Topic: Pest Man Wins (1951)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/135
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043917/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOZHYHZOuk

Watch PEST MAN WINS in the link above



      Well, here's a preview of what we're going to be dealing with soon, lots of stock footage and reused plots and gags, this time borrowing from ANTS IN THE PANTRY.  I'm not the world's biggest fan of the original in the first place, but this one is worse.  Like I said a few years back, the boys getting business the way they do by inserting rodents into a home is just very unlikable and does not make for great comedy for me.  The pie fight stuff is mostly reused footage from previous pie fights, and Symona Boniface makes one of her post mortem stock footage appearances in the sword of Damocles scene.  I'm going to have to find a creative way to write about these stock footage jobs, because this is admittedly uninspiring.

      Good stuff about this short?  I admit, the pie on the cookoo clock is classic. The scene where the boys do that little dance with Vernon is amusing, and somewhere in the middle of the short, Moe delivers a great nose bonk to Shemp.  This isn't exactly torture to watch, but when there are 190 of these things and several original films of plots I enjoy more, I'm very rarely going to reach for PEST MAN WINS.

6/10

[Paul Pain]

PEST MAN WINS is obviously an early experiment in stock footage, with few previous shorts having done this.  What we have here, is a stock footage atrocity.  It's colossal!  It's stupendous!  It's putrid!

While I agree that the plot of the Stooges deliberately investing a home is despicable, isn't that part of the Stooges' (and even Laurel and Hardy's) character?  That get rich quick by any means is part of what creates most of their situations (like A PLUMBING WE WILL GO).

The new scenes in this are at least well done... on the most part.  We have scenes like the "naw, but I used to see triangles" with the the cheese, and Vernon Dent playing "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" with feline accompaniment.  They still haven't added the error I found in that scene; when the boys climb on the piano to get the cats, no notes are played even though the keys are being smashed.

Our new scenes also deliver torment in the form of Nanette Bordeaux who, in my eyes, is not that pretty, and she is a terrible actress just used to fill in stereotype spots that torture me with their lousiness.  And next week we get another steaming pile of manure from Nanette in the form of A MISSED FORTUNE.  Margie Liszt isn't at her best here, but she's acceptable enough.

The stock footage scenes are completely out of place in parts and work to create an even larger colossal nightmare than we are already presented with.  And that is how I will review these: how well the stock footage fits within the new scenes.

Yuck-a-lip.

5/10 

This short can... BURN IN HELL!

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

"Those poppy seeds are walkin'!"

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Looking at the lobby poster, I can just imagine Jules White defending it, saying "It is their fastest fun-fest!  It only took us two days to shoot!"

[JazzBill]

I'm not a big fan of remakes but as far as remakes go this is one of the better ones. I always liked "Ants In The Pantry" and think that Shemp does a good job filling in as the third Stooge. I liked watching Vernon Dent bust a move. All in all, not a bad short. I rate it a 7 1/2.

[Shemp_Diesel]

Damn, I'm a bit surprised by the cold reception this short is getting. I always thought it was ahead of the original by a few margins--particularly the standout scene for me is definitely the "clap and dance" bit with the mouse going inside Vernon's shirt and the stooges getting down with it--I may have to put that entire scene up there with "Cousin Basil" and the immortal phone booth scene from Scrambled Brains.

Now, I'll give you that the pie fight would have been better with less stock footage shots and a little more Shemp interacting with his 2 partners, but that's only a minor quibble--and the new scenes that are in the pie fight are gold imo (This must cease; Somebody's going to get this pie right in the mush).

Overall, I would say this short is a definite winner and as I said previously, an improvement on the original, which was an excellent short in its own right....

9 out of 10....

[archiezappa]

A couple of things in this short I find hilarious!

#1:  Moe, Larry, Shemp, and Vernon Dent dancing while Vernon has a mouse in his shirt.  I have found this funnier than Moe, Larry, Curly, and Bobby Burns doing the same thing in "Ants In The Pantry."  Usually, things remade are not as funny, but, for some reason, I find this funnier this time around.

#2:  Larry having the nerve to give Moe some cheese laced with rat poison.  This kind of retaliation is not what Moe expects and he doesn't realize he's been had until it's too late.  The reaction is the best!

[Kopfy2013]

Vernon's dance was good ... a couple other one-liners were good ... overall I give this a 6.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Stock Footage Central courtesy of Jules White. Remaking "Ants in the Pantry" with a mostly recycled pie fight wasn't a good idea in the first place.  Best scene is the inspired dance with the Stooges and a still-spry Vernon Dent. If I want to see a Curly remake with Shemp (which admittedly isn't often), I'll stick with "Vagabond Loafers."

5/10

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

Especially bad use of stock footage: "If you don't tell me all about this metamorphosis..." Makes no sense in the context of this short at all.

[Daddy Dewdrop]

Another recycle job.  I was never a big fan of the Curly original ("Ants In The Pantry"), but it's still a bit better than this one.  The pie fight footage has grown stale by now.  Some of the slapstick saves this from ranking lower.  Vernon Dent's "dance" is also fun.

#149. Pest Man Wins

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

7/10, I thought this was a pretty good remake of "Ants In The Pantry", I do wish Shemp got to be in the pie fight more, I enjoy the boys antics towards the high society crowd along with the cats coming out of the piano, I also love the scene where Moe gets pissed off at Larry and Shemp when he was asking them who put the cats in the piano and they blamed it on each othe which leads to a great head conk, one of the better stooge remakes they've done.