Topic: All the World's a Stooge (1941)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/55
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033325/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

First off, one of the best titled Stooge shorts.  A play on Shakespeare's "All the World's a Stage" quote, though it's a little known fact Shakespeare himself was actually a plagiarist, as he stole that from the title of a Rush live album. 

This short is in the best Stooge era, but I never thought it was one of the better shorts of said era, which means it's still good.  I just feel as though there is a missed opportunity at the end.  Curly's Limburger cheese as Vick's medicine gag was done better by Harry Langdon is THE STRONG MAN.  Langdon's sleepy demeanor and subsequent milking and selling of the cold and the smell the cheese gives off is done more convincingly.  Symona Boniface does a great job with what time she has to work with Curly, but it's too brief for my tastes.  I guess the ultimate disappointment is the second Moe and Larry run into the high society scene, we get a brief chase, one pie, and a very sudden ending.  Given the boys history with a high society party, I feel there was some lost potential.

Speaking of pie, was that the first actual pie thrown in a Stooge short?  I know we've had clay and cream puffs projected, but I can't remember a pie until now.  I'll look it up to see if I can find an answer, I'm just writing off the top of my head, but I want to say that was the first pie thrown in a Stooge short.  Anybody else have care to chip in?

Despite some flaws, still an entertaining short.  Larry dressed as a little girl is visual comic gold, and the dentist scene is excellent.  Love the concrete and dynamite in the mouth gag, and the opening where it looks like Moe is pulling Curly's tooth only for the edit to reveal he's reaching over Larry as they're both tugging a rope that's pulling Curly up a building is worthy of a Keaton.  The boys themselves are also in fine form in this one.

8/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

I think this short features the one and only appearance by Olaf Hytten as the butler. Olaf popped up in quite a few of the 1940s Universal Horror films that I'm a big fan of and I loved his line "Beg pardon madam, I thought it was the heat."

I love the implausibility of the stooges as children or more specifically, Larry as a little girl. Who in their right mind would buy that premise--but as I've said before, these shorts weren't written with the idea of trying to improve our minds.

"I'm smoking too much, say where are those refugees."

8 out of 10....

[JazzBill]

This short never worked for me. I like the bumbling window washer/dentist beginning but it loses me after that. I just find it too hard to believe the boys could be passed off as children. That's too much even for a Three Stooges short. I do like the dice game scene but that's not enough to pull this short out of the subpar area for me. I rate it a 7.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

     It's impossible to overrate Emory Parnell in this short.  His every appearance is a laugh.  It's a shame this is his only stooge appearance.  He does outrage every bit as well as Vernon Dent.
     The lines  " I still don't smell so good," " I'll say you don't " are a scream, I think they cut away from Curly and the other actor just before they lose it.
     And how in the world did they split that tree in half?  I've watched this hundreds of times and can't come close to figuring it out.  It's utterly seamless.  Obviously, it was pre-cut, but lengthwise?  And it splits exactly the way it would if the axe hit it exactly there.  And it's not undercranked, not in fast-motion.  It's just eye-popping, and for me makes a great ending.  I mean, how are you going to follow that?
     This is one of my very favorites.

[Shemp_Diesel]

Speaking of pie, was that the first actual pie thrown in a Stooge short?  I know we've had clay and cream puffs projected, but I can't remember a pie until now.  I'll look it up to see if I can find an answer, I'm just writing off the top of my head, but I want to say that was the first pie thrown in a Stooge short.  Anybody else have care to chip in?

I forgot to mention this earlier, but if you go back and watch the cream puff fight from Slippery Silks, Moe launches a pie from that rubber hand gadget and hits Curly with it. At least, I'm pretty sure it's a pie. It has been awhile since I watched Silks.


 

[Paul Pain]

This short never worked for me. I like the bumbling window washer/dentist beginning but it loses me after that. I just find it too hard to believe the boys could be passed off as children. That's too much even for a Three Stooges short. I do like the dice game scene but that's not enough to pull this short out of the subpar area for me. I rate it a 7.

Pretty much sums it up for me too, but I give it an 8.  The boys are solid here, but passing them off as children is a stretch.

I loved how the boys played strip-poker, drank booze, and smoked with the butler... and then the embarrassment of him not having his pants on.  After they hide the cigar, Lotta gets set on fire, and gets abused and extinguished in violent Stooge fashion.

Ajax is comedy gold... especially with him spiting his wife.  I understand Lotta Boullion's name being a pun, but Ajax?

Curly and his "Mammy" routine was well-acted, but an amateur rhyme scheme.

Could have been done better.

[Kopfy2013]

A good solid short. I like the tooth pulling sounds. The 'Mammy' routine. The cigar routine. Curly is at the top of his game again.  I give it a 8.

Incidentally in Jon Solomon's book he points out that if you look at Curly's Left leg it is skinnier than his right leg. The left leg is the one  he shot in 1916 with a  .22 rifle.

[metaldams]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OehisSRN3Ys

Above is a link to Harry Langdon's THE STRONG MAN.  In addition to being the first film Frank Capra directed, it also has the original Vicks for Limburger cheese gag found in ALL THE WORLD'S A STOOGE.  The build up to the gag begins around 39:30 and the Limburger part itself around 45 minutes.  The overall sequence is about eight minutes and it's interesting how a simple premise like this can be milked for half the length of a Stooge short.  Features had more time to build up gags, and Harry Langdon, more than anybody else, worked slow. I love that about Harry, but this may not be to everybody's taste, since the Stooges are so different.  I hope you enjoy.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Don't forget that in the masquerade as children, the only one they are trying to fool is Mrs. Bullion, and she's an idiot.  Even Mr. Bullion is in on the scam, and I think the big joke is supposed to be that he thinks he can control these three impostors, but finds out that they are beyond human control.

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

Very good episode although I agree the dentistry scenes were better than the scenes where the stooges were refugees, even though I give this short an 8/10 I consider it to be the weakest of the 1941 bunch (I consider 1941 to be the stooges at their zenith).

[Dr. Mabuse]

Despite an uneven script, "All the World's a Stooge" remains a consistently funny short that finds the Stooges in splendid form. The dentist scenes provide the finest moments and certainly work better than the "child refugee" mayhem.  Leiah Tyler emerges as a good sport, but I couldn't warm up to Emory Parnell as Mr. Bullion (the role cried out for Vernon Dent).  Another detriment is the incredibly lame finish — having Bullion chase the boys with an axe just doesn't cut it.  Flawed but enjoyable.

8/10

[Daddy Dewdrop]

It seems I enjoy this one a bit more than most.  The Stooges as children is so absurd that it works.  I rank this as my #31 overall.