Violent is the Word for Curly (1938)

metaldams · **on:** November 30, 2013, 10:36:12 AM

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/33
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030942/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

We move further into the Charley Chase era. Going forward I find his Stooge shorts to be more inconsistent, but up until this point, they have been fantastic. VIOLENT IS THE WORD FOR CURLY is most famous for "Swinging the Alphabet," a song I have a feeling will get mixed reactions in this thread, but you can throw me into the thumbs up category. A fun little song and the kind of thing unique to the Charley Chase era. The idea of three grown men teaching a group of college girls the alphabet is funny in itself, but the fact the whole school is harmonizing along makes it that much sillier. I love the way Curly flirts with the girls and the shot of Larry with that blank expression on his face, just a great scene overall.

The rest of the shorts rocks the casbah as well. The super service scene is fantastic, my favorite bits being Curly wrestling with the gas hose, Curly covering up the nude statue on the car, and Curly remaining in his stand up sleep position as the car explodes. Also love the part where he's roasting on the fire and dives into the water. I also think I have an old movie crush on Marjorie Deanne.

A great short overall, definitely one of the classics.

10/10

Shemp_Diesel · **Reply #1 on:** November 30, 2013, 10:43:44 AM

Well, I hate to be a downer, but I always found this to be one of the more overrated Curly shorts. It always seemed to me that people were giving this one high marks just because of the "Alphabet Song" which is a nice little diddy, I admit, but hardly the greatest thing the stooges ever did.

The whole short to me is average at best, the Super Service scenes didn't do a whole lot for me either, but I did get a good chuckle out of the football demonstration when the stooges tackle the old lady or was it just Moe. I haven't watched this one in awhile.

At any rate, I would say this is Charley Chase at his vanilla best & it would only get worse for him after this.

5.5 out of 10...

Kopfy2013 · **Reply #2 on:** November 30, 2013, 11:46:44 AM

This is a classic for me.

A 10 just for the Aphabet song and as stated - Curly flirting with the girls ... the blank stare of Larry ... also the fact of chorus, everyone smiling ... Larry and Curly dancing ...

Also I take something away from this that I have used ... if on stage and asked a question you do not know or you need time -- do what Moe did - ask "What do you think?"

The gas station scene - great ... Curly covering up the girl ... Larry realizing that something must be wrong because the gas pump keeps ringing when he does done entering what he thought was gas but he does not do anything ....

The fact that they felt like they forgot something .... 'Hey, where's Curly' ....I always feel I am forgetting something ... but not a human!

The football tackle .... The Student Body comment 'Your body would be great if you lost 20 pounds' ...

Obviously as you can tell one of my favorites.

metaldams · **Reply #3 on:** November 30, 2013, 02:33:53 PM

In case anybody else likes Marjorie Deanne...and as some of you know, I am the modern day Octopus Grabus. I have bad vision and am a freak for the redheads.

http://2neat.com/magazines/images/LOOK-Magazine-1940-07-30.jpg

JazzBill · **Reply #4 on:** November 30, 2013, 06:22:39 PM

Quote from: metaldams on November 30, 2013, 02:33:53 PM

In case anybody else likes Marjorie Deanne...and as some of you know, I am the modern day Octopus Grabus. I have bad vision and am a freak for the redheads.

http://2neat.com/magazines/images/LOOK-Magazine-1940-07-30.jpg

I like the picture on the cover but I really wonder when Hitler stopped laughing at our army. ( Like the caption on the cover states )

JazzBill · **Reply #5 on:** November 30, 2013, 06:51:20 PM

Here's another short that falls in the middle for me. It's not great and it's not terrible. I always wondered if the girls ad libbed when they sang Curly's a dope in the Alphabet song. In the story there is no way they should know his name is Curly. I've also heard that Curly really got burned when filming the fire pit scene. It's an OK short and I rate it a 7 1/2.

Lefty · **Reply #6 on:** December 01, 2013, 10:52:29 AM

This short became one of my Top-5 favorites, once I was able to see it in full -- possibly when AMC was showing the Stooges in the early part of this century. Long ago our local channel would start this short where the ice cream truck ran out of gas. Based on that, I thought that this was the longest short, yet it's at least 90 seconds shorter than "A Pain in the Pullman."

The Stooges as gas station attendants, Swinging the Alphabet (especially the girls doing the "Curly's a dope" thing), "Twenty minutes to a pound -- ha, ha, we'll be here a month" -- just classic. I give this the Storm Lucid bowling ball hook rating -- 9.5 out of 10.

QuinceHead · **Reply #7 on:** December 01, 2013, 11:01:04 AM

This is a favorite Curly short of mine for a variety of reasons.

I notice nobody has mentioned the "Curly choking on a cucumber" sequence yet...

