Topic: Termites of 1938 (1938)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/28
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030842/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

As stated before, this is the start of the Charley Chase era, if only as producer.  Funny we get to it just as Volume 2 of his own shorts gets released.  I have always been fascinated by Charley's films for the Stooges, as I feel they are a mixed bag overall with elements you do not see in any other Stooge era.  TERMITES OF 1938 happens to be a film I enjoy a lot, and to me the Charley Chase influence is the dinner table scene.  The musical accompaniment and limited dialogue of the scene definitely give the film a Hal Roach flavor, and you know what?  It works!  Also love the way "Listen to the Mockingbird" plays in the middle of the short as the boys are being introduced.

Again, we got a film with the boys mingling with high society in 1938, kind of hard to go wrong here.  Bess Flowers is excellent, the way she plays it perfectly straight when she tells Clayhammer the boys were sent for is perfect.  I also love Moe on the bass sawing the thing in half, definitely one of the better shots in Stoogedom.

Overall, a really fine short.  Looking forward to getting into the meat of this Charley Chase era.

10/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Termites is significant because I believe it signals the beginning of the Charley Chase era, at least here as a producer. He would not start directing until 2 shorts after this & if I had to be totally honest, his time with the stooges is not exactly my favorite, but I'm sure we'll get into that when the time comes.

Fortunately, the great Del Lord is still in the director's chair for this one & it's a goodie. The mixup regarding how the stooges as exterminators get mixed up with college kids may not exactly be PC these days, but who cares. I also thought it was a nice touch how they played the "Listen to the Mockingbird" theme over the scene where we first see the stooges in their shop.

Loved Larry's old fashioned method of catching a mouse & later outside at the dinner party with the butler's reaction to the stooges car pulling up at the swanky residence (Get that disgraceful thing out of here). Sledgehammer may not be my favorite stooge butler (that honor goes to the great Sam McDaniel) but he could be a close second.

And the ending with the bomb may be one of the funniest in stooge history.

A very solid short: 8 out of 10...

[luke795]

I really like the part where the fake the song they play on the record with instruments.  I really like that song.  What is the name of it?

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I'll go out on a limb here, dare to disagree with what seems to be the majority opinion, and boldly state that I like the Charley Chase era.  There are better plots, sometimes music, and the stooges ( not in this one, particularly, but coming soon ) seem a bit more human, a bit more realistic, without going soft.  I realize that there are many who think that the stooges helping babies, or even just interacting in any way with babies, is soft beyond redemption, and much prefer the episodes where the three of them are locked all by themselves onto a one-room set and just pound each other into misshapen pulps, but I'm not one of those.  And, as someone else has observed, just when you begin to think that Charley's too wimpy, out comes the dynamite, of which this one's a prime example.

[Kopfy2013]

I really like the part where the fake the song they play on the record with instruments.  I really like that song.  What is the name of it?

I believe it was called the 'Frederick March'

[Kopfy2013]

In my opinion a very entertaining short.  It is not hilarious but it is a good story that keeps you interested.

I wish it was longer.  They could have used a minute or more time as it was hurried once the mice was found.

I loved the eating scene.... some good one liners but done fast... - calling the tall girl 'Shorty' ...

I also liked the way they worked as a team.  They were still incompetent but at least they all seemed to be working together to do the job.

I give it a strong 8.

P.S. The girl is the same one as in Punch Drunks.... what a difference a couple of years makes... she put on some pounds, but we all do.

[falsealarms]

I've always enjoyed this one. It's not one of the very best, but it's good.

TERMITES was remade in 1946 as SOCIETY MUGS with Shemp Howard and Tom Kennedy. The remake is about as good for me - what about everyone else?

Some of the interior house sets in TERMITES can also be seen in the 1937 Charley Chase short MAN BITES LOVEBUG.

[Shemp_Diesel]

Society Mugs was pretty good, I was a little underwhelmed by it when I first watched it, but I would rate it a 7, meaning Termites has it beat by a good margin.

[JazzBill]

I like this short.  As mentioned before, the boys in society are usually a good mix. Lots of site gags and funny bits in this one. Larry getting dragged by the mouse and two string instruments and a  flute sounding like a marching band are a couple of my favorites.  I also like the ending with the car getting bombed. As far as the remake with Shemp and Tom Kennedy, I'll take Moe, Larry and a healthy Curly.  I rate Termites a 8 1/2 and I rate Society Mugs a 7.

