over, thank God.  Reminds me of Helpmates.
Cross-fade: Shemp is finally ready to meet Christine McIntyre.  For the sake of moving the plot forward, she's in the room just across from his Professor's office in the hotel.  He has trepidations about the whole thing, but Moe and Shemp force him onward and forward.  McIntyre opens the door and is quite friendly!  Maybe a little too much so.  She yanks Shemp into her room at about 2:05.  Alas, she thinks Shemp is her Cousin Basil.  I guess she's a Southern gal!  She showers Shemp with kisses about the face.  Moe and Larry are outside the door, listening, the pervs.  The audio of McIntyre repeats.  Moe gets caught up in the excitement and showers Larry with some kisses of his own!  Good Lourdes.  A bellhop walks by, so Moe quickly butches it back up, saying "CUT IT OUT!" and slapping Larry in the face.
And then... the real Cousin Basil calls on the phone.  Easy come, easy go.  The kisses turn to slaps now.  This has got to be one of the all-time great McIntyre performances, with all due respect to Micro-Phonies.  Maybe it's just me.
So, Shemp gets one last giant punch, and brings down the door with him as he falls in the hall.  Miss Dinkelmeyer is seen running up the hall, and she helps bring Shemp out of his slap-induced stupor.  He does his "Oh, I'm fine" routine again.  Shemp forwards the plot by saying "All I wanted to do was propose..."  Dinkelmeyer clutches Shemp to her bosom, saying "Oh, Professor, this is all so sudden!"  She loves Shemp unconditionally, even though he treats her like crap all the time.

ACT THREE

Scene: J.M. Benton, Justice of (the) Peace, played by Emil Sitka, playing an elderly fellow type, even though he was about 34 when he made this one.  After they're all standing inside in a nice row for the camera to see everyone, Moe lays out the situation to Emil... I mean, J.M.  Just then, the phone rings.  It's a phone call for a Mr. Howard.  Moe takes the call.  If this were an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, they'd spend a whole season on the nerve of someone having a phone call forwarded like that... Cell phones?  Haven't they heard of c... oh, right.  Anyway, the structure for mayhem is built: the other girls that Shemp called just found out about the money stipulation.  May no one mention the offices of J.M. Benton!  But we've got four and a half minutes left!  How are they going to stretch out the plot on this one?  Ah, the one ring.  Of course.  As with the nickel earlier landing on the floor of the phone booth, so too does the ring end up in an inconvenient truth... I mean, place.  The ring lands inside the piano at about 4:18.9 with a mighty clang.  I hear this is where Dave Grusin got the idea for the suspenseful music in The Firm.  1993's The Firm, that is, with Thomas Cruise Mapother the Fourth.  (Alas, YouTube won't afford me a millisecond closer.  Whoever made their first million with these hyperlinks, however, will make their second million by allowing a user to copy a video URL at a current time with such precision.)  And so, the destruction of yet another piano by the Stooges begins.  Moe gets us started by shoving Shemp's head into the matrix of wires at about 4:26 or so.  Suddenly, the film's slowed down to about 12fps so they can gently drop the piano lid on Shemp's head without too severe a concussion to the piano.  Shemp yanks out a piano wire, which snaps back and hits Moe in the face.  Lol.  Rinse and repeat: Moe shoves Shemp's head once again, and down comes the piano lid on Shemp once again.  At 5:11, Emil FINALLY tries to complain about what's happening to his piano.  Larry shoves Emil away, saying "Shut up."  Who's α-Stooge now, bitch?  Moe and Larry pull Shemp as far from the piano as they can, then decide to let him go so they can regroup.  Shemp flies towards the piano, hitting it twice with his head.  Mensa, eat your heart out!  Well, at least he's not as tangled as he and Moe were in that damn phone booth. 
And so, with a mere three minutes left, the ring is recovered.  But then, right after Sitka says "Join hands, you lovebirds," a mighty phalanx of voices rises from behind closed doors... that's so the wrong word, isn't it?  Oh well.  We've got about three minutes left, which includes about twenty seconds for the final end theme, and in rushes the scorned ladies of yester-reel, suddenly very interested in the economic incentive to marrying Shemp.  There's only five, but what they lack in numbers, they make up for in 50s attitude.  Still, you gotta admire the sheer scope, and racial diversity, of Buster Keaton's original film.
Poor Miss Dinkelmeyer's outgunned on this one, and she knows it.  Then again, how about Scrambled Brains, am I right?  Anyway, Moe tries to take a bullet for Shemp... and he practically does.  He gets kicked in the shins twice, making a sped-up "Ow!" sound.  Either that, or he was huffing some helium.  Now it's Larry's turn.  The choreography is clearly not as good this time, but Larry gets a little more quality screen time: a shin kick, and they tear at his hair!  There's also a close-up of Shemp's hair getting torn, and one of the ladies holds the clump of Shemp's hair with a mixture of horror and fascination.  Or maybe it's the thrill of battle combined with wondering what kind of monster she's suddenly become.  Or maybe she's just pausing for the laugh.
Next scene: the part used in Pulp Fiction.  Shemp and Dinkelmeyer and Sitka are by the bird cage.  Sitka says... everyone together now... "Hold hands, you lovebirds!"  An instant later, Boom goes the bird cage hat for Sitka.
And now, another time-stretcher.  The α female of the shrill quintet takes Shemp over to the old-timey printing press.  No office of a Justice of the Peace is complete without one, of course.  What is it about these public domain Stooge films?  They all seem to have someone's melon getting squeezed in it!  Disorder in the Court, this one... okay, maybe just those two.  Well, Sing a Song of Six Pants probably has a similar gag, but with a clothing steamer, but we're not there yet.  You might want to skip this part.  I wish I could.  Time is stretched as Shemp's head is squeezed in the vice.  Damn!  The thing's really going down, too! 
Then, a shot of the other four women fighting.  Then, a shot of Larry getting a gun to ... not to shoot, but to hit the women on the head with the butt of the gun.  Moe gives Larry a bigger gun for the job, and off goes Larry to f... screw that up.  Actually, the women come to them!  A woman flies into the chair seated next to Benton's gun rack, and Larry starts to take a mighty swing with his gun "club."  He hits Moe with it, the woman stands up, and hits Larry with the gun right back, then apparently goes right back to fighting.  Another shot of Shemp getting his head squeezed.  Worse than Casino, I tells ya.  The clubbing routine happens again, but Moe and Larry switch places to keep things fresh.  Then, they put a bear trap in the chair.  What kind of Justice of the Peace is this?  Of course, the Stooges have their boundaries, and Moe ends up in the chair instead of one of the ladies.  He lets out a mighty scream like I've never heard him give before.  The removal of the trap takes up the rest of their time in this flick, I'm afraid.  Meanwhile, Shemp finally gives up, taps out, and is saved from the printing press.  Just after his head has been liberated, one of the ladies throws a vase, hitting Shemp in the head.  He staggers over to the knocked out Justice, who's finally awake again.  Is it 6 O'Clock yet??!!!!

EPILOGUE

The ceremony has finally been performed.  Not as off-beat as, say, Little Murders, but what can you do?  After nursing his ass wound, Moe joins Shemp by his side, as does Larry.  Timekeeper Larry says "It's six o'clock!  You're married!"  Shemp's still a little out of it from the vase and the printing press, I assume.  Moe tells Shemp, "You're married, kid!  Say something!"  He takes another look at Dinkelmeyer and... well, I won't spoil that for you.
As much as I want to give this one four stars, I can't, out of deference to Seven Chances, I'm afraid.  Three and a half, maybe.

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

Auteur Watch - ...any requests?