For duty and humanity,
JohnH aka QuinceHead

metaldams · **Reply #8 on:** December 01, 2013, 06:41:30 PM

Quote from: JazzBill on November 30, 2013, 06:51:20 PM

I've also heard that Curly really got burned when filming the fire pit scene.

According to the goofs section in this site and other sources, that is true. That sure did look like a dangerous gag.

Signor Spumoni · **Reply #9 on:** December 01, 2013, 07:31:20 PM

This is one of my favorites. I always laugh when Larry is introduced as the professor and he sits there, stupefied. I enjoy "Swinging the Alphabet." When the girls sing, "Curly's a dope," I assume it's owing to a script change or mistake in the same way that a girl calls Curly Mr. Howard in "Movie Maniacs," even though she couldn't have known his name. I like it when Moe calls Curly a frozen dainty. When I found a recipe for Frozen Dainty recently, I laughed, recalling this short.

I could go on and on, but I'll just close by saying this one gets ten stars from me.

Let me add one thing: one of the many funny lines in this short. When the ice cream man pulls into the filling station, he asks the Stooges to fix his truck. Moe tells him where the tools are and suggests he do it himself, saying, "It'll save us from working on the job." That's great!

Final Shemp · **Reply #10 on:** December 04, 2013, 09:39:57 PM

Surprised at the amount of "ho-hum" reactions to this one. MYbe it's because it was my first short from the boys, but I think it's an absolute riot. The "Super Service!" sequence alone was enought to sell me on the merits of the trio.

I think the plot is fun, and the Stooges are wonderful as phony professors. Maybe the one knock against it is how oit of place Swinging the Alphabet song is (that and the real professors try to bomb a school?), but it isn't enough to kill it for me.

seven2nds · **Reply #11 on:** December 05, 2013, 11:21:24 PM

I love the Super Service part. I did not like the song the first time I watched this episode. Having seen in 3 or 4 times now I have changed my mind. I love it. I can see why people wouldn't be down with it though.

Happy I found this board. Fantastic to be in contact with so many Stooge lovers.

metaldams · **Reply #12 on:** December 05, 2013, 11:46:05 PM

Quote from: seven2nds on December 05, 2013, 11:21:24 PM

Happy I found this board. Fantastic to be in contact with so many Stooge lovers.

Welcome!

Larrys#1 · **Reply #13 on:** December 06, 2013, 09:18:33 AM

One of my favorites; not #1, but close. Very funny from beginning to end. The Super Service part, Curly almost getting cooked, the Swingin' the Alphabet, the cucumber scene, and the basketball scene. Not a wasted moment in this episode.

9/10

Liz · **Reply #14 on:** December 06, 2013, 03:38:21 PM

I just really love this short because of the Alphabet number and everything else. 9/10

WhyYou · **Reply #15 on:** December 07, 2013, 08:39:06 AM

From the other posts on this one,am glad that I am not totally alone.This one really just doesnt make it for me,in fact,the entire Charlie Chase era doesnt.Not the worst Stooges short by any means,but vastly overrated.Am sorry that Charlie's tenure was cut short by his death at a very young age.Would have been better if someone had just told him,"You know,this just isnt working out very well".But I actually prefer the unnecessary sadism and mayhem churned out by Jules White and the others to this one.

Big Chief Apumtagribonitz · **Reply #16 on:** December 08, 2013, 09:13:42 AM

Absolutely impossible that the "Curly's a dope" line in the song is an ad lib, in the first place since it's perfectly apparent that the song is prerecorded and in perfect harmony. Everybody's lip synching here. I think that the line is just a cute little in-joke where Charley Chase breaks the fourth wall ever so briefly to give us a laugh. In general, I don't think there's very much ad libbing in any of these shorts, movie-making being so expensive that the actors were pretty much forbidden to ad lib. I think many of us agree that in certain tiny spots, the stooges muff a line or a bit of business, and ad lib a bit to cover it up, but it always seems fairly obvious when it happens...no Groucho-like gems getting ad libbed here. ( I also don't think Groucho was allowed to ad lib much in his movies, for the same reasons. ) Though I do think that when Curly-on-the-spit roars into flame and Larry yells " He's burnin', Moe!" THAT'S an ad lib, but so appropriate under the circumstances that it could stay in.
Does anyone besides me think that the brunette with the good facial bones in the girl-singer group shot bears a familial resemblance to Charley Chase?

Paul Pain · **Reply #17 on:** February 07, 2014, 04:24:12 AM

"Welcome to Mildew"

"Mildew has a lovely student body." "You wouldn't look so bad yourself if you lost 20 pounds."