[metaldams]

Society Mugs is a fun short, but ultimately, I like the Stooge version better.  It will be a few years from now, but Society Mugs will get its own thread when we're done with the 190.

[Larrys#1]

This is a funny episode from beginning to end. Every scene is great..... Moe with his invention, Moe going deaf and mishearing what's being told to him on the phone, the dinner scene, the stooges pretending to be musicians, the stooges trying to catch the pests at the house and the ending where their car blows up. Excellent episode!!

10/10

[danielwebb]

I have been rediscovering the Stooges (I am 39).  I said something to my daughter (age a few months ago about The Three Stooges, and she said "what's that?"  It has been her favorite show ever since.  This was one of the first episodes we saw, and I don't think we have ever laughed harder together about anything.  Our favorites are when Moe whacks the lady in the rear through the carpet, when Curly saws the bass in half, and when the car gets blown up at the end, which is one of the funniest scenes they ever did.

[TiskaTaskaBaska]

  One of my absolute, absolute favorite Stooges shorts. "Piano player, you stay and take the tempo from my body."  Classic!!

I think the story and execution in this is flawless. Firstly, I love both dresses Bess Flowers wears (apparently she used to bring her own clothes to wear in the shorts and didn't use Columbia's costume department). Additionally, after the meal and the guests are walking into the entryway/musicians area, one woman is wearing a long gown with numerous lettuce-edge pleats running the length of the gown....if I could get a really good look at this gown, I would sew one myself!!

Several things in this short are just classic, timeless..... Moe on the phone with Mrs. Van Twitchett.... "FLEAS? What else you got, lady?" The Stooges flying into the driveway and bonking into the car ahead of them...and then that sad yodeling car horn. I forgive the use of music during the dinner scene because it's nice music and the Stooges didn't do that too much; my boyfriend and I agree that what dates other comedy acts of the time is silly music. Being from Philly, I swear that the scene where the Stooges play the "Milanese Symphonies...by Leocrantz" includes the Mummers strut (Larry was born on South Street, after all). I love how the phone has its own room under the stairs! And the way that Arthur launches the gopher bomb at the end, the Phillies could use him as a pitcher. Altogether, a 9.9.

[ThumpTheShoes]

Favorite part of this one is the car door: "Get AWAY FROM US"!

[TiskaTaskaBaska]

I also have a question...the dress that Mabel (?) the partygiver woman is wearing...I believe this is the same dress, the exact same dress, that Symona Boniface is wearing in In the Sweet Pie and Pie and An Ache in Every Stake. This is what happens when a woman watches the Stooges. 

[Lefty]

And the way that Arthur launches the gopher bomb at the end, the Phillies could use him as a pitcher. Altogether, a 9.9.

Since Arthur, dead or alive, is over age 35, Ruin Tomorrow Jr. will probably sign him as a mid-season replacement for [insert name of whichever starting pitchers go down], to at least a 3-year contract.

[Paul Pain]

One of my all-time favorites... Curly is never more sadistic than he is in this one.  Really?  A cannon to blow up mice?

[TiskaTaskaBaska]

Okay; I forgot to mention more stuff....I love this one so much..... I love how Moe is explaining the complicated mouse trap to our boys and meanwhile the little brown mouse runs by unnoticed. As a Democrat, I love when Moe says, "He ain't progressive". I love when our boys spray the partygoers with 1930s-era pesticide; that stuff must have been pure poison (one of my friend's uncles entered the Whitman chocolate factory to early after it the exterminator had been there, this happened in the late 40s/early 50s, and he was mentally incapacitated for life. No lie). I love that drill with the coil thing on the end of it!! I've watched this a billion times, and will watch it a billion more, so I look at everything and everyone. I love my Stooges!

[archiezappa]

This is one of my favorite episodes.  You know you're in for it when Bud Jamison says "I know, I'll watch those college chaps."

Moe introducing the song and it being very obvious that they are not really playing.  (They got better at that, see "Micro-Phonies.")

Moe, unknowingly, smacking Dorothy Granger in the behind.  That scene is hysterical!

One of my favorite sight gags is that oversized drill that Larry is toting around.  He's destroying the wall every time he uses that thing.

And ending on a bang with destroying their car.  What a way to end that one!

