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http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/74http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035814/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1Another WWII short......kind of, sort of. If you notice the letter the boys receive about their military deferment for one month to give them time to work on their plane, it is from The Republic of Canabeer, not the U.S. Government. This I believe goes back to PresidentWardRobey's theory about the dream sequence in I CAN HARDLY WAIT and for what we know as fact concerning some naval scene in Abbott and Costello's IN THE NAVY. If you're going to make the armed forces, war effort, or government look comical, make sure it's some way divorced from reality or in this case, blatantly stating it's not the United States. Governments in general tend not to have a sense of humor about themselves, but enough of my political observations.Anyway, for the most part this is a typical cartoonish Jules White short, and in this case I view it as a good thing. The image of Moe in the gas inflated burning rubber floating in the air to me is one of the all time great Stooge visuals. I don't have too much else to say about the actual comedy other than I find it to be well paced and satisfying. I'll give props to Larry's going steady line, a rare homosexual reference in a 1940's film. Innocent by today's standards, of course.I will show some disappointment with the use of stock footage from BOOBS IN ARMS. The ending itself felt slapped together. If you click on the link above to the threestooges.net page on this short, you will see a photo of Judy Malcolm and the never to be seen in a Stooge short Sethma Williams pictured with the boys and listed as being in a deleted scene. I can't help but wonder if their scene was shot and deleted in place of the stock footage? Who knows, I can come up with a million conspiracy theories, but I have no facts on the issue to back anything up.8/10
The high-energy "Dizzy Pilots" should have ended at the 14-minute mark. Jules White's tacked-on stock footage is reminiscent of "Dizzy Detectives" — another potentially great short marred by unnecessary padding. 8/10
It was a great short even with the used ending.
As you know, I am not a fan of the rehashes, and much less so as they became routine, but this one was good the first time around and is still good the second time around. Plus the first fourteen minutes are so great that the rerun ending is forgivable, at least to my taste. It does make me wonder, though, what the technical glitch was that caused the rerun - they were very rare at that point. Plus, I have no idea why I'm suddenly able to post again.
I've recently begun thinking that Judy Malcolm and Sethma Williams actually never had anything to do with the film at all, but were only in the still photos for publicity purposes. I have seen some other Stooge stills (I think one I'm thinking of right now is from SO LONG MR. CHUMPS, but I can't find the picture at this moment) that see the boys posing with girls whom I don't remember being in the finished film.Plus, the 3S.net page for this film mentions that the script never specifies what Judy and Sethma had to do with the film.