Well, I better not do Mary Lambert again, or at least mention her age.  I got it!  You know, a film like Rise of the Guardians may not represent much to you, but to someone like its director Peter Ramsey, it's the most important thing in the world right now.  Especially after you've spent 20 years in this business storyboard artisting your way through dreck like Batman Forever and A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 (the critically acclaimed one, probably...)  He dipped his toes in the water with a short film based on the cast of Monsters v. Aliens, and then the big time.  His directorial debut, Rise of the Guardians, lording over technicians who've spent 10 years trying to get the damn thing made, and schmoozing with the actors who spent a few weeks not dressing up and growing beards to do the voiceover work.  Ain't it the life, though?  He's not going to make the mistake that J. Todd Anderson made, that's fer sure!!!  Now all that's left to do is your pet project: a film for IFC about a small-town boy who's different from the other kids that pick on him, and grows up to be a successful storyboard artist... something like that.  Just try to make the dialogue a little less whiny than Chasing Amy, okay?

Will Success Spoil Gerard Butler?

Someday maybe.  Meanwhile, he's got a new movie called #Playing for Keeps... no, not that one, the other one!  What else?  Nah, tis a slow week at the box office.  Which is good, because we need a break before The Hobbit hits.

Curly's Last Appearance

If you're like me (scary thought, I know), you know this one better as the zany Loose Loot.  But that one's a ways off, so try to act surprised when we get to it.  But perhaps there's a valuable lesson here for budding young screenwriters.  A few nips and tucks, and you can turn a train ride into a trip backstage at a theater!  Time for Hold the Lion, Please... I mean, Hold that Lion!

ACT ONE

They've been upgraded to the new Shemp version of "Three Blind Mice"!  Nice.  Now, normally we see stock footage of a sign on the side of a building, but here... wow.  Savour this moment for a while.  We see the door of Cess, Poole and Drayne, Attorneys at Law.  The door opens to reveal the Stooges talking to Emil Sitka!  That's the film's entire budget in that one scene!  Anyway, the plot.  Legal matters have always been a bit of a tangle in these United States and, for the Stooges and their inheritance, the instant case is no exception.  Lawyer for the Stooges Emil Sitka is trying to explain the situation to the Stooges, and apparently it's taken an hour.  The Stooges better learn faster than that.  These guys charge big, you know!  Some dude named Mr. Slipp is the administrator of the Stooges' impending inheritance.  All Sitka can do is serve him a subpoena, and the courts take it from there.  Larry cuts to the chase, saying "Attorney, schmorney.  We want our inheritance!!!"  Shemp remembers seeing something in the paper about the estate.  Sitka looks surprised.  Shemp takes his sweet time to smell the roses, and clean his lensless glasses, saying "Rome wasn't built in a day.  Neither was Syracuse."  Shemp reads the article, and Sitka responds.  Yeah, yeah, boring stuff.  When do we get some action here?  This is a Stooge film, damn it!  There are expectations!  The expectations are met at about 1:41 or so.  The action comes ten seconds earlier in Loose.  I've never noticed the crunching noise when Moe grabs Shemp's nose!  Kewl! 

Things calm down after that.  Then, the spell of legitimacy is broken when lawyer Sitka tells the Stooges to get the Ambrose Rose file out of the yonder file cabinet.  I've never heard of a self-serve law firm before!  Must've been a post-WWII phenomenon or something.  And so... time to stretch out time in this film for a little while, as the boys grapple with an angry file cabinet.  Sounds like a hot new iPhone game, no?  Score: file cabinet 3, Stooges 1.  Moe wins the battle against the cabinet, saying "See?  You have to use your brains!"  Then, he uses his brains, but in the wrong way.  Larry and Shemp happily point this out to Moe.  Sitka finds the file, but the Stooges aren't done with the cabinet just yet.  Final score: cabinet 6, Stooges 1.

Cross-fade to next scene: the offices of Slipp, Tripp 'n Skipp: Bad Guys on the Lam.  Just a shot of the door this time, no going through it.  Next scene: Kenneth MacDonald at his desk.  You probably know him best from The Ten Commandments, but he's probably got more lines here.  He's on the phone, and makes the mistake of writing down the train he's planning on catching.  He steps into his very, very large closet, and the Stooges make their trademark entrance just after that.  Larry gives the reason for the film's title at about 4:00 or so.  The Stooges make the mistake of saying aloud that they don't know what Slipp looks like.  Slipp hears this, and uses it to his advantage later on.  The Stooges agree to split up and search all the other offices for Slipp, so that Slipp can take them on one at a time... I mean, spoiler alert!  There's a catchy chant at 4:16, a little bit of hitting, and they're off.  Larry "stands guard" and takes himself a seat in Slipp's chair.  Slipp emerges from the closet, and pretends that Larry is Slipp.  Slipp proves himself to be the fourth Stooge by grabbing Lawrence's nose, then slapping his hand.  Must be some kind of wrestling move.  Then, Larry... or, his stunt double, rather ... gets pulled by his feet over the desk.  Slipp holds Larry upside down and beats him against the floor.  It's epic, I tells ya.  Epic.  Slipp rolls Larry, and Larry gets up onto the couch, completely passed out.  The first subpoena is torn up by Slipp.  Moe comes in next, and Slipp deals with him much faster than Larry.  I'm a bit let down by this!  Down goes the second subpoena.  Shemp's next, but at least he has a little fight in him.  Well, not really.  Slipp lands a punch and Shemp spins like a top.  Slipp gets in another good punch, and Shemp flies back against the wall, getting a goldfish bowl onto his head, and water all over his jacket.  Such a lack of dignity and grace. 

Slipp takes out the briefcase full of money for all to see, and exits.  Moe and Larry wake up first, inspiring a similar scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles many years later.  Time is then spent on getting Shemp's head out of the fishbowl.  Larry tries to shoot Shemp's head with a gun in order to get it off, but Shemp ducks at the last split second.  See?  Who says these are bad for kids?  You've got lessons with consequences just like that!  I say, if you don't show your kid this scene, you're a pretty lousy parent.  Eventually, they find a picture of Slipp in his desk, and the information that Slipp wrote down.  All that's left to do is get to Slipp's train and save the day.  Oh, right... the fishbowl.  Moe cracks it with the handle of the gun.  I guess they're taking that with them.  Back then, you could get on a train with a gun much more easily.  It's this kind of scene that makes me fret for Shemp's frailty.  He thanks Moe for liberating him from the evil fishbowl of doom, and reassures Moe that he's perfectly all right.  His foot touches a broken shard of the bowl, and DOWN GOES SHEMP!  Moe and Lawrence help Shemp up, and out of the office they go.  They dub in Moe saying "Poor kid must have indigestion!"  For whatever reason, the line is NOT in Loose Loot.

ACT TWO

Scene: the train proper.  But they've got no money for tickets, says Larry!  Moe reassures his troops, saying that they'll grab Slipp and slip off the train, for lack of a better term, thereby bypassing the need for tickets.  Why do I get the feeling that things aren't going to go so smoothly?  Anyway, Moe asks Shemp what a good word for "scrutiny" is.  Shemp replies, "Scrutiny!"  Moe pokes Shemp's eyes out for that.

And so, the search for Slipp begins.  First up: some dude with a hat over his face.  Who could be more guilty?  As it turns out, it's Curly with a full head of hair.  He apparently didn't like being Curly, that is, sans follicles all the time, so he made up for it after his retirement/second massive heart attack.  Godspeed, Curly.  Godspeed.  We still miss ya.

Next customer: some dude with a comically oversized beard.  His hat gets removed, and he gets a good tug on that beard of his.  Funny story... it's a real beard.  The guy gives the Stooges the ol' three-fer face slap, and tries to nurse his beard back to health.  The Stooges make off with the dude's hat.

