Topic: Hugs and Mugs (1950)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/121
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042580/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
http://www.emilsitka.com/hugsandmugs1950.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TWRI7llPcEA

Watch HUGS AND MUGS in the link above




      I have never seen this short highly praised by someone other than me.  Ever.  Part of the problem is until the DVD release, this short was harder to come by.  Every short until now was available pre DVD in the VHS market, but not this one.  You guys who remember the AMC days and "The Missing 60," this was one of the sixty, meaning a short not included in the syndicated package.  A true shame, because this is a short I really enjoy.

      A few weeks ago, I made a comment of how this early 50's era starts what I like to call Three Stooges punk rock.  What I mean by this is the budgets are lower, the scenery is less, and the films are stripped down to their bare basics - Stooge slapstick.  For The Three Stooges, even more so than rock music, this absolutely works.  After the first minute and a half, this short takes place in one room, and we pretty much have a barrage of nothing but slapstick linked around a story of three criminal women looking for a pearl necklace.  Even the first minute and a half when it's just the girls, they partake in comedy doing some prison like gestapo march together and even get to squirt ink in poor Emil Sitka's face.

      Let's talk about the girls.  Yeah, they all look good, nothing new there.  The difference is all three actually act, which is unusual.  Think NO DOUGH BOYS.  Christine easily carries that female trio in the acting chops.  In HUGS AND MUGS, while Christine is still the best, all three girls get little scenes to themselves and do a fine job.  Ms. Bordeaux (making her Stooge debut) and Ms. O'Malley (in sadly her only Stooge appearance), even do a short version of the filing cabinet routine!  As for Christine, like Hugo mentions in last week's thread, she gets some slapstick here.  Yeah, there's a Laurel and Hardy like reciprocal retaliation scene where clothing and hair (!) are being torn off, done at a faster Stooge like pace.  It's a great scene, proves Christine can hang with the big boys, and shows last week's little bump on the head wasn't a slapstick apex, but instead a warm up for what was to follow.

      The boys themselves are all in fine form here.  As soon as they're on the screen a barrage of slaps, bonks, and backside stabbings take place, and their childish 50 year old virgin like chemistry with the three ladies is always fun to watch.  Great watching Larry talking about his hair and scalp and them soaking in the comments about their looks.  The scene in that big box of hay where the boys and the criminals do battle is always a pleasure to watch.  Shemp is the man with the iron, and I always get a laugh when he burns his own ass with the thing!  Happy endings prevail as Moe gives Christine a pearl necklace and Shemp and Nanette end with their little romantic patter and Shemp's extended scene with the fan in the bucket of water.  A fun short all around, and since I love it so much and have never heard it praised elsewhere, perhaps their most underrated.

10/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Well, I have to be the first dissenter on this one--not total dissent, but enough not to give this one really high marks. I think we have now entered what I would call perhaps the spottiest portion of the Shemp era--of course, I'm not including the stock footage remake years when I say that, and I've always been a Jules White fan, but the year 1950 was a mixed bag for him, in my view.

This short has some good moments, probably the best part being the first shots we see of the stooges in their shop, doing what they do best--that being beating the hell out of each other. Still, I think the overall story and pacing of this short to be a bit slow and the fight with the crooks was probably not the best one we've ever seen of the stooges.

Overall, I would probably rate this a 6 out of 10...

[Signor Spumoni]

I have only a minute or two to comment right now, so I'll make this short.  I think this is one the better Shemp shorts.  It is far superior to, say, "Goof On the Roof." 

Nanette Bordeux was a lovely Canadian import; too bad she died young.  She and Christine make a good team.  I feel neutral about Miss O'Malley, though she does a good job going toe to toe with the Stooges.

I like Emil's brief, gruff appearance.  He did well with a small role.

When the women march as they used to do in prison, they give a fine demonstration of marching in lockstep. 

The hay in the box is excelsior, a packing material made of wood chavings.  Packing peanuts take their place now.

I always like a clothing duel such as the one between Larry and Christine.  It's a time-honored comedy tradition.

I hope to stop back again later.

[Paul Pain]

I have only a minute or two to comment right now, so I'll make this short.  I think this is one the better Shemp shorts.  It is far superior to, say, "Goof On the Roof." 

You enter dangerous territory by not liking GOOF ON THE ROOF.     I look forward to your review of that short.

This short is fine Stoogery.  Metaldams has said it all, so I add this: no one can mutilate a couch like Christine McIntyre.

10/10

[Signor Spumoni]

The hay in the box is excelsior, a packing material made of wood chavings.  Packing peanuts take their place now.

I take it back.  It doesn't look like excelsior, although I think excelsior is used in a different short.  The packing material here is a weird combination of what looks like rolls of (first-aid type) cotton unrolled and crepe of the type used for artificial hair.  And I'm not sure either of those is accurate.

Paul Pain, I'm ready to take a beating over "Goof On the Roof."    But I'm interested in why you like it.  Perhaps I'll have to wait for your review.

I like the way Christine makes a cursory search for the pearls before becoming a maniac with that knife. 

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

The high point of this short for me is the bit in which Christine MacIntyre faces down the three boys in turn—Shemp (tears off his sleeves), Larry (chokes him with his tie, then tears off his hair and hands it to him), and Moe (heel ground into his toe).  I don't put it anywhere near her subduing of Shemp in Brideless Groom, but it's pretty good. Poor Larry: he seems really traumatized by the removal of his hair!

Nanette Bordeaux has considerable difficulty just delivering her lines. I did not know that she was Canadian (as Signor Spumoni reports). [Edited to delete erroneous further statement that appeared here!]

