Topic: Three Little Twirps (1943)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/71
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036434/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035026/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

We continue our weekly intellectual discourse with THREE LITTLE TWIRPS.  Now, I'm sure you're all aware that every week I post a link to the threestooges.net and imdb link for the short of discussion.  This week there's a second imdb link for the now obscure film THE MAN WHO RETURNED TO LIFE.  That would be the movie poster the boys are working next to on the fence in the beginning of the film, it's a real film.  Directed by Lew Landers, who also directed THE RAVEN and RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE for the fellow horror fans on board, it does contain a few Stooge players, most prominently Kenneth MacDonald before he ever appeared with the boys.

Now that the obscure trivia is out of the way, let's talk about something the average kid n the street knows about....Harry Edwards.  This would be the second and final short he did with the boys.  I posted my Harry Lanngdon theory and fact that the boys requested not to work with him after this in the MATRI-PHONY thread, so I imagine this must not have been a good experience for the boys.  For me, however, it's just fine, as I enjoy this short.  It's also a rare short of the era without any WWII references or themes that I can detect.

My favorite part of this short is Chester Conklin working with Larry and Curly in the horse's outfit.  It's one of those gags on paper that seems stupid, the horse outfit is obviously fake and you'd think Chester would catch on, but in execution I find it hysterical.  Curly's head popping out of the suit while lying down on the ground in a fetal position making some weird noise reminds me of some demonic birth scene.

I also enjoy the end with Curly on the high wire, reminds me of Charlie Chaplin in THE CIRCUS (now there's a film I'm overdue to see again).  The spear dude is the Stooge debut of Duke York. He went on to mostly play monster types, the Stooge version of Lon Chaney.

I also like the scene where the boys are scalping tickets, and the use of extras like that will become less and less over the years as the budgets get lower. 

A fun little short.

8/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

I've always felt that the first 11 or 12 minutes of the short contained some of the funniest stuff the stooges ever did. Love the opening poster hanging scene with Larry giving a carrot to the horse only for it to disappear then Curly appears from behind the poster with said carrot.

The funnest bit during that poster hanging scene for me is Larry putting the brush under Moe's chin and Moe gets aggravated, prompting Larry's "beat it grandpa, we got no time for kibitzers (I hope I spelled that right).

The scene with Larry and Curly in the horse hide is another winner. The downfall of this particular short though is the last few minutes with the stooges in the circus act and the Sultan of Abba Dabba. Those scenes never really did much for me and it brings down the grade somewhat for what is otherwise an excellent short.

8.5 out of 10....

[Paul Pain]

Awww... nobody mentioned the bearded lady (Hank Bell)!  This is for me one of the weirdest Curly shorts.  It's rather mottled with only loose connections between the many subplots.  The subplots themselves are rather good, keeping my interest, but the ending just shoots this short to pieces.  First, the whole concept of the insane "Sultan of Abba Dabba" is just stupid, even for Stooge standards, and second didn't the script writers (Monte Collins and Elwood Ullman) know that a Sultan as an Islamic monarch?  If you look at Collins work, he was a mastermind (MATRI-PHONY, THEY STOOGE TO CONGA, etc.), but Ullman was the man who brought us Fake Shemp and the other horrible 30 or so stock footage Shemp shorts.

I'll call it 7/10.  The ending just doesn't do it for me.  With roles like this it's no wonder Duke York was constantly depressed.  It's kind of funny really... he wasn't that tall really, but all of the Columbia actors were shrimps, so York was a "giant" in comparison to his coworkers.

[BeAStooge]

Ullman was the man who brought us Fake Shemp and the other horrible 30 or so stock footage Shemp shorts.

Ullman left Columbia in 1952.  He had no involvement with any of those Jules White / Felix Adler / Jack White concoctions.

... the bearded lady (Hank Bell)

A [currently] unidentified player.  Filmographies crediting Hank Bell are in error.

[metaldams]

Love the opening poster hanging scene with Larry giving a carrot to the horse only for it to disappear then Curly appears from behind the poster with said carrot.

You know, that IS an excellent gag.  Very creative and funny.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Oh, cool!  So we still don't know whether the bearded lady is actually a woman or not!  The only major flaw I find with this one is Curly's stuntman on the high-wire, photographed from the back and suspended by wires.  Too obvious.  Did I read somewhere that Harry Edwards had a drinking problem?

[metaldams]

Did I read somewhere that Harry Edwards had a drinking problem?

That's what I've heard through the grapevine.  Funny though, because Harry Edwards was directing Columbia shorts for two years after he was done with the Stooges.  For example....

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/278

[Paul Pain]

Oh, cool!  So we still don't know whether the bearded lady is actually a woman or not!  The only major flaw I find with this one is Curly's stuntman on the high-wire, photographed from the back and suspended by wires.  Too obvious.  Did I read somewhere that Harry Edwards had a drinking problem?

Big Chief, go back and read my original post and you will see that the bearded lady is played by Hank Bell.

[BeAStooge]

... go back and read my original post and you will see that the bearded lady is played by Hank Bell.

Also indicated above...

It is not Hank Bell.  Filmographies that credit him are in error.

[Paul Pain]

Also indicated above...

It is not Hank Bell.  Filmographies that credit him are in error.

Noted, but your source?  Regardless, it is definitely a guy playing the bearded lady.  He has a more distinctively male face than James Arness.

[Lefty]

All in all, this is a good short.  Stanley Blystone did what he was best at -- being a villain.  The scene with Larry and Curly in the horse was the best part.  As for "Abba-dabba Sultan the Duke of York," well, his getting hit in the tuchis by Curly with the spear was always good for a laugh.