Next up: train employee Dudley Dickerson, who enjoys a brief period of normalcy fluffing pillows before he has to do his bug-eye routine.  The Stooges rudely walk past him, and meet up with the conductor proper.  "Tickets, please," he says in close-up.  Moe deals with that mean ol' character right well: he says "We left them in the drawing room!"  Moe opens the drawing room and, like an idiot, the conductor walks right in.  The Stooges shake hands in celebration of one of life's small victories... then, a woman screams.  Moe says "Nyaaah!" and they're off running again.  The conductor emerges with a massive black eye, and he spies the Stooges in their trademark huddle.  "Hey you!!" he screams and runs after them.  Larry and Shemp lure the conductor into a room by acting like complete children.  The conductor runs at them, and Moe sticks his leg out.  The conductor's stunt double goes flying, and the Stooges all run past the camera.

Next scene: a room with a bunch of crates in it.  What is it about films with Shemp and rooms full of crates?  That's three films in a row now with crates!  This room seems awfully wide to be on a narrow train, but we've suspended disbelief before in these here Stooge flicks.  Why should this be any different?  The boys hide in an especially big crate right in the middle of the warehouse floor.  Not the best place to really hide, but they'll be off and running before you know it.

Next scene: the inside of the crate proper, where the boys finally get a chance to sit down and rest.  They didn't get a good look inside the crate when they went in, obviously, because we all can see the lion behind them.  Close-up of the lion growling.  Time for that moldy old "What are you growling about?" routine.  Moe asks Shemp directly this time about indigestion.  Larry has an alpha-Stooge moment, but Moe sees the lion before dealing out some swift retribution for that crime.  And so, the Stooges' stunt doubles escape the crate, with the lion close behind.  Next scene: the long train hallway with draped beds.  The Stooges duck into one of them, while the lion moseys along, trying to figure out this alien environment it is now in.  They decide to get Slipp first thing in the morning after a good night's sleep.  I almost forgot about him!  There's a brief ode to Berth Marks, and it's off to sleep.

Next scene: the lion finds its way into the room that Dudley Dickerson is in, who's busy shining shoes.  And yup, you probably guessed it, he grabs the lion's tail by mistake and dips it into the shoe polish container.  The lion growls, and Dudley bugs his eyes out.  You know the drill.  Dudley sticks his head out the window, but can't bring himself to jump from the moving train.  The lion scratches Dudley on the ass, and Dudley says "Help!  Help!  I'm losing my mind!!"  We'll hear that again later on down the road.  The lion leaves after that.

Back to the Stooges, asleep in a heap in the train bed.  And even though there's a lion loose on the train, Moe sticks his foot out in the hall.  The lion approaches, and starts licking his foot.  Moe smiles.  Back to the lion.  There's a strange noise that's supposed to be someone laughing, but now I can't tell if it's supposed to be Moe or the lion.  I report, you decide.  Back to Moe, who's definitely the one laughing now.  This goes on for about half a minute.  When Moe's laughter stops, it's time to hit something.  He hits Shemp in the face with his bare foot.  Dang!  And a real nice zetz it is, too.  Just for good measure, Moe tells Lawrence to "wake up and go to sleep."  Why exclude anyone?  They rearrange themselves, and the lion soon joins them at the foot of their bed, so to speak.  Apparently, the lion's sitting on their feet, which leads Moe and Larry to do some more bickering.  Shemp grows visibly weary of their bickering, but is soon scared anew by the lion.  The three of them get scared by a stuffed lion in one quick scene, and soon it's off to the races again.  DOWN GOES THE DRAPES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Stooges crawl off like cowards.  We don't see the lion and all those good people together, alas.  Too dangerous.  Oh, right.  The Third Act.

ACT THREE

Well, there's about two minutes left to go, and we haven't seen Slipp yet!  WHERE IS HE?  Oh, good.  There he is.  Too bad they can't throw that dirty guy to the lions.  He ducks out of the way of the Stooges' fists and makes yet another getaway.  This may be the trickiest bad guy the Stooges ever had to deal with!  This makes Hold That Lion! their The Day of the Jackal.  Back to the crate warehouse, where Slipp taunts them with his superior arbitrage skills.  Slipp even manages to use Shemp as a Trojan horse in this tiny enclosed space!  It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.  Moe tries to cool Shemp off with a hammer.  

Slipp's getting serious now.  He sneaks up on the Stooges, and reaches into his coat for a knife!  Oh, dude.  Not cool.  Not cool at all.  Meanwhile, Moe realizes the stupidity in trying to use a hammer as a fan, and throws it away behind himself, hitting Slipp in the face.  A valuable lesson for everyone, kids and adults alike.  Sometimes it's a good thing to throw a hammer away behind you without looking to see if you'll hit anything.

Slipp slumps to the ground with a mighty sigh, and the day is saved.  Moe goes in to hit him with the hammer, but has a rare moment of mercy.  The boys go through the bag of the Ambrose Rose estate like kids in a candy store.  These days, of course, the candy store's everywhere.  Trader Joe's, Cost Plus World Market... there's the odd See's Candies outlet store, of course, but for the most part, the mom and pop sweet shop has been subsumed by every grocery store in the world.  Sorry, got on the soapbox again.  Moe starts counting out the stacks of bills: "There's one for you, one for you, and one for me."  Slipp starts to come to, so Moe gives him a nice hit on the head with the hammer.  Gee, I wonder what he's going to say?

EPILOGUE

Greed threatens to tear the boys apart.  After Slipp's hit on the head, Shemp starts saying "Gimme the bonds!  I want the bonds!"  He ends up falling ass-first onto a stack of Ace Farm eggs.  When this happened to Joe Besser, Joe said "Raw egg.  I HATE raw egg!"  This time, Shemp says "I feel like a piece of French toast!"  Shemp: 1, Joe: 0.  Shemp throws eggs at the other two, and they get hit in the face.  They get hit by something that doesn't quite look like an egg.  The eggs seemed to have turned into quasi-pastries in mid-flight.  Moe and Larry take a little time to stop counting their new-found riches to hit Shemp with some of the eggs he's sitting in.  As fine an ending as you could have.  Well, second only to Gypped in the Penthouse, perhaps.

***

-so sayeth The Movie Hooligan

Auteur Watch - Katie Aselton

Well, if you hang around with dufii like the Duplasses long enough, you can't help but think to yourself, hell!  I can direct, too!  But they're good sports, and this Black Rock thing looks to be the next Blair Witch!  And Duplass was a good sport about it.  Why, he even penned the script!

The Twilight Zone

Sorry, but I'm taking the easy way out this week.  I'm sure the last of the Twilight Saga movies will be up there in at least the top three... unless, say, there's a new Pittacus Lore movie.  Reminds me: I've got to buy deodorant at the store..... Meanwhile, speaking of stinking up the place, Yahoo! News is all a-twitter about the latest Brad Pitt movie bombing.  So mean.  They're calling it his worst opening ever; something like that.  The real question is: how's it doing compared to what they spent on advertising?  In that regard, I'll bet it's doing great!  Perhaps even better than anyone expected!  Seeing as how it's overly preachy and all.  That's the real cinematic crime these days!

Short Reviews - November 2012

I'm going to try reverse psychology to thwart the Mayan end of the world.


Caesar Must Die - Taviani

Romeo Must Die - LI!!!!!!!!!!!!

Romeo is Bleeing - Ewwww!!!

Die Another Day - Nice gadgets!

Tomorrow Never Dies - It took us 30 years, but we've gone from the simple innocence of Ringo's Tomorrow Never Knows, to Broccoli's Tomorrow Never Dies.  Faster next time, please!

The Pope Must Diet - It could happen!  Maybe over Lent.

A Late Quartet - Haven't Catherine Keener and Philip Seymour Hoffman made this movie already?  Several times?

Men In Black 3 - Karl Rove just lost $300 million of someone's money.  I couldn't think of who could feel his pain.  Then it hit me... after all, Barry Sonnenfeld just lost about $375 million of Sony's money on MIB3, right? ...damn, more like $225 million.  Guess it'd have to be Spider Man 3, huh?  That was $258 million, apparently.  The Sandman effect cost an arm and a leg!  Much ado about the Terminator.