Actually, the stooges were given TONS of room to ad-lib. The scripts were usually written at less time than necessary and given to Jerry Howard for him to fill in the gaps on his own.

BeAStooge · **Reply #18 on:** February 07, 2014, 07:17:24 AM

Quote from: PaulPayne on February 07, 2014, 04:24:12 AM

the stooges were given TONS of room to ad-lib.

Not at all. The majority of the scripts have been reviewed, they were tightly scripted in terms of dialogue and stage direction, and the films follow them closely. Ad libs were the exception.

Paul Pain · **Reply #19 on:** August 24, 2014, 04:43:11 AM

Coming back to this short, I must note the horribly difficult (and unscientific questions) the girls ask the Stooges, leading to the alphabet song sequence. As a senior in university studying a difficult science, I have great admiration for this short.

Dr. Hugo Gansamacher · **Reply #20 on:** December 09, 2014, 07:51:56 AM

Count me as one of the fans of this short--mostly on the strength of the explosions, first at the gas station ("It's murder! It's arson!") and then at the college ("There you are--that's what I call super service!"), with the three professors as victims both times.

"Oh, a frozen dainty!" I don't know why that line is so funny to me, but it's another favorite moment.

"Swingin' the Alphabet" is a surreal episode. I find it odd that some other voice has been dubbed in in place of Moe's, but we hear Curly plainly enough.

I believe that the transcript on the page for this movie messes up the joke about Moe saying Mrs. Catsby's name:

Quote

MOE: Now, Mrs. Cats.

CATSBY: Catsby.

MOE: Alright, Catsby! So wha—

CATSBY: Sufferin Catsby.

MOE: Alright Sufferin--- Hey! Will you quit heckling me?

Moe initially calls her "Mrs. Katz," not "Mrs. Cats": the joke is that he replaces her genteel (and gentile) Anglo-Saxon name with a common Jewish one. Then she gives her husband's first name, which, I am pretty sure, is "Sovereign," not "Sufferin," making her Mrs. Sovereign Catsby. Moe starts to transform this into "Sufferin' Catfish," which was a euphemistic exclamation of that era. Also, I believe that the German professor's name is "von Steuben," not "von Stupor."

Shemp_is_Awesome78 · **Reply #21 on:** December 14, 2014, 07:48:22 AM

I made this little Three Stooges documentary so that I could show my friends and family ( BECAUSE THEY STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE STORY OF THE THREE STOOGES WERE!) I included this short. It's just so darn funny. Curly at his prime. A fantastic silly song. Curly choking on cucumbers. It's just the best. And, yes, I have memorized Swingin' The Alphabet.
B-A. BA. B-E. BE B-I. BICKY BI. B-O. BO. BICKY BI BO. B-U. BU. BICKY BI BO BU.
( Also, I wonder if the " Curly's a dope" line was supposed to be in there...)

Big Chief Apumtagribonitz · **Reply #22 on:** December 14, 2014, 09:51:26 PM

ShempisAwesome, I modestly believe I have answered your question as to whether the lyric " Curly's A Dope " is an ad lib by pointing out, quite a few posts north of here, that it is in perfect harmony and obviously pre-recorded. It couldn't possibly be an ad lib. It is certainly meant to sound like one, though, and Curly's reaction to it is certainly meant to get a laugh because of that perception, but a careful viewing will reveal the techniques that went into that sequence, none of
which are ad libbed, since everyone in this entire sequence is lip-synching .
Remember that Charley Chase, the director of this film, was one of the greatest comedy directors, and his films, including these few stooge films that he directed, were full not only of big belly-laughs, but also little tiny bits like " Curly's a Dope ".

Big Chief Apumtagribonitz · **Reply #23 on:** December 14, 2014, 10:01:05 PM

And, Dr. Hugo, I myself believe that that is Moe's own voice in the overdub. It is surprisingly pleasant, I will admit, but I think that's him, as I think that's also Curly,even though his voice also sounds quite sweet. Remember that before they arrived in Hollywood they were Broadway stars, which you didn't get to be if you couldn't sing sweetly.

GreenCanaries · **Reply #24 on:** April 15, 2015, 10:04:35 AM

Quote from: metaldams on November 30, 2013, 10:36:12 AM

Curly covering up the nude statue on the car

One of my favorite parts of this short; his little "tut tut" point at the end of that bit is great as well.

Another one, for me, is Curly in the water trying to catch up with Moe & Larry (combo of the look on his face and his strained position is priceless).

Also: I hate to be a "Negative Nancy," but I'm not sure that's Sam Adams as Feinstein. They look similar, but Feinstein's nose seems a bit thinner to me, and something about the voice (or from what I've heard of it in Dirty Work and the Columbia Musical Novelty Umpa) seems off - it's gruffer and not as "squirrelly."