Moe's favorite number must have been 90, as here he said "I'll take 90 tickets," and in a later short, which memory may serve me as having been "The Tooth Will Out" with Dick Curtis getting some gas, Moe said, "Now count to 90."

Whoever the bearded lady may have been in real life, when he was shown out cold with just the stubble, he looked like the late Don Jardine, who wrestled as The Spoiler in the early 1970s.

[JazzBill]

This is an OK short. The plot moves along well in the beginning. The poster hanging, the ticket scalping and the bearded lady bits work nicely. After this the ending seems to be kind of dragged out. All in all I rate this short a 7 1/2.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

This is confusing: The bearded lady, whoever he/she is, looks more feminine with the beard than without, that is to say he/she looks more feminine BEFORE Curly has clipped him/her. One of the puzzles is the voice...he/she seems to have a true female voice, aggressive though it may be - if it's a female-impersonator's voice, it's a virtuosic one, with many natural-sounding variations in pitch and emotion as she plays the comic seduction scene with Curly.  How about this theory: the actor/actress with the beard, who speaks, is not the same actor/actress shown after the shearing. That post-shearing actor/actress does not speak, looking more or less like he/she is emerging from some sort of coma ( why, I don't know, since one rarely has that reaction from a shave. )
     What do you think about this:  The bearded lady is an actress with a beard pasted on, and the shorn lady is a male actor who ( take a second look ) doesn't look all that much like the actress playing the bearded lady.
     Sorry about all the he/she slashes, I don't know how to make it any plainer.
     I have a couple of other tweaks on this scenario, but this is scenario A.

[Svengarlic]

Apumtagribonitz, I too made a point of watching him...her....IT! When she put her hands on Curly they seemed man-sized.

[Lefty]

Bearded lady, you are the MAN!

[Kopfy2013]

By viewing his shorts I am not a Harry Edwards fan. His shorts are sloppy and has gratuitous violence. For example at the beginning of the short and later when Curly pulls Larry's hair out for no reason. It's like he did not always know where to put the slapstick.

Maybe Monte Collins and Elwood Ullman were also to blame since they wrote the shorts that Harry directed. Maybe it was the editor, Paul Borofski, as he also edited the other shorts Edwards directed.

I will give this short a seven, barely.

A couple things to note: Curly has three costumes while inside the horse. Notice the sweat on his shirt while in the horse and also when he gets out of the horse, hence that's why he had long sleeves and short sleeves with suspenders then just short sleeves. Also, it looks like he has a little shiner or swollen right eye when he gets out of the horse and throughout that scene. I see it in no other scene. Maybe they shot that scene last?

[Svengarlic]

Kopfy, the Stooge shorts are all pretty much littered with editing gaffes and omissions. No doubt the worst were edited out, but cost conscience Columbia Studio's, very near bankruptcy before striking gold with It Happened One Night in 34' wasn't about to waste money perfecting 17 minute shorts.

But as it turns out, the gaffes are fun to see. (and discuss) 

[GreenCanaries]

Was that Al Thompson doubling Moe in the final shot where and "Larry" dive into the hole?

[BeatleShemp]

Anybody notice, that with the experimenting with sound effects for the eyepoke, we get the sound of cloth ripping? In Back from the Front, it is has the BOING sound, here it's a cloth ripping and Higher than a Kite, it's a honk sound.  Thought that was funny.

Anyways, not one of my favorite shorts, but an underrated short.  It's the perfect length, too.  Had it gone on for another minute, I probably would have a different attitude towards it.  Loved the Curly and Larry interaction throughout. 

[JWF]

Also indicated above...

It is not Hank Bell.  Filmographies that credit him are in error.

Re: the bearded lady....

Had a chance recently to see Hitchcock's "Saboteur", and there is a scene where leads Bob Cummings and Priscilla Lane hide out in a circus...and who should pop up as the bearded lady, but the same person who portrayed the one in Three Little Twirps....

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0789181/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t17

[metaldams]

Re: the bearded lady....

Had a chance recently to see Hitchcock's "Saboteur", and there is a scene where leads Bob Cummings and Priscilla Lane hide out in a circus...and who should pop up as the bearded lady, but the same person who portrayed the one in Three Little Twirps....

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0789181/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t17

I can definitely buy that.  Any other opinions?

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Her photo on Imdb definitely looks like the shaved lady, so that blows my theory out of the water that the shaved one is a guy.  As for the face behind the beard, who knows.  I'll concede that it is that actress ( I've already forgotten her name, sorry ) with and without beard.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

This probably isn't the right place to post this, but I don't know what is, so here's a bit of what I hope is interesting news:  Swing Parade of 1946 is on YouTube in it's entirety.  I just ran across it tonight.  I'd never seen it.  It's O K, though you'll want to fast forward quite a bit.  Besides the stooges, Louis Jordan and his band are very good.

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

A great underrated stooge short that I have fond memories of watching growing up as a kid, while I do agree the last few minutes of the short weren't as great compared to the rest of the short but I still enjoyed that part of the episode.

Despite the last few minutes not being as great as the rest of the short I still give it a 9/10.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Watched "Three Little Twirps" last night and it still holds up — an improvement over director Harry Edwards' uneven "Matri-Phony." The circus setting works better for the Stooges than the Marx Brothers, since I consider "At the Circus" their weakest film.

Has anyone noticed that the short awkwardly fades in while Moe, Larry and Curly finish harmonizing? A pity the vocal interlude was cut, since the short only runs 15 minutes.

8/10