The Dark Knight Rises - We've got a DVD/Blu-Ray release date!  Sometime in December... ah, it's not the same w/out the Joker

Melancholia - Von Trier's 2001.  Guess he's not into that Dogme crap anymore.

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Heather Langenkamp recently made it onto the Yahoo! News top 10.  I think it was to reminisce about this one.  Oh sure, it was scary and all, but still not as scary as working with Bill Kirchenbauer on "Just the Ten of Us."  But that was the go-go 80s, and a guy like that could make it onto a sitcom.  Will our children ever forgive us?

The Last Stand - Arnie's "Get the Gringo", basically.....................

Eraser - The second-to-last stand

...then again, they didn't see the Spanish coming, right?

Have Title, Will Travel

Oh boy!  Another Western.  And it's called.... Out West?  That's it?  Sheeeeesh...

ACT ONE

I'm a little disoriented, because usually these films open with some sort of scene setting.  For example, No Census, No Feeling starts off at the clearly-marked Square Deal Swap Shop, and Three Little Pirates clearly states that it takes place in 1672 on Deadman's Island.  Out West offers no such comfort, except from the main title sequence, which should suggest the period and genre.  We have to pick it up in bits and bobs from the opening sequence, where Shemp is being examined by Dr. Vernon Dent.  I hope he's as good as his facial hair would suggest!
Diagnosis: Shemp has a bad leg.  Moe's bedside manner's not exactly helping, either. (Alas, no "bonk" sound effect to accompany it)  This scene is rather strange, as it involves Dr. Dent drawing a picture of Shemp's "enormous" vein in his leg.  Dent says "I've never seen a vein like it in all my life!"  I was expecting an exchange like this: Moe asks "Well, how long have you been a doctor?" and Dent saying "Oh, about two weeks now... I used to do horses!"  Of course, horse docs used to just shoot a horse if it got ill back then.  How far we've come since the Old West.  Shemp's not going to lose the leg, but he does have to go out West for a couple months to be as good as new.  We don't know where they are now, but it's probably not too far from the Columbia lot.  Anyway, what a relief.  Why, Shemp's feeling 100% better already!  At least 'til that second step.  This could fit right into a YouTube mashup of epic fails.  Fade to black.  Notice that the audio doesn't fade out as well.  DAMN YOU, CANNERY ROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Next scene: the Red Dog Saloon... hey!  There it is above in the jpeg!  Scene after that: the boys are dressed up in the tackiest cowboy duds ever, and come charging through those swinging saloon doors.  Shemp slaps his leg for good measure.  He feels better already!  Of course, one stray bullet and it's all for naught, but things are calm for now.  But just then... some rowdy dude at the bar wants some stronger stuff than what that stingy barkeep's got.  "I'm TOUGH!" he cries.  Professor Moe goes to work: monkey see, Stooges do, so the boys gotta be tough, too.  They're lucky they don't get shot.
First conflict: the "tough" guy at the bar says to his friend, "Shoot you for the drink!"  The friend throws a coin into the air, and the "tough" guy shoots the coin.  Apparently, the coin disappears, or gets embedded into the ceiling.  Looks like the friend's paying.  Shemp taps the "tough" guy on the shoulder, and says "Shoot you for the drink!"  The "tough" guy says "Throw!"  Shemp searches through his pockets, and has a bit of a struggle with it.  Shemp tells the guy, "You throw!"  Shemp's on the road to either toughness or rudeness, hard to say.  The "tough" guy throws a coin.  Shemp says "Hold it!" and the coin stops in mid-air.  Shemp now struggles with drawing his gun, but he eventually removes it from the holster.  Shemp takes his sweet time to aim, as well.  LOL.  Finally, Shemp's ready to fire and he tells the coin "Okay!"  The coin drops.  Shemp shoots, and a bunch of coins land on the counter in front of the barkeep.  Hmmm!  Looks like that guy from Spook Louder!  No, apparently that was Lew Kelly.  The bartender is Heinie Conklin.  No relation to Chester Conklin, apparently.  Anyway, back to the instant case.  Shemp gives the "tough" guy the change, and the three of them down a shot of "Old Homicide."  Moe and Larry feel the effects first.  Shemp teases them for being such newbies, but feels the effects himself soon enough.  Same thing happens when they're at sea.  Shemp gets seasick last... yup, a Curly remake.  Shemp says "Shoot you for the drinks!" again, but he's in no condition to try anything.
And then, the plot thickens... or just plain congeals.  Fresh characters are tossed into the mix.  We see a dude that looks like the arch-bad guy, or at least one or two degrees separated from the arch-bad guy.  And he's got a flunkie as well.  The arch bad guy calls over the fetching Christine McIntyre, playing another damsel in distress, and she's in much more distress than she was in Micro-Phonies, that much is true.  The arch bad guy sends McIntyre over to the Stooges to find out who they are... or else.  Another hostage crisis, apparently.  McIntyre approaches, saying "Hello, boys!"  And it goes south from there.
This is one plot development I truly, honestly hate to spoil, but since I'm going over the whole film entire, I must.  Needles to say, McIntyre was involved in a similar misunderstanding in that one about Curly's flycatcher.  She asks the boys, "What brings you to Coyote Pass?"  Shemp says, "It's my vein.  Biggest vein you ever saw."  See what they've done?  It drags on.  McIntyre asks "Where is it?"  Shemp begins to point to his leg, but goes for Dr. Dent's diagram instead.  I'm assuming he's not going to go into great detail about that, either.  McIntyre stops him before it happens, yup.  The bad guy rushes over and takes her place.  His name is "Doc" Barker, and he's played by a fellow named Norman Willis.  He seems very nasally to me.  He also reminds me of Dick Curtis, who was apparently unavailable at the time.  This "Doc" Barker's just as crazy as the Stooges, going on and on about how they'll have to use twenty men with picks and shovels or, failing that, dynamite.  Despite no locations on Shemp's map, the "Doc" tells his flunkie that the vein's worth "millions."  The Stooges exit left.  No wonder this one's not among the classics.  On the other hand, perhaps maps of gold mines were ambiguous on purpose back then.  It'll leave you wondering that.