[Seamus]

Happened to watch this one last night.  I had no idea that Charley Chase had anything to do with this short (somehow missed his name in the producer credit), but as I was watching I detected a heavy whiff of Chase about it - more gentle whimsy and cutesie-ness than I like to see in my Stooge shorts.  It wasn't till I opened this thread afterward that I learned Chase was indeed in the producer's chair, confirming that my internal Chase-detector is dead accurate.  I guess it's a testament to Chase's heavy influence on the shorts he was involved with that you can pick up on his imprint in a blind viewing.

It also confirmed my anti-Chase bias, because I didn't think much of this one at all.  Chase always seems to insist on dulling the sharp edges off the boys and turning them into an overgrown Our gang.  The dinner scene is a perfect example of the kind of softer comedy Chase peddled in.  The gag with the English gentleman mimicking the crude eating habits of the Stooges gets old before it even gets started, and it doesn't help that the Stooges aren't even doing anything particularly whacky.  Tossing morsels in the air and catching them in their mouths, or eating potatoes and peas with their knives, ain't side-splitting stuff, and doesn't get any funnier when Bud Jamison repeats it.  And the musical accompaniment that Chase adds over the scene (which Metal rightly observes gives the scene a Hal Roach vibe) just adds an extra layer of whimsy that doesn't feel right in a Stooge short.

Even little touches like the playing of the Stooges' "Mockingbird" theme when the boys first appear is a little too cute for my liking.  It's like the short is saying, "Awww, let's see what those kooky little nut-nuts are up to now, haha!"

[metaldams]

Happened to watch this one last night.  I had no idea that Charley Chase had anything to do with this short (somehow missed his name in the producer credit), but as I was watching I detected a heavy whiff of Chase about it - more gentle whimsy and cutesie-ness than I like to see in my Stooge shorts.  It wasn't till I opened this thread afterward that I learned Chase was indeed in the producer's chair, confirming that my internal Chase-detector is dead accurate.  I guess it's a testament to Chase's heavy influence on the shorts he was involved with that you can pick up on his imprint in a blind viewing.

It also confirmed my anti-Chase bias, because I didn't think much of this one at all.  Chase always seems to insist on dulling the sharp edges off the boys and turning them into an overgrown Our gang.  The dinner scene is a perfect example of the kind of softer comedy Chase peddled in.  The gag with the English gentleman mimicking the crude eating habits of the Stooges gets old before it even gets started, and it doesn't help that the Stooges aren't even doing anything particularly whacky.  Tossing morsels in the air and catching them in their mouths, or eating potatoes and peas with their knives, ain't side-splitting stuff, and doesn't get any funnier when Bud Jamison repeats it.  And the musical accompaniment that Chase adds over the scene (which Metal rightly observes gives the scene a Hal Roach vibe) just adds an extra layer of whimsy that doesn't feel right in a Stooge short.

Even little touches like the playing of the Stooges' "Mockingbird" theme when the boys first appear is a little too cute for my liking.  It's like the short is saying, "Awww, let's see what those kooky little nut-nuts are up to now, haha!"

I guess we all have a different threshold for Chase.  While I see elements of him in this short, they are elements I enjoy.  In later shorts, like MUTTS TO YOU, that's when I think Our Gang, not here (think the dog washing machine).  I'm also a sucker any time the boys mingle with high society.  It's not necessarily always what they do, but who they do it with.  This short is fine by me, but there is a fascinating inconsistency with me in my opinion of the Stooge shorts Chase was involved with.

[MrsMorganMorgan]

I would like to note on this short, when they play the "Melanese Symphonies....by Leocrantz!" that Larry and Curly are DEFINITELY doing a Mummers strut. Larry was born on South Street, as everyone knows.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Superior to "Ants in the Pantry." Though directed by Del Lord, "Termites of 1938" has the imprint of co-producer Charley Chase — particularly in terms of underscoring. A total delight from start to finish, with memorable support from Bess Flowers in her Stooge debut. The closing gag with the gopher bomb makes for an inspired finish.

9/10

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

I give this short a 7/10, to me this short falls in the good but not great category, it has some funny scenes like the stooges playing music, the scene with Moe teaching Larry & Curly how to catch mice, the cannon going off, the table dinner scene and the gopher bomb exploding in the stooges' car, this is one stooge short I like better now than when I first watched it.

[Daddy Dewdrop]

I guess I'm in the minority on this one.  I just never found "Termites Of 1938" all that funny, especially for a 1930s Curly short.  Maybe it's because the "Stooges crash high society" plot has been done so much better (see: "Hoi Polloi").

#159. Termites Of 1938