Topic: Pardon My Backfire (1953)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/148
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046162/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OwQ4d72PLBM

Watch PARDON MY BACKFIRE in the link above




      I would like to say I'm glad this 3-D thing ends this week.  It may be because I'm of the four eyed variety, since I don't get much effect watching with the 3-D glasses.  As a result, I don't feel I can truly appreciate the intent of these two shorts.  That said, my gut tells me it wouldn't make much a difference.  The 3-D gags don't feel natural.  It's as if there are gratuitous shots to amplify a gimmick, and that's what 3-D is, a gimmick.  Flying forks on strings and overly telegraphed eye pokes and water sprays are not funny.

      This short has to go down as one of the more violent shorts.  Perhaps too violent.  Hey, the spike in the eye gag from THEY STOOGE TO CONGA is quick, but Larry in PARDON MY BACKFIRE?  The wire going through the nose, brain, and ear goes on forever and is painful to watch, as is Moe sand papering Larry's skull, complete with dust flying out!  I'm sure some of you will like this, but it's just not for me.  The whole fight with Benny Rubin at the end seems cartoonish, and the slapstick just falls flat.  I really do chalk it up to age, 3-D, and violence, but maybe not age.  In a couple of weeks, the boys do show us one more good slapstick display.

      As far as ladies, Diana Darrin, who can only be described as out of this world cute, is now over 18, so comment away.  As for Barbara Bartay, she makes Nanette Bordeaux, who I like better than most of you guys, look like an English major.  Talk about warbled dialogue!

      Made in the early 40's, no 3-D, and with better writing, this would be a good one.  But as it stands now, eh.  From this point forward, we only have five more Howard-Fine-Howard originals to discuss.  The remake era truly gets underway next week.

5/10

[Paul Pain]

I guess if you like THEY STOOGE TO CONGA, as I do, then how can you not like this?  Here, we have 2 debuts and 1 second appearance, and wow do they all fall flat.  Barbara Bartay, Benny Rubin, and Frank Sully all fall flat here, and yes Barbara is unintelligible.  This is also the final appearance of the great Fred Kelsey, whose career went back to 1911.  Phil Arnold does a good job here in his role as the dagger-phile Shiv.

I understand the wire in the nose being a bit long and too painful, and in fact it is!  Now the metal rasp on the clearly fake layer of plaster on top of Larry's head?  That is pure hilarity as are the fire effects.  It isn't a perfect world.  Some days the wire seems funny in a macabre sort of way, and days like today it's gruesome.

Overall, not too bad of a short, but there are many other originals I would put on before this one.  Always worth a watch for the unique Stooginess, but nothing overly memorable beyond that uniqueness.  This short almost seems to depend on the day I'm watching it. 

7/10

25 shorts left and only 5 are original... EEPS!

[metaldams]

I guess if you like THEY STOOGE TO CONGA, as I do, then how can you not like this?

Conga has better extended gags, like Moe being dragged through the wall, better supporting actors like Vernon and Dudley, no gratuitous and forced 3-D shots, and the boys in their prime.

[Paul Pain]

Conga has better extended gags, like Moe being dragged through the wall, better supporting actors like Vernon and Dudley, no gratuitous and forced 3-D shots, and the boys in their prime.

I meant the rasp attack, although I should have specified that in my post 

[Shemp_Diesel]

Yes, Diana Darrin looked particularly scrumptious in this episode--but enough of my drooling....

Not as good as Spooks!, and yes, a lot of gags seemed forced just for the 3-D effect, but as I said last week, the cheesiness of it makes it funny in its own unique way. I for one enjoyed the wire up Larry's nose and Larry as "sawdust head."

7 out of 10....

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I have been trying to post in this thread for the past four days and have been unable to get any page of the site to come up until just now. I can't find any explanation posted, but I do notice that nothing has been posted on the site since March 4.

