Topic: Three Little Sew and Sews (1939)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/36
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030866/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Well, we're back to a Del Lord short again, and while I like this short better than the last two, I can't consider this one of my favorites.  This would make it a three short streak with what I consider to be below average shorts.  Why is it below average?  Hard to say, though I sometimes wonder if it's because the older I get, the less I enjoy military themed stuff.  Oh, I could enjoy a military short if done right, but, I dunno, just one of my eccentricities, I suppose.  I can't say there's a great scene that stands out either, no Curly with a maze of pipes, no pie fight, no Pig Latin, this short' slacking anything big that makes it stand out.

That said, there are a few isolated moments I enjoy.  The Moe line about how changing his socks will be such a great experience is wonderfully bizarre.  The spy woman sitting on Curly's lap with the cigar burning under him and her commenting that she smells rubbish burning is hysterical.  Curly's pantomime scene through the window where he's acting like he's flirting with girls is great.  I love the way he tells these imaginary girls to turn around and has this childlike reaction to it all.  Cy Schindell is also fun putting himself in jail after kicking "Admiral" Curly.

So yeah, some fun pieces, but for whatever reason they just don't glue for me.  Like I said last week, I won't continue to be such a downer for long, cause we're soon going to hit a hot streak.

5/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

You know Metal, the way you feel about the year 1937 is kind of how I feel about 1939, a year of mostly "good" shorts but not a lot of great ones, at least not until we get to the end of the year with Jules White starting with Oily to Bed, Oily to Rise, then of course not long after that we get to the golden age of the 1940s where Del & Jules were trading off classics in succession, but I'm sure we'll get to that when the time comes.


As for Sew and Sews, I think you covered all the highlights, but I have to make mention of Moe's line when he threatens to bust an iron over Curly's head & Curly has to remind him he had to pay for the last iron.

Also, this was the final short to utilize the "Listen to the Mockingbird" theme.

7 out of 10

[stoogepreacher]

My favorite was when Curly caught the torpedo and said "Oh a Pelican"
These guys were masters in every sense of the word.......Curly trying to get loose from the spring in the couch was FANTASTIC!!
Curly: "Cough Cough Cough Cough Couuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhh"
Moe: "What's wrong?"
Curly: "Nothin...just practicing for when we run out of air"
Take Care God Bless and Keep Watching
Stoogepreacher

[JazzBill]

There are to many funny bits in this short for me not to include it in my list of favorites. I think Moe is hilarious when he mimics Curly at the beginning. " Join The navy and see the world, no more smelly sweatshops, beautiful girls in every port, Woo- Woo."  The scene with Curly flopping around with the spring stuck to his ass is Curly at his physical best. Vernon Dent seems to be truly enjoying it. I also enjoyed the bit with the sub flopping in and out of the water like a dolphin. The only drawback to me in this short is the ending. I don't like to see the boys die at the end. I still rate it a solid 8.

[Kopfy2013]

I disagree with Metal that these last few have been below average.  I say they have been above average.   Not great, but enjoyable and above average.

A lot of the key moments have been mentioned about this short already.

I will say this is Curly's physical comedy at his best.  Shorts like this made his reputation for physical comedy.  The spring in the couch, the smoking guitar, his pantomime it goes on and on.

I love it when Curly has the upper hand on Moe and Larry like he did in this short when Moe and Larry were jailed.

Nothing hilarious in this short but I had a few laughs and thoroughly enjoyed it ... the submarine part reminded me of McHales Navy ... with the Admiral being Leadbottom .... I kept thinking Ernest Borgnine was going to appear at some point.

I am going to give it an 8

[TiskaTaskaBaska]

Nine stars!! One of my favorites. From the very beginning; it's quotable and catchy. "Don't tailor sound like sailor?" "After I get done rowing a boat, I'm going to spend a hot weekend on a rolly coaster." "Is that bearded lady a beaut when she gets a shave..." Then it gets even better....Moe and Larry in the klink; Larry says "You know, I was thinking..." or something to the effect and Moe yells "Quiet!" and gives him a great mighty slap in the face. Curly's pantomime at the window is more awesome in 20 seconds than Whose Line Is It Anyway was in five years.....   The luncheon scene is a favorite of mine...."Say, when do we eat?" As one of the only women on the planet who is a Stooges freak, I am always enraptured by the women's clothing in the shorts and the spy woman's dress and little jeweled hair pins are among my favorites. I always want to think that Curly's business of being attached to the couch by a spring caused Vernon Dent to laugh for real; especially when Curly really freaks out and is almost flopping like a fish; Vernon is almost doubled over; I absolutely love that part. Another of my favorite parts is when Curly gets the cake in the face when he's following Larry and Larry stops short. The rest of the short is sort of paint-by-numbers but that is more than forgiven.

