False Alarms is a short that I am always glad to watch. Like Metaldams, I'm not sure why I can't place it among my top favorites, but I suspect it's the lack of extended build-up to its gags. Still, it has a lot of good, funny stuff in it and very little that is embarrassing or unpleasant to watch.
It is mildly funny, for the Stooge devotee, to see Stanley Blystone, formerly the brutal Sergeant McGillicuddy of
Half Shot Shooters, reappear to say to the Stooges, "If we were in the army, I'd have you shot at sunrise!" Here, however, he is a captain rather than a sergeant—a genuine figure of authority rather than a mere upper underling and petty tyrant like the sergeant—and exercises his power in a just and responsible fashion. I think this makes it all the funnier when he gets soaked with soapy water by the Stooges.
By the way, I don't see it noted among the "Stooge Goofs" for this short that when the captain dresses down the Stooges, he begins the recital of their failings by saying, "You've
dissed fires." At least, that's how it sounds on my DVD. (I'm not suggesting that he meant to say "dissed," which was not a word at that time; I think he just flubbed the word "missed.")
I always enjoy those moments when the Stooges spontaneously introduce rhymes into their conversation ("At your service day and night"; "Brighto! Brighto! Makes old bodies new!"; "We'll get that filthy lucre!"). Here they do it after the captain has granted them another trial as firemen. Moe says, "We've got to come through for the captain!" Larry adds, "And the crew!" And then Curly says something that sounds to me like "And Alma and Mamie too!" but which I find transcribed on this site as "And the alma mater, too!" Since Curly has a lady friend named Mamie in this short (who, by the way, is quite a honey, in my opinion!), I'm not convinced that he doesn't say something with her name in it here. Anyway, the important thing is that the exchange ends with Curly saying, "Woo woo-woo-woo woo, woo-woo!" (which is also the last line of the "Brighto" rhyme!).
Sometimes, on watching a Stooge short for the
Nth time, I laugh at something that I haven't laughed at before (or, at least, not the last time that I saw the short). In my last viewing of this short, that happened to me with the bit when Larry and Moe are lying on a bed, Larry asleep, Moe reading a magazine. The telephone on the table next to the bed on Larry's side rings. Larry doesn't move. Moe jabs him.
Moe: Hey! Don't you hear that bell?
Larry: (shouts over the noise of the bell, as at the beginning of the short) WHAT?
Moe: You going to start that again? (Slaps Larry)
This short contains some delightful novel variations on old gags. My favorite is Moe's poking Curly in the eyes over the telephone. That is so absurd that it is almost sublime. Another happens when Moe learns that Curly has pulled the fire alarm just to get him and Larry to come meet the girls:
Moe: (Holds out fist to Curly) You see that?
Curly: You ain't got time now—here comes the captain!
And, of course, Curly's exchange of slaps with Minnie is a high point. I think it is even better than the slap-off with his dancing partner in
Hoi Polloi, as it ends with Curly once again getting the worse of the "See that?" business. Curly's inability to gain the upper hand (so to speak) in this ritual is brought to a climax here when, making one final experiment, he slaps his own fist down, only to conk himself on the head!
There is an uncharacteristically subtle gag—subtle by Stooge standards anyway—when Larry and Moe are trying to get out of the locked bathroom. The last we see of them in one sequence has Moe threatening to shove Larry down the drain and putting him head-first into the sink to demonstrate. In a subsequent sequence we see Moe standing alone above the sink and speaking to Larry as if he were down the drain, before the camera backs up to show Larry underneath the sink.
The business of their escape, when they knock down the door, fly helplessly across the floor on it, and fall through the hole, makes me laugh not only because of the spliced-in shot of the dummies of Moe and Larry falling on their heads but also the subsequent business when Moe removes Larry's hat to poke him in the eyes only to find that his head has disappeared into his shoulders, a problem that he remedies by pulling Larry's head out by the hair.
The one bit that makes me uncomfortable is Minnie's importuning of Curly to provide her with a boyfriend, as it builds its would-be humor on the rather ugly premise that nobody wants a fat girl. As Metaldams says, she is a bizarre character. Even so, I think it's pretty funny when she says, "Come on, girls! Let's go places and eat things!"
Are we all aware that the names Curly gives to the "quintuplets" are the actual names of the actual Dionne Quintuplets, natural-born Canadian quints who were big news in 1936 ? This joke recurs years later when Moe tells Curly to wish for quintuplets and Curly says " We'll Honeymoon in Canada. "
I was not aware of the first reference. Thanks for mentioning it.