This short is memorable to me for the contribution of the excellent Benny Rubin. In a previous short he appeared as an Italian organ grinder with an upper-class English accent; in a subsequent one he will appear as a (falsely) bearded German; here, he appears as a gentlemanly but short-tempered Hispanic gangster, whose way with English includes the following notable exchange:

Larry: Moe! Shemp!

Gangster: I kill them too!

Larry: Moe! Shemp! Come on!

Gangster: I kill the Shmoe and the Shmemp and you together! You coward! Come back and die like a man!

The Shmoe and the Shmemp--oh, my!

Some fine Stooge violence in the opening scene around the luncheon table, setting aside the lame 3-D stuff. I notice that poor old Fred Kelsey's right hand doesn't shake when he is using it, but only when he tries to hide it in his pocket. In the garage scene, things get rather ugly (apart from Shemp's use of the magic hand against Larry). I agree that the wire going through Larry's head is pretty repellent. I am curious as to how they got that effect, though.

[metaldams]

The website issues were across the board.  It appears things are fixed now.  To quote Miss Piggy, "Yippy skippy!"

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

The stooges' interactions with women in this one are one of the things I most deplore, and have mentioned previously, about Jules White's direction, and we know he micro-managed every stooge move by this time:  he makes them act like orangutans, and he makes the women read lines in unison like second-graders in the school pageant.  On what planet are these actions normal?  Curly was broad, but at least you could recognize, oh he's shy, oh, he's delighted, and even, oh he's horny.  Here all you can say for sure is, oh, they're within ten feet of the opposite sex, time to act like orangutans.
     Fred Kelsey acts human, anyway, and it's nice to see that even in old age he still can register furor.  And take a pie. ( O K , it's a cake. ) I knew a piano player with Parkinson's whose left hand would shake when unoccupied, but would behave perfectly well when he played.  This is one of the mysteries of Parkinson's,  and they're studying it, along with the curious phenomenon that many Parkinsonians who can't walk more than a few steps at best, can ride a bicycle with ease.
     Benny Rubin does suck, though as I said I give him points for George Burns's description of his vaudeville act.  I've done a bit more research on him and found that around 1930 he was actually a huge star in New York vaudeville, very much a headliner, and came to Hollywood on promises that he would soon rank right up with Jolson and Cantor.  He bombed, but from the looks of his hammy acting, his ego didn't.

[Paul Pain]

I have been trying to post in this thread for the past four days and have been unable to get any page of the site to come up until just now. I can't find any explanation posted, but I do notice that nothing has been posted on the site since March 4.

This short is memorable to me for the contribution of the excellent Benny Rubin. In a previous short he appeared as an Italian organ grinder with an upper-class English accent; in a subsequent one he will appear as a (falsely) bearded German; here, he appears as a gentlemanly but short-tempered Hispanic gangster, whose way with English includes the following notable exchange:

The Shmoe and the Shmemp--oh, my!

Some fine Stooge violence in the opening scene around the luncheon table, setting aside the lame 3-D stuff. I notice that poor old Fred Kelsey's right hand doesn't shake when he is using it, but only when he tries to hide it in his pocket. In the garage scene, things get rather ugly (apart from Shemp's use of the magic hand against Larry). I agree that the wire going through Larry's head is pretty repellent. I am curious as to how they got that effect, though.

To summarize your review: short sucks but acting was great.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

To summarize your review: short sucks but acting was great.

Well, you know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, keep on suckin' till you do suck seed!

[GreenCanaries]

One of the most interesting parts of this short to me is the girls' "Papa! You spoiled our cake!" Look at their faces: Angela Stevens looks sad, Ruth Godfrey looks pissed, and Diana might be a mix between the two. Of course, all look great, too.

Barbara's English may be "warbled," but at least she looks fantastic; I might like her hairstyle here better than her 1954-1956 'do.

Lastly: I liked Benny's "I'll kill you to death!" but his "acting," particularly when his bum is on fire -- woof...

[metaldams]

Barbara's English may be "warbled," but at least she looks fantastic; I might like her hairstyle here better than her 1954-1956 'do.