[Larrys#1]

This episode is pretty good. While I didn't care for the plot, there are a lot of funny bits here... Moe burning the clothes with the iron, Curly dressing up as Admiral Taylor and getting Moe and Larry arrested, Curly getting his rear end caught in the couch spring and Curly practicing when he runs out of air.

8.5/10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I always enjoy seeing this one.  The lady spy is very sexy, though I deplore any plot device anywhere any time by anybody where a female faints at the sight of a mouse.  Just plain dumb, and lazy scriptwriting.
     To return to a boring sidelight I brought up a while ago, when Curly stage-whispers " you know for five bucks apiece I can get you birds out ", I think that's his real voice, or pretty close.  It's the same voice he spoke in when he played Popsy-Wopsy.  He uses it one more time that I can remember, I'll try to bring it up again then.
     Moe sometimes indulges in what psychiatrists call Magical Thinking ( not a complimentary term ), and there's a great example here when after two seconds of light scrutiny of the bomb, he confidently declares it a dud that can't hurt anybody.  This assessment gets them all killed.

[ManiacMan]

For the most part this short is quite good but I feel like the ending was just sort of tacked on. The story doesn't really conclude in a decent fashion. Sadly this style ending is repeated in some of their later films like Idle Roomers and I think a similar thing was done in either Heavenly Daze or the remake Bedlam in Paradise. Idle Roomers was directed by Del Lord so that explains the reuse. The spring joke was also done quite poorly. Then again this was the first appearance of that specific gag right? As for other films Curly used his real voice in, Crash Goes the Hash is one. There are several scenes I believe in that film where he does. They Stooge to Conga is also another film where he shows trouble in doing the Curly voice.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

The spring joke was done poorly?

[Paul Pain]

I thought the mouse was quite apropos.  It humiliated this lady who is supposed to be an evil sinister spy with tough skin.  Perhaps the best part is the ending, with the Stooges flying with their angel wings as the Admiral gives chase.  The dinner scene added unique lines to an overused routine.

"Gasoline don't taste so good since Prohibition. They ain't so careful like when they used it for makin' gin."-- one of the best quotes ever

[metaldams]

The spring joke was done poorly?

My actual problem with the spring gag is not so much Curly (though even then I prefer the spring gag in HOI POLLOI), but the fact Vernon Dent laughs at Curly doing it.  I like it better when the straight characters play it straight as opposed to laughing and being in on the joke. 

Yes, I too noticed Curly using what seems to be his real voice, I agree with those who mentioned it.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Yes, but Dent is not a straightman or authority figure here, he's just a party guest , and when he goes into hysterics, he's there as just one more thorn in Curly's side.  Granted, Dent is USUALLY cast as an authority figure, so it is tough to separate him from all the REAL menaces surrounding all the stooges at this particular point. But I think his role here is simply to make Curly's life even tougher when all Curly's trying to do is impress the lady.  And after intense and due consideration, naaaah, the mouse is still just dumb, lazy scriptwriting.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Though PaulPayne is right about the gasoline quote, one of the best ever, and his quoting accuracy is appreciated.  That line was cut from T V when I watched the Stooges in my youth in Boston, I never saw it until a DVD maybe ten years ago.

[Paul Pain]

Though PaulPayne is right about the gasoline quote, one of the best ever, and his quoting accuracy is appreciated.  That line was cut from T V when I watched the Stooges in my youth in Boston, I never saw it until a DVD maybe ten years ago.

Of course I was going to be accurate; I ripped the quote from the episode page. 

[Larrys#1]

My actual problem with the spring gag is not so much Curly (though even then I prefer the spring gag in HOI POLLOI), but the fact Vernon Dent laughs at Curly doing it.  I like it better when the straight characters play it straight as opposed to laughing and being in on the joke. 

Yes, I too noticed Curly using what seems to be his real voice, I agree with those who mentioned it.

I agree. I like it better in AN ACHE IN EVERY STAKE. Dent plays it serious the whole time. Priceless!

[TiskaTaskaBaska]

A lot of hate for the spring gag....it's one of my favorite parts when Vernon laughs.