[metaldams]

The high point of this short for me is the bit in which Christine MacIntyre faces down the three boys in turn—Shemp (tears off his sleeves), Larry (chokes him with his tie, then tears off his hair and hands it to him), and Moe (heel ground into his toe).  I don't put it anywhere near her subduing of Shemp in Brideless Groom, but it's pretty good. Poor Larry: he seems really traumatized by the removal of his hair!

Nanette Bordeaux has considerable difficulty just delivering her lines. I did not know that she was Canadian (as Signor Spumoni reports). But this is not her Stooge début (as Metaldams says): at least according to the pages in this site, she was in Three Hams on Rye (1950).

Not that I ever looked it up before now, but since it appears THREE HAMS ON RYE was filmed first, if not released first, in a way you're right.  As for her line delivery, I just think she had a thick French Canadian accent.  Same way Bela Lugosi was thick on the Hungarian.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Not that I ever looked it up before now, but since it appears THREE HAMS ON RYE was filmed first, if not released first, in a way you're right.  As for her line delivery, I just think she had a thick French Canadian accent.  Same way Bela Lugosi was thick on the Hungarian.

I removed that last sentence after I saw that I had mixed up the chronology, though before your post appeared.

There have been lots of actors who speak English with a strong foreign accent, but usually they gain fluency of delivery with practice, even if their accent never changes. It struck me that Ms. Bordeaux seems to find every line a struggle just to enunciate in this short. Later on, even though her accent did not improve, her delivery did. So I surmise that she had not been in the US very long when she made this short.

[GreenCanaries]

As for her line delivery, I just think she had a thick French Canadian accent.  Same way Bela Lugosi was thick on the Hungarian.

Not to mention another future Stooge dame, the Czechoslovakian Barbara Bartay (who bravely attempts a Scottish accent in HOT ICE).

[Paul Pain]

Not to mention another future Stooge dame, the Czechoslovakian Barbara Bartay (who bravely attempts a Scottish accent in HOT ICE).

That's supposed to be a Scottish accent!  Oy vey!

I take it back.  It doesn't look like excelsior, although I think excelsior is used in a different short.  The packing material here is a weird combination of what looks like rolls of (first-aid type) cotton unrolled and crepe of the type used for artificial hair.  And I'm not sure either of those is accurate.

Either way that stuff looks scratchy.

[Signor Spumoni]

I removed that last sentence after I saw that I had mixed up the chronology, though before your post appeared.

There have been lots of actors who speak English with a strong foreign accent, but usually they gain fluency of delivery with practice, even if their accent never changes. It struck me that Ms. Bordeaux seems to find every line a struggle just to enunciate in this short. Later on, even though her accent did not improve, her delivery did. So I surmise that she had not been in the US very long when she made this short.

I, too, noticed that.  It even crossed my mind that she learned her lines phonetically, but I doubt it.  One source says she arrived in the USA in the 1930s.  Another source says she appeared in movies beginning around 1940.  If those are facts, it would seem she had enough time to learn to speak more clearly by 1950.  Curious.  Maybe she just wasn't well the day that was filmed.  Maybe she had a toothache as bad as Curly's in "I Can Hardly Wait."

[Signor Spumoni]

That's supposed to be a Scottish accent!  Oy vey!

Either way that stuff looks scratchy.

Agreed.

Wait, I think I have it - - it was rolls of cotton plus all the hair torn from Larry's scalp over the years!

[Paul Pain]

Agreed.

Wait, I think I have it - - it was rolls of cotton plus all the hair torn from Larry's scalp over the years!

Maybe it was toupees and wigs from all the dummies used over the years, plus Larry's hair as you mentioned, plus all the hair from the Stooges' personal haircuts (got to keep that look!).

[Lefty]

Fast-forward 65 years and the trio of women in Hugs and Mugs could give WWE's Team Bella, Team BAD, and Team PCB a run for their money.

As for Nanette's difficulties with English, the vast majority of Quebecers speak mainly French, so it probably took her a long time to get the gist of English.  One of Montreal's most famous exports, Mario Lemieux, could not speak a word of English when he was drafted by the Penqueens in 1984, but now he has nary a trace of a French Canadian accent.

This is a funny short, especially with the interaction involving the not-so-ladylike ladies vs. the Stooges and the villains, and everything with the iron.  Speaking of the iron, it was replaced by a cat in the game of Monopoly in 2013.  At least the Stooges weren't using a cat to attack the bad guys.

And it had a great ending with Shemp's situation.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

" Baby, I go for you..."  Christine?  To Moe?  One of the most cringe-worthy lines in the entire stooge canon.  Yecchhh.

[Kopfy2013]

I liked this short.  Shemp does a great job.    I thought it moved along well all to the point of girls getting the necklace, boys thinking they are getting wooed and then the gangsters. 

I give this an 8. 

[Daddy Dewdrop]

Pretty solid Shemp effort here.  No classic, but pretty entertaining.

#96. Hugs And Mugs

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

9/10, I always feel this short doesn't get the attention that it deserves, I feel this is one of the funnier and one of the more violent Shemp shorts, also wasn't this the first episode where you heard the "cookoo" sounds when the bad guys or the stooges get knocked out? The ending scene with Shemp is a classic, this is one short that gets better on repeated viewings.

[Samurai]

Prior to tonight, I had only viewed about 5 minutes of this short. I'm happy I watched the whole deal this time. Hell hath no fury like a Christine McIntyre scorned (well, maybe a professionally wielded iron). Her mayhem can definitely rival Moe.

Favorite unmentioned items...Shemp imploring the poor bird not to 'lay an egg' on his face, and the sign stating that management refuses to accept $1000 bills (or something awfully similar).

Finally, I believe much of the bin material is kapok. For a closeup look, take a cue from Miss Christine and slice open an old boat cushion (or chair...or pillow). You're likely to find kapok. It's comfortable for sitting on, and it floats.