ACT TWO

As good a place as any for an act break, as it's time for America's Next Big Plot Development.  The always fetching Christine McIntyre reappears, and asks the Stooges to come with her.  Next scene: a jail cell with some young handsome dude who can't act in it.  His name's "The Arizona Kid," on top of everything else, or maybe he just goes by Johnny.  No time for small details like that!  McIntyre lays out the situation: "Doc" Barker killed McIntyre's father and stole the Red Dog Saloon from her.  He probably landed the young guy in the jail cell as well!  He's the proverbial Teapot Dome Scandal of the Old West: tentacles in everything... something like that. 
As usual, McIntyre has to do the heavy lifting.  She devises a plan... well, an outline of a plan.  If they can find a key to the jail cell door, they can let "The Arizona Kid" out!  Simply genius!  This will transform civilization as we now know it!  The Stooges punctuate her plan with "Yes"es in increasing numbers... all the way up to three!  That's kinda rare.
Next scene: back on the saloon floor.  McIntyre says to the Stooges, "He (Barker?) keeps the key in his coat pocket."  Oh boy!  Mission Impossible time!  McIntyre disappears, and the Stooges exchange some light quips before the "doc" comes over.  Barker invites Shemp over to their poker game.  It becomes clear at this point that Barker's got a very strong back slap.  Shemp roughly lands in his chair.  Meanwhile, Moe and Larry supplant themselves as bartenders, and begin to mix drinks!  Good thing they're the only ones in their world who understand the Pig English.
And so, the alchemy begins.  Moe helpfully lists out his ingredients for us: "Old Homicide," molasses, Tabasco!!!  Each ingredient is punctuated by an "Aah" from Moe.  Meanwhile, Shemp's playing some serious poker.  He starts by taking off his boot, revealing his comical socks that don't cover his toes.  Alas, it's all part of the larger puzzle.  Two bad guys flanking Shemp try passing cards to each other, but Shemp's foot intercepts the card.  Shemp has a massive stroke... I mean, does a massive double take after seeing that he's now got the ace of diamonds, and he just as quickly swaps it out for the two of clubs.  And by quickly, I mean rather slowly.  You could learn a thing or two from all this, Phil Hellmuth!  And stop consorting with your wife during gameplay so much!  You're making us all sick!  And, in accordance of one of Newton's Laws transposed to comedy, (the Second Law?) the bad guy does a double take of his own after seeing he's one card short of a Royal Flush.
Back to the ingredients.  Larry tops the bucket off with a shpritz of sheltzer... I mean, seltzer.  And then... perhaps it's all worth it to see what Moe does with two eggs.  Laugh of the day that I'm not too proud of myself for.  Now, even though Lawrence quite literally has egg on his face, he can still tell the truth afterwards, and notices that Moe dumps paint into the bucket.  Finally!  Something that usually goes into a bucket is finally in the liquor bucket!  Larry says "Hey!  You dumped paint in there!"  Moe, drunk from his own power, dumps something else in after it.  Larry asks what it was.  Moe replies, "paint remover."  This sounds a bit like Joaquin Phoenix in The Master, no?  More timely than ever!
Back to the poker game, next hand.  Everyone takes three.  Barker takes one.  Subtle, but we all know why, tee hee hee.  Same thing happens: Shemp intercepts the ace of diamonds again, and passes on the four of spades this time.  As often happens in these games, the low man needs some extra money to call.  Shemp's the low man, but Barker offers to give him $5,000 in exchange for that diagram of his leg... I mean, the map to El Dorado, as it's now known.  Shemp eagerly accepts.  He takes the $5,000 and raises to $1,000.  Prudent!
Back to Moe and Larry.  Moe grabs a boot, and Larry pours some of the foggy bucket concoction into it.  And back to the poker game!  Barker's changed his fortunes and now has a king-high straight... and he says it, too!  Meanwhile, Shemp has intercepted the last ace, and with four aces he wins the pot.... for now.
Back to Moe and Larry, who are finally pouring their poison into mugs and are getting ready to take it over to the table.  Moe asks for a bottle of sasparilla... it's for Shemp!  And of course... Moe gets distracted on his way over to the table and gets some liquid spilled on his shirt.  He puts down the tray of glasses, and rather instantly forgets which glass is which.  No time to inspect the glasses too closely, as Barker barks out for a drink.  See how I did that?  You could cut the dramatic tension with a knife.  Moe places the glasses down in front of Shemp.  Shemp and Moe exchange signals about which drink's for Shemp.  Unfortunately for Shemp, all Moe can do is silently shrug.  To make matters worse, McIntyre comes over and one of the boys offers her a drink.  IS IT THE SASPARILLA?  Also, how do you spell sasparilla?  Blogger Spell Check doesn't seem to like my spelling...  how about sarsaparilla?  Ah.  That's more like it.  Thank you, Yahoo! Search Results.  Where were you when I needed you for my spelling test back in the day?  Epic!  Iconic!  Game changer! 
Anyway, back to the movie.  McIntyre drinks the drink, says "Thank you.  Excuse me," and walks away.  And they say there's no good parts for women in movies.  Bosh, I say!  Bosh... did she drink the whole thing?  Dang, she did!  What a lush!  Shemp holds his ears while she drinks, making that time-tested gulping sound only Columbia shorts seems to have.  And now, it's Barker's turn.  He takes a big gulp and sits back down.  Everything seems fine, until the sizzling sound starts, lasts a few seconds, and then boom! of the bass drum.  He's been poisoned!  Either that, or it had too much Tabasco in it.  Barker starts screaming "Water!! WATER!!"  Not so funny.  Even though he's the bad guy and deserves it.  Never mind, it's downright hilarious.  It gets better.  Shemp runs to get water, and goes over to the industrial-strength fire hose they've got in the Old West bar.  He runs over with it, and his stunt man takes a triple-lutz-worthy fall in the process.  Eventually, the hose turns on, and Barker gets water on every part of his body, instead of a simple drink of it like he asked for in the first place.  Moe and Larry spring into action: "Quick!  Get that wet coat off, you'll catch pneumonia!"  Genius!  They quickly find the keys and toss them to McIntyre, who runs off with a winning smile on her face.  How she got stuck in Stooge shorts I'll never know, but God bless her for doing so.  She goes to release Johnny, who's itching for revenge.  As always, she has to be smarter than the rest, and tells Johnny to fetch the U.S. Cavalry.  And so he does.... is he doing an impression of John Wayne?
Anyway, back to the thoroughly drenched "Doc" Barker and his three droogs.  Gunshots are heard.  It's Johnny firing as he escapes, the big dummy!  Barker quickly puts two and two together, and looks over at Moe and Larry, with Shemp by their side... holding Barker's coat!!!  Barker says "Ickey-may!!" and the scuffling begins.  Perfect time for an act break.

ACT THREE

Alas, it's a short-lived scuffle.  The Stooges go behind the bar, are surrounded, then leap over the bar and out.  Larry, however, doesn't make it, the big porcupine-haired doofus.  "We'll take care of your pals later.  Lock him in The Arizona Kid's room!"  Larry couldn't be more scared! 
Next scene: back at the jail cell.  Not only is Larry locked up tight, but he's going to get shot at sundown!  Still, all the bad guys have to leave now.  In economy of gesture, the camera pans left, and McIntyre, Moe and Shemp emerge from behind some warehouse crates.  Didn't we just see them in Fright Night?  Well, maybe they're different ones, who knows.  They go over to free Larry from his dungeon, and wonder aloud how The Arizona Kid's doing.
Next scene: The Arizona Kid walks into the local branch of the U.S. Cavalry and tells them about the trouble in Coyote Pass.  Apparently, the Kid isn't a fugitive from the law after all!  That helps.  The Cavalry is instantly dispatched, and you know why?  Because the Kid says so, that's why!  It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view.  The Arizona Kid says to Stanley Blystone, "Colonel, I hope you're not too late."  Blystone says "Son, never in the history of motion pictures has the United States Cavalry been too late."  I'll give you all time to slap your forehead.
Back to the Stooges, hard at work on freeing Larry without the aid of a key.  McIntyre excuses herself so the boys can start hitting each other again instead of the jail cell door.  Moe gets to hit them both with the chisel hammer this time.  McIntyre reemerges in the main room of the saloon.  We can hear the clanging sounds, but a little bit quieter now.  Lol.  She goes over to the piano man and says "Play something, I feel like singing."  She and Ana Gasteyer have the prettiest singing voices ever.  I guess technically this is one of those parts that stretch out for time, but I don't notice it!  It's all too exciting!!!  Meanwhile, back to the boys who are doing more damage to each other than to the jail cell door.  Here's the part that inspired Quentin Tarantino and the ear removal scene from Reservoir Dogs.  Fortunately for us, the Stooges don't do it as tastefully.  And now, time for some stock footage of the U.S. Cavalry.  I get the feeling we'll see it a few more times before the pic's over.
Cut between McIntyre and the Stooges.  I think McIntyre needs to sing a louder song... and she knows it!
I KNEW IT!!!
Anyway, back to the liberation of Larry.  As it turns out, the cell is directly underneath where Barker's sitting.  We know this, because Barker gets hit with one of the jail's iron bars that the Stooges just cut loose.  Barker and the boys head downstairs.  Barker's a little slow but there's no stopping him once they get going.  Larry is removed by C-section from the jail cell.  Success!  Time to go... at least, until Barker and his troupe of hooligans shows up.  Moe says to them, "We don't need any help, fellas... NYAAAH!!!"  The second scuffle begins.
Next scene: another chase through the rolling fields of warehouse crates.  Now, you might be thinking to yourself, this looks awfully similar to the chase we just saw in the last film, Fright Night.  And you'd be all too right, except for one crucial difference: there's a few barrels added to the mix this time.  You know, the Old West!  Great production design.  Movie making is a team sport, my friends.  Don't forget that.
Two of the bad guys run into each other.  Moe and Larry help pick them up and help dust them off, then run away at about 18 fps or so.  Now, maybe it's just me and my jaded ears, but the audio here sounds like the audio there!
Tis a short scuffle, and the Stooges are quickly cornered.  Shemp grabs a stick of dynamite and holds it on high... and the fuse is lit by a lantern over his head.  The bad guys quickly disperse.  The Stooges rejoice in their small victory, then remember Nell!  I mean, McIntyre.  They go to join her, while Shemp continues to hold the lit stick of dynamite.
Next scene: the main floor of the bar.  The bad guys all hide behind the bar.  The Stooges emerge through the door without fighting over who goes first.  Everyone sees the stick of dynamite and runs.  Everyone except the three Stooges, that is.  It eventually gets down to Moe saying "What are you hissing at?"  They've done this bit many, many times, but I think this is the first time they've done it with a lit stick of dynamite.  They figure it out when Shemp holds up his hand and says "Listen, you..." and they finally realize that there's a lit stick of dynamite in their midst!  The game of hot potato begins, and goes on a little too long.  How come no one ever thinks to just, I don't know... put out the fuse with their fingers?  Turns out it's a good thing they don't, because one of them throws the dynamite behind the bar, and all the bad guys get all blowed up.  Blowed up good!  Blowed up REAL GOOD!  Heh heh heh...

