"What do you know! I've been promoted!" (Larry): a funny line, which could be a comment on the various occasions when Larry gets to take an active role.
The page for Jean Willes reminds me that this is not her first appearance in a Stooge short. It is, however, her first appearance in an extended role. She was hot, in a cold sort of way, if you get my meaning.
Moe's conversation with her over the telephone in the shop, until the line gets severed, makes painful viewing for me. "Now don't you worry your pretty little head! . . . I think you're just the cutest bunch of curls!" I doubt that women were any less repelled by such talk in 1950 than they are now, even if it was a more common occurrence. I just wish that the phone cord had been cut before Moe started the would-be sweet talk, so that we wouldn't have to think of poor Miss (Miss?) Scudder being afflicted with it.
It's a rum thing, but while violent slapstick with heavy tools and explosives makes me laugh, violent slapstick with blades and motorized saws mostly just makes me cringe. So I watch the opening scene with mixed feelings. I'm delighted to see the Stooges at "work," if it can be called that, with their customary wildly destructive ineptitude, but the business with Moe nearly putting his hand into the circular saw just makes me uncomfortable. His getting his nose into the saw does not distress me so much, because it is so wildly unrealistic. But then, again, Larry's application of the plane to Moe's head is a little too much like reality for my comfort. I suppose reactions just differ on this. I love the whole business with Moe getting his eye stuck and then his hands stuck to the board, though.
