Topic: Booty and the Beast (1953)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/144
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045571/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ0wZRgrl_U

Watch BOOTY AND THE BEAST in the link above

      First off, the title.  A title like this, released today, would most likely be a very adult film, but in 1953, booty was a slang term for treasure.  This, along with the duo of "dicks" films, shows how words have different meanings for different generations.

      That out of the way, the transitional start of the remake era begins!  Now, I say transitional because later on, the majority of 40's Shemp films would have footage reused for one film with less new footage than old.  For this week and next week's films, we get a relatively generous one reel of new footage, enough so they can milk different footage from the same film twice, in this case, HOLD THAT LION!

      The first reel of new footage is pretty standard Stooge fare where they are gullible numbskulls doing dirty work when they are thinking they are doing good.  Kenneth MacDonald does a great job at bad acting because the role calls for a character who needs to do bad acting!  Highlights of this reel to me are Moe using the dynamite as a slapstick tool on Shemp and the great dialogue exchange where they misspell garage.  Vernon Dent gets a later original role, and he does look older.

      The second reel is nothing but old footage.  The one thing I'll say is at the end of the new footage, the Stooges want to clear themselves from being thieves, but in the old footage, they seem more than happy to grab that booty, if you will.  A little inconsistency there.  Overall, not bad for a remake, though I like the new footage in next week's remake more.

6/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

Allow me to vent for a few minutes--I feel like I need to get this off my chest, otherwise I feel like I might sound like a broken record in the upcoming weeks. This short--as has been mentioned by Metal--is the first of the Shemp remakes, recycles, rehashes, retreads; whatever you want  to call 'em.

And for the most part, my opinion of these shorts is that they are all average to below average--some of them being downright terrible (i.e. Flagpole Jitters). With the one  or two exceptions imo being Of Cash and Hash --which I think is the rare case of the remake being better than the original--and Loose Loot is very good as well; not better than Hold That Lion, but still great nonetheless.

Those 2 examples aside though, the recycles for the most part do very little for me--I just look at them as being a cheap way for Jules White to rip off the theater owners back then who thought they were buying "brand new" Three Stooges shorts. Of course, long before the days of television repeats, and VCRs, and now DVD players, I imagine folks back then probably didn't know they were getting gypped.

But here in 2016, there's no other way I can look at these shorts but ripoffs. OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'll get to my opinion of Booty--This one is a lot like the later Husbands Beware in that the first 6 or 7 minutes are all new footage and the new stuff is actually quite funny. In particular, I enjoyed the scene where Shemp thinks he blew off his leg--very funny stuff.

So funny, that I imagine the writer for this short--if given the opportunity--could have developed a good "all original" film. But, that's not what we get, as the 2nd half of this is 99% stock footage from Lion.

But those first several minutes are funny enough to give this one a somewhat respectable grade.

5 pokes out of 10...

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Moe's disciplining of Shemp with the stick of dynamite gives me some laughs. But so many opportunities are missed. After Larry goes face-first into the mud, all he can say when he comes up is "Clumsy ox!" Really? Couldn't somebody have come up with a funny line here? Larry hands Shemp the bottle of nitroglycerine and tells him to put it in a safe place; Shemp puts it into his back pocket and turns his back on Larry: looks like a pretty obvious setup for a near blowup. But instead, Larry just accidentally drills Shemp in the butt just below the bottle. It is as if somebody got an idea for a gag, wrote the setup into the script, and then forgot the gag, but left the setup. Lame.

[Paul Pain]

I pretty much agree with Dr. Hugo's assessment.  In the original footage, so many opportunities are wasted, but as always Kenneth MacDonald is fantastic at villainy.  It would have been more interesting if BOOTY and LOOSE LOOT had been combined instead, but we'll whine about that next week.

6/10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

     Speaking of slang titles that have changed meanings, don't forget Boobs in Arms and Booby Dupes.  I even have trouble with Booby Dupes as originally issued.  Is it supposed to be a pun on Bobby Sox?  Maybe Boop-oop-a-doop?  I'm usually fairly good about knowing the source of these old puns, or whatever they are, but if Booby Dupes is a play on Bobby Sox, or either one, actually, it's pretty damn lame.  And I'd venture to guess that there's at least two generations who have never heard the word "boobs" except as a synonym for tits, and as far as I'm concerned, that's probably an improvement.

[falsealarms]

I'm probably in the minority, but I don't mind the Shemp remakes. In a majority of the cases, I actually prefer the remake. That being said, all the remakes are regrettable in the sense that the Stooges were still more than capable of churning out good, new shorts.

[Kopfy2013]

, all the remakes are regrettable in the sense that the Stooges were still more than capable of churning out good, new shorts.

This is soooo true.   I agree 100%.

 I give this a six. The garage spelling, spitting out teeth,  and being clueless all work well

[luke795]

I am pretty sure I like the original better, but I still like the remake too.

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

I remember being very disappointed that we've had to endure stock footage from "Hold That Lion" after how good the new footage was in this short and felt it would've been a good original short, I wish there was at least a couple new scenes after the stooges leave the house.

I agree with many that the next short "Loose Loot" was a far better remake of "Hold That Lion" than this short was.

Overall I give "Booty" a 6 out of 10 due to how good the new footage was, if "Booty" was an original short I would've given it an 8.5 out of 10.

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

To me, the worst thing about the Shemp-era "recycles" (besides the fact that they are recycles) is that the reused footage sometimes fails to make sense (even by Stooge logic) in its new context. HUSBANDS BEWARE is perhaps the worst case of this. BOOTY AND THE BEAST is another case. The Stooges greedily dividing up the money at the end just doesn't make sense in the context of BOOTY, in spite of the very brief bit of new footage that tries to make it work.

[Daddy Dewdrop]

Another above average Shemp recycle.  Hold That Lion! is one of my all-time favorite Shemp shorts and this one has some okay new footage.

#118. Booty And The Beast