THREE LOAN WOLVES

I like this short a lot, probably because Larry gets the bulk of the laughs in my opinion. Plus, I enjoyed his scenes with the baby.

I know most of you guys hate this one, but I love it. To me almost every gag works and Larry does a "fine" job as the central Stooge. Moe also does something ha-larry-ous. He performs a very high kick and knocks Joe Palma's tooth loose, which he then pulls out and looks intently at!!! Great stuff. It is sad seeing Curly so slow and unfocused, but he still manages to pull off a few funny lines. And the part where he's laughing like an idiot after giving the gun to the baby is also very funny. Dispite everything it's very fast paced and has a good story line too. Just my opinion. I give it 3 and 1/2 pokes.

Curly's health went up and down near the end of his career.. it wasn't exactly a steady downhill path, sometimes he pulled himself together and was a lot like his old self. He's [i]not[/i] bad at all in this short, and "Monkey Businessmen," "Three Little Pirates" and especially "Micro-Phonies" are all solid three-pokers. I even like "The Three Troubledoers," although there seems to be a lot of disagreement on that one. Christine and Dick Curtis help it out a lot, but Curly's still more than just "okay," even though you can tell that he's straining hard to stay in character.

Very slow-paced and the Curly-Larry role reversal didn't work out. Curly's basically a zombie in this short with completely stiff acting and facial expressions (look at his face when Moe is going "You were an eensy teensy weensy..." to the kid at the beginning and when Moe's telling Curly to get a bottle with a nipple on it for the baby; you'd think they replaced Curly's body with a mannequin for those shots) and basically having nothing to do, and while it was good to see Larry getting attention and having a few funny lines, he couldn't save the weak script as a whole. The fight scene at the end is the only time this short really takes off, and even then, it felt weird because Curly barely got any screen-time in it. They even showed him beating up one of the three crooks and locking him in a trunk early on in the fight scene, so what was he doing all the time afterwards as Moe and Larry are being beat up; why didn't he help them?

Painful to watch Curly in this. However Moe's attempts to quiet the screaming child.. "..Quiet little angel, quiet, quiet little darling, quiet (baby screams louder ) or I'll break your neck!!!" still crack me up.
Also, in the fight scene, Moe manages a very high kick that knocks one of the crooks teeth loose ( which he then proceeds to pull it out with a hilarious sound effect added ). Moe begins humming a tune trying to sneak away, and the crook grabs him and begins shaking him violently by the neck(!). Absolutely side splitting for me.

Two Words: Very Dismal.Curly health has gotten so bad, that you can tell he is ill just by hearing him,he sounds weak and lookes pale and the plot was just plain stupid.(Pardon me.)

This really isn't that bad, IMO. There were some funny moments, but I do agree that the gag with the baby sucking on a loaded gun is disturbing. The great fight scene at the end is probably one of the best Stooge fight scenes I've seen. The only bad aspects of this short are the setup with the Stooges taking care of a baby and the fact that this short is extremely sad. I would not want to be like the boy, even if the Stooges were taking care of me.

While "Three Loan Wolves" has some good performances (largely by Larry), I also dislike this short to some extent. Curly's performance is definitely weak. There may be some justification in Clyde's remark that this was one of the best shorts of 1946, but that's not necessarily saying a lot compared to the Stooges' earlier work.

The bag left him holdin' the babe. But LOOK- it's CUTE!This short does not suck. Curly couldn't reach his usual potential, so Larry redeemed it- BEAUTIFULLY! His performance here is classic. Moe was also great in this short.That boy WAS a brat, I agree. He was also ungreatful. The boys could've taken Moe's suggestion to turn him over to the police as a baby, but instead, they brough him up, at least to middle-school age, and provided for all his needs. Then he ends up yelling at them, leaving them to find his real parents and giving them the cut out triple-slap. Larry then received the punishment the boy should've got. Oh well. Such is life.Harold "Lemme show ya the REAL McCoy" Brauer was excellent as Butch- and any modern day gang leader the Stooges faced and Joe Palma was a good recurring henchman in this kind of short. I'm sure Brauer would've made a good henchman for Kenneth MacDonald. I love the baby stroller treatment the boys give Brauer. I wonder where he ended up (and how he stopped safely) after Moe gave him a good push in that stroller. I'm sure the pawn shop was on a busy street."What a hideous, monstrous face! Oh!"