EPILOGUE

The Cavalry finally show up... or, at least, The Arizona Kid and Stanley Blystone.  Blystone assesses the situation and says "You mean we made this nasty trip for NOTHING?"  Guess it's someone else's job to take care of the bad guys.  Blystone dismisses the Cavalry, and they show the stock footage of the Cavalry in reverse.  Blystone does a double take in response.  But love conquers all, including the meta-jokes and the rampant fourth-wall-breaking of this pic, ending on a shot of McIntyre and the Arizona Kid embracing.  As usual, you can't go wrong wearing a time-tested genre thin, but there's some pretty good stuff here!  Three and a half stars.

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

Auteur Watch - Kasi Lemmons

If you're like me, you know Kasi Lemmons from The Silence of the Lambs, and you know her hubbie Vondie Curtis-Hall from Falling Down as the ... the "outsourced" guy?  In other words, I'm white.  But I think I once burned The Caveman's Valentine onto a DVD when I went through my notorious DVD-burning phase... from CABLE!  Off of cable, I mean.  Now it's all computer files!  Apparently, even Blu-Rays are already going to be phased out.  Lord help us all when gigabytes fly through the phone lines in mere seconds.  But Ebert took a shine to her 1997 film Eve's Bayou.  But Vondie's the main bread-winner in that household, and as long as he's directing, she'll get roles in his films.  After all, she's sleeping with the director!!  Oh, that's not a nice thing to say, even if it's true.  So Kasi does more of the art-house stuff, and Vondie does the fluff, like 2001's Glitter.  Well, we never expected much from Mariah Carey in terms of the acting.  Whitney Houston was still moderately better at that.  Anyway, Kasi's got two big films on her plate: Agaat and Black Nativity.  Agaat sounds pretty epic, as it covers the entirety of Apartheid.  As for Black Nativity, well, it sounds like it'll do for the Bible what The Wiz did for The Wizard of Oz.  I wonder which church is going to protest Black Nativity, and will it mean the kiss of death at the box office as it did for The Last Temptation of Christ.  After all, even with the Bible, once you go black....

Box Office 11/23/'12... Twilight 4.5 again?

Yes, Twilight 4.5 again.  Although... it's only made about 45 million this week!  Quite the dropoff, no?  Tee hee hee.  Meanwhile, the other big holiday movies are yapping at its heels.  James Bond, Lincoln, and the four debuts this week: Rise of the Guardians, Life of (the) Pi, Red (of the) Dawn, and Silver Linings (of the) Playbook.  That dawg!  Bradley Cooper's already dumped Renee Zellweger for her younger incarnation, Jennifer Lawrence!  And David O. Russell seems to be stealing Darren Aronofsky's visual schema of following a character for a long time and only showing the back of their head.  Pretty neat trick!

Million Dollar Baby Huey

What is it about boxing and new beginnings?  The Stooges' second short, Punch Drunks, also revolved around a boxing subplot.  The first Shemp short, Fright Night, does as well.  Now, the title sounds more like a Halloween pic, but perhaps they're related after all, if you think about what boxing does to the average boxer, and the shriveled-up used husks of people that they become... oh, I finally get the title!  A play on "Fight Night."  Makes sense now.

ACT ONE

The opening credit music is held over from the last Curly shorts and has yet to evolve to the lighter, peppier version so often associated with Shemp.  First scene: Muscle Manor... I don't get it.  The Stooges are in the action right away, training their fighter "Chopper," who's sitting on a couch in the ring, lazily lifting a small dumbbell and reading the tawdry "Love Tales" magazine.  He's tired, damn it!  As are we all, guys, as are we all.
But if the Stooges have learned one thing in this life, it's that you just gotta keep going.  Persistence pays off every time.  Insistence, even!  They insist that "Chopper" must do some serious training.  "You can start on the dummy."  He gets up and goes over to Shemp.  Chopper gets a good look at Shemp's ugly kisser, is scared at first, but grabs Shemp's collar and pulls back his fist like a hammer on a pinball machine.  "Wait a minute, wait a minute!  He means the other dummy," says Shemp.  Is he not one of the gang at this point?
Next scene: the dummy proper.  One of those padded numbers on a hemispherical base.  At this point, it's time to stretch out some time.  "Chopper" gives the dummy one hit, then steps back and becomes the proxy for the audience, who is hopefully laughing at the Stooges' pained antics.  The Stooges spend a few seconds grappling with the dummy and lose.  "Chopper" declares 'Oscar the Dummy' the reigning World Champion.  It's hard to keep track of this fight, as half of it happens off camera, but Moe gets the most implied hits to the dummy, and the most on-camera hits (3).  The dummy hits Shemp six times, once while Shemp sticks out his tongue.  Ouch!!  Shemp also seems to be having sinus trouble during the fight.  Larry fails to land a punch, and gets hit twice by the dummy in spectacular fashion.  Larry's clearly the big loser this time.
And yet, "Chopper" still needs more training.  A dummy on the half-ball just won't do, however.  A real-life sparring partner is what's needed now... all turn slowly to look at Shemp, as though he were thinking "Niagara Falls!"  This is the kind of thing that can make a boxer worse, mind you.  "Chopper" is clearly a lemon of a boxer, agreeing to spar with a certified non-boxer like Shemp.  "Chopper" reassures Shemp, saying "Aw, don't be a baby!  It's all in fun!"  Shemp says "I HATE fun!!"  He's worse than Angry Smurf!
Time for an example of Shemp's strength as a Stooge.  Moe and Larry run over to Shemp's side, and Shemp says "What, are you surrounding me, fellas?"  JMHO.  Shemp gets geared up to go into the ring, which of course takes a good long while.  They put a helmet on Shemp, and he immediately says "Where'd everybody go?"  Of course, Larry gets hit on his bald head with the helmet first, for good measure and on G.P.  After that, in the grand tradition of all physical comedians, Shemp has trouble negotiating the boxing ring's ropes.  Moe and Larry use the brute force approach to remove Shemp.  Shemp's already putting his honorary stuntman status to work!  Geez Lew-weeze!
We're about overdue for a fresh wrinkle in the plot... or at least one that's had the top layer of mold brushed off.  A dame called Kitty comes in.  We know someone comes in because we hear a door opening.  Kitty seems to be a friend of Larry, as Larry rushes over to greet her, and he makes the mistake of introducing her to "Chopper."  "Chopper" falls instantly in love, and forgets about the friendly spar with Shemp.  Now he's got to prove himself by knocking out a 52-year old man.  "Chopper" gives Larry a nice big shove in the face for reminding him about the deal.  Meanwhile, Moe's lacing up Shemp's boxing gloves.  Larry helps out with the lacing, and screws that up, too... I mean, sets up the plot dominoes for later on.
The fight begins at 3:57.  Shemp tries to move in to the center of the ring, but can't for some reason.  "Chopper" moves in as well, but stops to look at Shemp's predicament in confusion.  As Shemp struggles with the glove, "Chopper" gets his killer instinct back, and moves in.  He works Shemp over like a one-man version of the Stooges' "two-men in a coat" fight sequence.  He ends up just using Shemp's head like one of those punching bags.  "Chopper" turns to flirt with Kitty.  But then... Shemp finally gets his fist loose from the tied-down glove, and hits "Chopper."  "Chopper" makes a gong noise and delicately drops to the canvas.  DOWN GOES "CHOPPER"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately for Shemp, "Chopper" is not down for long.  "Chopper" gets up and continues wailing on Shemp, opting now for the head-gut combo, repeated often.  I'm reminded of this for some reason.  Shemp's beating culminates in the poor S.O.B. ending up upside down in the corner.  For my own sake, I hope they filmed that backwards.  And so, "Chopper" reigns triumphant, and Kitty looks on dreamily.  And "Chopper" either goes back in to finish Shemp off once and for all... or it was some sloppy editing.
But what's this?  Shemp gets back up and seems to get his second wind!  However, it's all for naught, but Moe gets to have some fun with sentences... okay, might as well spell it out for you.  Moe calls the play-by-play: "There goes Shemp with a left jab!  There goes Shemp with a right uppercut!  There goes Shemp with a haymaker!!!"    "There goes Shemp!"  Shemp may have been K.O.'d before, but this time he ends up tangled up in the ropes, with his head in a bucket.  If he gets knocked out a third time, I plain don't wanna see it.  Moe and Lawrence go to Shemp's side to bail him out a second time.  Shemp appears to be very, very tired, to say the least.  This is another one of those parts they used to stretch out the time to 16 minutes.  Why do I get the feeling that they went off script at this point?