And the two best parts of the short:  "I'm gonna change my socks--What an experience!!" And even more subtle but beyond compare once you clue in on it....when Curly thinks Moe is going to whack him, he very gently points at his admiral stripes and then pantomimes a salute...flawless.

Yes, that's Curly's original voice! I also think that line is dubbed, as well as "You need a pass for the other gate". They didn't seem to do that much, ADR too costly? So it sticks out when it actually was done.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

This short seems to me very good through the first two thirds, in the scenes on the naval base and at the count's party. After that, there's a falling off. The action aboard the submarine has less funny business packed into it, and the ending—well, I am among those who find it unfunny and unsatisfying when the Stooges get killed at the end.

High points:

• Moe and Larry "saluting their superior officer," when Curly has donned the admiral's uniform. The succession of kicks, slaps, and punches in the belly administered from alternating sides—with their sound effects—is so funny that one is sorry to see the two military police officers step in to stop it.
• Curly's pantomime in the window frame, with its climax in the grand débâcle of his finding himself confronted by the real admiral. Luckily for Curly, this admiral regards impersonating a superior officer as a mere personal offense against himself rather than a violation of military law!
• The transfer of kicks in the behind that ends with Cy Shindell thoughtlessly giving one to the assumed admiral, and then obediently locking himself in the brig.
• Curly's ordeal with the burning cigar and the spring that sticks in his trouser seat. Several people have mentioned this gag, so I just want to add an observation on the very end of it: after Moe has extracted the spring and gotten hit in the face with it, as he approaches Curly menacingly, Curly, shrinking back, tries to fend him off by repeatedly saluting and pointing to the stripes on his sleeve. Moe bows to the decorum to the extent of giving Curly nothing more than an ear twist.
• Curly standing on the conning tower of the submarine as a series of cheesy replicas of shells fly past his head. He gives the first one his trademark gesture of disdain (we need a name for it—when he slowly thrusts out his hand and then flicks it downward), but others, all traveling at impossibly low speed on exactly the same perfectly horizontal trajectory, keep coming.

An oddity of this short is that the action is set up as taking place in the "Republic of Televania," with the country of the spies never being identified, but the Count greets Curly by saying, "Why, everyone knows the Taylors of Kentucky, one of the oldest families in America." Oops!

I always want to think that Curly's business of being attached to the couch by a spring caused Vernon Dent to laugh for real; especially when Curly really freaks out and is almost flopping like a fish; Vernon is almost doubled over; I absolutely love that part.

One thing that I am pretty sure is for real in that bit is Curly's hitting his head on the table that he has knocked over. A sound effect is dubbed in to make it funny, but it is clearly something that could not have been planned, and the table seems to be a real hardwood table. I think that when Curly puts his hand to his head, he does so because the impact actually hurt. In the "Stooge Goofs" part of the page on this short, someone has noted that you can hear people off camera laughing during this bit.

[metaldams]

Like I've mentioned, I've been watching these shorts again and I completely forgot about what I perceive to be a three short mini slump, with this short being the third one.  Watching these in order, I found my interest waning these past few after being really engaged before that....only to read my old reviews and see I see I felt that way a few years back.  Man I miss these long threads.

Anyway, Big Chief, I saw you mentioned you found Phyllis Barry attractive.  Me too.  Here's a pic of her with Buster from WHAT, NO BEER.  Enjoy.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

How is your decollette, how is your decollette, say boys, that's where my money goes.....

[Paul Pain]

I thought the mouse was quite apropos.  It humiliated this lady who is supposed to be an evil sinister spy with tough skin.  Perhaps the best part is the ending, with the Stooges flying with their angel wings as the Admiral gives chase.  The dinner scene added unique lines to an overused routine.

"Gasoline don't taste so good since Prohibition. They ain't so careful like when they used it for makin' gin."-- one of the best quotes ever

Wow... I've been on this site for over 5 years now.  This was the post that started it all for me.

[joe strubachincoskow]

I've found  this short to contain Curly's best pantomime  - (outside the brig window as Moe and Larry watch).

[Dr. Mabuse]

Definitely in my Top 20. Curly's pantomime is comparable to Chaplin — while the "black" ending is right out of a Merrie Melodies cartoon. Always worth revisiting.

9/10

[Daddy Dewdrop]

It looks like I like this one a bit more than most.  I rank it at #64 overall.