Some good, nutty antics, but Curly and that irritating kid drop it down a bit. Moe ("two-ounce brain") and Larry ("I'll kill it with a cigarette") give it sparkle though.Darn, I can't think of a signature!

Three Loan Wolves is a fairly decent short. Not one of the better ones though. In this one, I felt Larry was the funniest Stooge...especially with his "genuine stratosphere" when he plays the Old Oaken Bucket. I rate it at 2 1/2 eyepokes."The bag left me holdin' the babe."-Scott

Not one of my favorites, though I always like the shorts where Larry has a good sized role ('cause Larry's my favorite Stooge). Other than that, it's okay. The plot is kinda' sad, though not very. As for Curly being ill, I couldn't really notice anything wrong with him the first time I saw this, but the the second time, I noticed it more. I guess you have to try to ignore that fact and enjoy the jokes the Stooges dish out for us. Of course, if they had let Curly have a year or so off, maybe we wouldn't see very much Shemp shorts (No offense, Shemp fans, Shemp has his own funny style, though I do favor Curly shorts), maybe we would never have even seen Joe Besser (no offense to you Besser fans either). Anyway, enough of that stuff, VIVA STOOGES!!!

MRB makes a great point - not coincidentally, one I tend to harp on as well: OUTDOOR SHOOTING MAKES A STOOGE SHORT BETTER. Not only do you get funnier and more spectacular sight gags, but there's something about watching the boys on a real, live city street (even if they're just outdoor sets) that makes em just that little bit more 'real', at least to THIS member of the audience. Every scene featuring the boys performing in natural sunlight just has an added dimension to it that's just, well, fascinating! When they went indoors for good, they still turned out some quality slapstick, but they hadda work that much harder, I feel, since now the entire burden of the short fell on their shoulders. Cos when the outdoor shoots went, so did the larger supporting casts, and more importantly, the situations and gags open to the Stooges and their writers became more and more limited. LOAN WOLVES, by the way, is terrible....if you can't figure out why, refer to the comments section for HALF WITS HOLIDAY & IF A BODY MEET A BODY. (See, Mort, I didn't even hafta say it this time!)

Re-Review: Not as bad as I originally thought it was, still not a very good short, but there are a few high marks that up the grade a little. Curly's role seemed to turn into Larry's, but at least Moe demonstrated his fighting ability on Curly and so did the baddie. But I felt the plot was sort of pointless, because half of it was proving who was the tougher group, and the other half was taking care of a baby. Overall, just an okay short.

Since I'm a guitarist, I like the scene where Larry is playing the guitar. Other than that, I really don't think much of this one. Or in the words of Ward Robey: I don't like theees one, eeet gives me nightmares. Come to think of it, this short makes me feel sad.

I agree that this may very well have been the worst Curly short subject that was made. But, not just because of Curly's health. I found the whole premise of this film to be rather sad and depressing. An abandoned little boy, angry at his guardians, searching for his long lost mother, and no warm resolution at the end. Also, I think the scene where the baby puts a loaded gun in his mouth has to be the most disturbing Three Stooges gag ever done! (Although it was redone in a Shemp short subject that was rather good aside from that one sick joke). I have to wonder why that scene is left in and the boy slapping the stooges' faces is often cut out? Why does the slap from the boy get singled out today as something to censor? Are they afraid of promoting parent abuse? To me, the short subject as a whole was a lot more disturbing than that one scene. Ah well, just my opinions.