She was pretty, looks like a girl I'm friends with, kind of/sort of.  Her line reading rivals that of Tor Johnson in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, and Tor did make a better Halloween mask than Ms. Bartay.

By the way, YEARS ago, when suggesting who should have replaced Shemp, somebody, probably sickdrjoe, suggested Tor Johnson as the third Stooge.  I laugh at that to this day!

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

And some thought Will Sasso was too tall to be Curly...Tor Johnson looks like he could eat the other two.

[Lefty]

Naturally, Benny Rubin's look when his tuchis was getting burned was rather poor acting, and Barbara Bartay, being a Czech, had that disadvantage speaking-wise.  Then there was that glass bottle bouncing off a tire and back, shatteriing on the bad guy's head.  Other than that, I liked the short overall.

Old Benny did have the best lines, with "My name is not 'Buuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" and "I kill the Schmo, and the Shrimp, and you together!"

For those who don't know, the song being played when the Stooges and their girlfriends were passing the food around, is "Oh, Susanna!"  "Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me; I come from Northeast Philly with a bandage on my knee!"

[Kopfy2013]

I like this short a tad more than "Spooks".  I love the hand print on the girls behind.

Great acting by he Stooges. Character actors could have been better.  3D effects a little better than previous short.

This gets a 7.

[Paul Pain]

Naturally, Benny Rubin's look when his tuchis was getting burned was rather poor acting, and Barbara Bartay, being a Czech, had that disadvantage speaking-wise.  Then there was that glass bottle bouncing off a tire and back, shatteriing on the bad guy's head.  Other than that, I liked the short overall.

Old Benny did have the best lines, with "My name is not 'Buuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhsterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" and "I kill the Schmo, and the Shrimp, and you together!"

For those who don't know, the song being played when the Stooges and their girlfriends were passing the food around, is "Oh, Susanna!"  "Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me; I come from Northeast Philly with a bandage on my knee!"

I recognized the song, but I couldn't place it.  I am ashamed 

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

In that (painful) part with the wire going into Larry's nose and out of his ear, at times it looks like the nose-wire and ear-wire are moving at different speeds!

Also, note how bossy and violent Larry is at times, as if he's trying to channel Moe.

[Curly Van Dyke]

Not a Very Good short,but I always loved the "Knives are Quiet" bit.
Barbara Bartay was a Knockout as was Diana Darrin-RUFF RUFF!!!!!

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

Very underrated Shemp short I've always felt gets bashed on for no reason, I've thought this short is up there with the classic Shemp shorts everyone seems to love such as "Who Done It", "Brideless Groom" and "Malice In The Palice", I loved the scene where Moe's bottom is on fire and where a wire comes out of Larry's ear! This is IMO the most violent Stooge short with Shemp (something producer/director Jules White seemed to thrive on in the 1950's).

I give Pardon My Backfire a 10/10

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Hey, Woh-ee-woh-woh, are you related to Curly Van Dyke?

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

"Hey, Woh-ee-woh-woh, are you related to Curly Van Dyke?"

No, I've gotten the name from Curly humming in the episode "Goofs And Saddles" where he and Moe were switching each other's cards.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Sorry.  Just a vague hunch.

[metaldams]

Awesome 3D double feature.

[Dr. Mabuse]

The lesser of the two 3D shorts, "Pardon My Backfire" reeks of desperation. After a good opening scene, the short gradually goes downhill. Jules White really overdoes the violence this time around, with increasingly tiresome 3D gags.  Despite their best efforts, Moe, Larry and Shemp cannot redeem the mediocrity that surrounds them. The 3D novelty wore off pretty fast for short subjects. Unlike the Stooges, cartoon favorites such as Popeye, Bugs Bunny and Casper had only one shot.

5/10

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

I give this short a 10/10, love the extreme violence that occurs in the garage scenes, I always thrive on stooge violence, I especially love watching Moe's rear end being set on fire.