ACT TWO

Next moldy-old plot development... In come the Mob enforcers: the guy who looks left, and someone else.  They've got a message from "Big Mike," and you can figure what it is.  "Chopper" has to throw the fight!  Bastids.  Shemp's still got some fight left in him, saying "They can't do this to us!  I'll call the Police!  I'll call the Fire Department!  I'LL CALL THE MARINES!! I'll..."  Moe says "Shaddup!"  Shemp says "That's what I mean, I'll... I'll shaddup."  Time for Plan B.  According to Larry, they bet their "every last cent" on the "Chopper."  Plan B is debated at this juncture.  Larry's plan is the one that wins: he'll keep bringing Kitty around, and the boys will soften "Chopper" up with rich foods, like cream puffs and other pastry items.  Shemp tries to fill Curly's shoes, saying "That's a great idea!  I'm glad I came up with it..."  Something like that, to which Moe lavishes swift physical pain upon Shemp.  The very idea.  Fade to black.
Fade in on "Chopper" sitting at a table, eating rich foods and swooning over Kitty.  Kitty wasn't born yesterday, however, and says to "Chopper" "Don't you think you oughta do some training?"  Moe's the lead persuader for the rich foods-path, and persuade he does.  Why, even Kitty seems to be partaking of the fare at hand!  Kitty tries again to convince "Chopper" that he's wrong, but "Chopper" says "Aw, the way I feel now, I don't wanna hurt nobody."  My God!  My Whole Foods book is right!  Another variation of "you are what you eat" is that your mood is influenced by what you eat.
The Stooges leave the happy couple alone to talk briefly about how their plan's succeeding.  Shemp has the best part, of course.  He's holding a white piece of cake, and says "(Chopper) sure is making a pig of himself," and takes a big bite of cake.  Moe says "Look who's talkin'!" and hits Shemp in the face with a dark-colored pie.  Moe ups the ante and says "GIMME THAT CAKE!"  By that point, Shemp's only got a small piece of it left, but Moe takes that and eats it.  Shemp, even with pie on his face, gets the last laugh, of course, saying "If I only had some coffee!"
Cross-fade to the "Majestic Fight Arena."  All three of the Stooges are pacing back and forth outside as though they're waiting for the doctor to tell them some bad news.  They're pacing back and forth, and just barely missing each other, until at 0:59, when they bonk heads, but there's no noise!  How will we know if they really bonked heads without the sound effect?  Must've been an off week at Cannery Row.  Oh, and I should probably note that their footsteps sound voluptuous, much like in A Bird in the Head.  Must be soft floors!  At 1:08, Moe asks Shemp "What does your watch say?"  The answer is much like this other one.  Larry, meanwhile, is trying to gin up a whole supply of dramatic tension, and doing a fine enough job of it that Moe has to calm him down.  Only with words, though, not his fists. 
Just then... "Chopper" finally shows up, and he's pissed!  Turns out that Kitty dumped him for his opponent, "Gorilla" Watson, the guy he's supposed to take a dive to.  Probably wouldn't help to tell him that now, of course.  He's in no mood for cream puffs, either, and he takes the one that Shemp offers him and sticks it in Shemp's face.  Me myself, on the other hand, I could go for a cream puff right about now.  Maybe even a cream horn or a nice bienestich!  No nanaimos, though.  Too sweet... okay, get a hold, Movie Hooligan.  We got movies to review here.  No time for fatty, salty, sweet treats.  Aren't the movies delectable enough?  (Spoiler alert: the answer is "no")
Oh, I just hate it when Moe's anger moves the plot along.  Taking the cream puff from Shemp, he throws it, missing Shemp by a mile, but he does hit "Gorilla" Watson who just happens to be walking up.  I think he was going to laugh!  Still, the outrage is on, and "Gorilla" takes a swipe at Moe.  Moe dodges out of the way, and "Gorilla" misses him by a mile, but hits the brick wall with his fist instead. 
And so, here's the philosophical question: is the fight called off?  If a fight is called off in the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Well, Big Mike and his two assistants think so, or they must of heard it.  They join the Stooges outside at the perfect moment, just as Moe says "I'd like to see the look on Big Mike's face when he finds out what we did!"  They do this bit quite a bit, but they cut it short this time by at least half, as there's too much plot to get to.  Big Mike and his two thugs each grab a Stooge, and whisk them off stage.  The Stooges may stand to lose money on this fight, but probably not to the tune of $100,000, like Big Mike.  The black market has spoken.  Cross-fade to exterior shot of a warehouse.

ACT THREE

It sure seems like a lot more Stooge films take place in a warehouse than actually do.  I should know, as I've seen most of them by now... but they all have blended together into one long knuckleheaded river.  I think barns have been used more than warehouses, but perhaps that's going to change now with the rise of the automobile and the interstate highway, and the fall of the family farm.  As for the Stooges themselves, well, Big Mike's lining them up against the wall firing-squad style, and they're a far cry from Vulgaria.
As the "new" Stooge on the block, Shemp's got some more heavy lifting to do.  He becomes the Pleader-for-their-Lives in Chief, saying he's too young and good-looking to die... well, too young, anyway.  Oh for Two, Shemp my friend, Oh for Two.  His spiel, however, seems to be working on the guy who turns left, as he's in tears!  Some mobster he's turned out to be!  There's no crying in the mob.  Shemp weaves his spell for as long as he can with the "little brother this high" bit, and breaks it with the "great big brother THIS HIGH" capper.  Genius.  Good luck forgetting that one.  The scuffle begins in proper.  The audio's sped up too for good measure.  NYAAH!!! WHOA!!!!  EEP-EN-AAAH-PENANAH!!!  You get the idea.  God bless You,Tube!  My friend who doesn't like his intelligence insulted would seriously doubt that Moe had enough strength to knock a giant beefy mobster backwards, let alone get a gong sound out of it, but it is what it is.  It's on film now, and has only to be put in to the Library of Congress.  I know we're not supposed to say it, but Larry's sneaking up on the gangster chasing him is so gay.  Shemp does some mime, and gets a chance to have his own quiet episode with his respective gangster, before pulling the guy's hat down over his face and running off.
Now, using my crackerjack audio analysis skills, I've determined that the sound editors used the same 14-second clip of background noise to make it seem like there's more going on than there really is.  At 4:04, 4:18, 4:32 and 4:46, we hear the same "Whoa!" sound.  That's what I get for using Windows 95 so much.  But back to Moe trying to dodge the guy who turns left.  Moe throws two bricks into the air, and where they land he does not care, but fortunately for him, they fall on the head of the guy who turns left after he sits down to take a rest.  The bricks make a fine anesthetic, and the guy who turns left is now out cold.  He's soon joined by Big Mike, who stops to enjoy a rest as well.  Now, some of you cynical types might call this one of those times where they stretch out the film on purpose, but not me.  Anytime is the right time to use a guy who's been knocked out by two bricks as a puppet, especially the bad guy.  The only equivalent I can think of is when Harpo answers the phone in Duck Soup and uses his horns to talk... hmm!  Wonder if the YouTube's got that one...... GOD BLESS YOUTUBE!!!  If they don't have YouTube in Heaven, it's really only Hell in disguise.  Anyway, back to the Stooges... As with Waikiki Wabbit, Moe eventually loses control of his puppet, and ends up grabbing Magic Mike's... I mean, Big Mike's nose, which makes a stretching rubber sound.  Time for some more scuffling.  Big Mike's no dummy, and he ventures behind the curtain with Moe.  I was going to provide a link to Mr. Dibley's If..., but YouTube charges for that one.  DAMN YOU,TUBE!!!!  The guy who turns left, aka "Moose", gets to hit two heads for the price of one.  He ends up apologizing profusely to the second head, as it's the boss, Big Mike.  This guy's a born Stooge, I tells ya!  At 5:57, we get a small taste of why Cy Schindell's The Guy who Turns Left.  Better find a better example.  Moe has a strange reaction at the end of 5:57 and into 5:58, which gets cut out when this is shown on TBS.  After that, we get a brief second helping of Shemp starting his mime routine. 
And then, the stuff Stooge legends are made of.  It all takes place around a medium-sized stack of warehouse crates.  Larry and Moe sneak up on one another simultaneously.  Larry, however, is armed with a giant board, as decreed by the 2nd Amendment.  Larry strikes first, hitting the head he sees, and running away, laughing gleefully, no less.  He runs around the stack of boxes to find Moe, slumped on the floor, writhing in pain... damn, it's not it.  Different one.  They re-do this gag later, with better dialogue.  But Moe does describe himself as a "short, fat fella with dark hair."  Go figure.  But there's no time for Moe and Larry to beat each other up; here comes two of the mobsters!  Time for another crow's eye view of the warehouse floor, and the six of 'em running around like blooming idiots.  Shemp sneaks up on Larry in the trash bin.  Larry's unable to escape, as Shemp hits the top of the bin with the flat end of an adze.  He boasts of his accomplishment to one of the bad guys, then realizes what he's doing and runs off, the bad guy in tow.  Moe helps a dizzy Larry out of the garbage bin that he should've left him in.  They go through a heavy-looking door, with Shemp close behind, but not close enough to get through with them.  Shemp cries like a baby to be let in, but is soon surrounded by the three gangsters.  Shemp tries to launch into the "little brother this high" routine again, but Big Mike quickly puts a stop to it.  "Find something to break the door down!" says Big Mike.  Just as they all turned to Shemp early in the First Act, the three gangsters turn to Shemp late in this Third Act and use him as a battering ram to break the door down.  They dub Shemp in later saying "You're crushing my eyebrows!"  Kids: never try that at home.
And so, having used Shemp as a human battering ram, they just as quickly drop him on the ground and leave him, and go to get Moe and Lawrence.  The stuntman they drop tries covering his face so we can't tell that it's not Shemp, but the damage is done.  The real Shemp, wordlessly, picks himself up and hatches a plan of revenge against the bad guys.  In the eyes of every coward burns a straw dog... or so I'm told.  I don't know where I heard that before.  If only there were some sort of massive virtual library that could be accessed through the phone lines... anyway, much like the first ape that picks up a bone to use it to smash, Shemp too picks up an axe off the floor, and heads over to the side of the door.  The camera pans on a prominently-placed box marked "MOTH BALLS."  Good direction!  And so, like Flounder, Shemp figures out a second use for moth balls, and he grabs a few dainty handfuls of moth balls and drops them on the ground.  Eventually, though, he goes for the whole box.  You know, just to build the dramatic tension.  And furthermore, it's no longer child's play when it comes to the axe!  He's got it blade-side down now, and is ready to do some serious choppin'!  Kids: never use an axe like this on your friends. 
And so, Shemp's aim has never been truer as in this, his debut Stooge short, and he lands the first axe chop on the first unlucky bad guy's head at 8:03.  The other two bad guys must be too pumped up on adrenalin to notice this plot development, as they come through the door as unprepared for what's about to happen to them as the first guy.  Down goes the second at 8:07, and the third, Big Mike proper, at 8:09.  No hitting Moe by mistake this time.  Now is the time for heroes.
The moth balls don't discriminate between good and bad guys, however, and Larry slides around at 8:10 until running into a stack of crates.  Larry catches Moe soon after that, and soon Shemp's right there by their sides.  I've never seen comraderie like this since Blue Collar TV... is that still on the air?  Nope.  Probably for the best.  Besides, it was more of a George W. Bush-ear phenomenon anyway.  Shemp's still so excited from his triumph, he takes a swing with his trustworthy axe at the space where Moe's and Larry's heads were a second earlier!  Moe's about to give him the eye-poking of a lifetime for it, when.... footprints are heard!  It's the cops!  Finally!  We could use some non-Stooge authority figures at this point.  Stanley Blystone, I presume!  He was in one before where he played the Stooges' drill sergeant, and he'll show up later in Slaphappy Sleuths, one of my fave Shemp shorts.  But the celebration's a little premature, as one of the bad guys reaches for his gun on the floor next to him.  I think it's the third bad guy who does it.  The guy misses by a miracle mile... nah, make that a moonlight mile, and ends up shooting a prominently-labeled can of red paint.  God bless potential comedic energy, pent up in such things as moth balls and cans of red paint on high!

EPILOGUE

The bad guys get whisked quickly away after that gunshot, and the Stooges are left all alone.  Why, the ending of this film is the perfect metaphor for Death, and manifests itself in Shemp getting shpritzed with a light smattering of red paint, just like Curly before him in An Ache in Every Stake, only with ketchup, and Yosemite Sam with red ink in Hare Trigger.  A rich tradition, to be sure.  Well, YouTube don't have everything yet.  I can't help but notice that the floor seems to be covered not so much with moth balls now, but with a lot of moth ball powder.  I guess marbles do the trick better after all.  Since it's Cannery Row, the Stooges probably have to help sweep all that up before the next film starts... oh, right.  The star rating.  I'm going to say three and a half, what the hell.

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