Topic: Guns A Poppin! (1957)

[metaldams]

http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/178
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050469/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_GBNdnp4Y

Watch GUNS A POPPIN! In the link above

      While it is better discussing Joe Besser films vs. Shemp recycles due to more interesting content, sometimes we'll get a Besser that is a recycle.  Here is the first case, a remake of IDIOTS DE LUXE.  The original is a classic in my eyes, and the Besser version really feels unnecessary.  The only really new bit is the ending scene which is lame.  The great running gag appears to be a stunt double for Moe having a door fall on him followed by close ups of Moe wincing.  Not exactly great stuff.  I will chime in with this question - Is this the most blatant instance of Moe being Jewish?  He admits he got the gun at his Bar Mitzvah.  OK, I'm quizzing you guys, are there any other instances of a Stooge being so up front about being Jewish?  I can't think of anything, but I trust someone here will remind me.  Shit, this is a boring short to discuss, maybe it will bring some conversation.

      As far as Joe, it's not like he's subbing for Curly in a classic role.  Curly just gets by in the original, this is really a Moe masterpiece (watching the old footage of Moe again is one of this short's delights).  That said, watching these Bessers, I'll just say outside of the first short, he's really not annoying me like he used to.  He's passable just never really gelling with Moe and Larry to the level Curly and Shemp did.  However, I also am not finding him to be a hindrance.  I am starting to think if Joe worked with Moe and Larry in the late thirties or early 40's, when they had budgets and relative youth, perhaps a classic or two may have been salvaged.  I do not say this about Derita, who had no personality.  That said, I'm almost starting to think the low budgets put a damper on what could have been a decent, if not classic team.

      Not much to say about the actual short.  It's a remake of IDIOTS DE LUXE with a lame ending.  Next week's Stooge short should be, uh, well....tune in next time.

5/10

[Shemp_Diesel]

I'll open this by saying Oh my, fucking GAWD!!!! When I made a promise to myself years ago after having seen some of these Besser stinkers like Horsing Around and Rusty Romeos uncut for the first time, to never watch them again, I wish to whatever deity you can possibly think of, that I had stuck to that promise in the case of this shit-fest.

And I usually don't try to go on profanity-laced tirades about even the worst of these Stooge shorts, but I'll make a big, fucking exception in this case.

First--since you brought this up Metal--I will say that having gone back & rewatched many of the "Derita Era" films (sans, Snow White) that I've actually found myself warming up to "Curly-Joe." And I still recognize many of the knocks people--like myself--still have with the Derita era as far as the Stooges being reduced to "children's entertainers," the toned down "violence," and Derita's somewhat lack of a strong personality." All that being said, I think Derita blended in with Moe and Larry light years ahead of Besser & there are flashes of Derita showing some comic presence--nothing coming close to the all-time greatness of Curly or Shemp, but in the end, I find myself saying that I actually like "Curly-Joe."

All that aside, back to this week's 15 or 16 minutes of pure fucking torture. For me, the original was close to being a stooge masterpiece and seeing this beyond torturous remake made me want to gouge out my own eyes afterwards. Nothing--and I mean nothing--comes close to duplicating the big laughs that Idiots Deluxe gave us. The very funny way Larry and Curly were seasoning the hell of out bread, Moe's great tirade when he thinks the other two ate all of the food he cooked--it is just horribly redone by Besser & it goes back (for me anyways) to Joe's reticence about being smacked around. Which for me is painfully obvious in this shit redux.

And the added subplot about the sheriff and Joe Palma is beyond stupid. And rather than steal Mr. Paul Pain's trademark about what this shitfest of a short film can go for eternity, I'll trot out something I used to say in the old reviews from years back--Find every negative of this short & incinerate them, so future generations can be spared this abomination.

I knew this rating was coming soon, but I didn't expect it this early....

0 out of 10 pokes (Man, I could really use a great Curly or Shemp right now to try to erase this stain from my memory)....   

[GreenCanaries]

I will chime in with this question - Is this the most blatant instance of Moe being Jewish?  He admits he got the gun at his Bar Mitzvah.  OK, I'm quizzing you guys, are there any other instances of a Stooge being so up front about being Jewish?  I can't think of anything, but I trust someone here will remind me.  Shit, this is a boring short to discuss, maybe it will bring some conversation.

There's Larry's Yiddish spiel in MUTTS TO YOU ("He from East Side"). Also his toast of "Ver gerharget" (Yiddish for "get killed" or "drop dead") in PARDON MY SCOTCH.

Since I'm admittedly not a great reviewer (see also: too lazy), I will add my usual two cents on the actors. Look for my man JK in the courtroom gallery, as well as the frequent extra who pops up in many '50s shorts, and a bald man who also pops up in FIFI BLOWS HER TOP and possibly others. Wonder if those were our boys' stand-ins for this one?

Joe Palma gets screen credit!

I believe this is the final time we see ol' Vernon (albeit in stock footage). A final farewell to the most prolific and arguably the best adversary for our boys.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I didn't understand when I was a kid first seeing these (and they were only about five years old then, about the equivalent of a Big Bang Theory rerun these days ) why Moe's getting buried under the door was so depressing and repulsive.  Watching it now, I realize that even then I somehow registered he was just too damn old.  In Idiots Deluxe his nerves were frayed, O K , but he was still mean old, tough old Moe.  In his new scenes, he is frail and pathetic.  ( Though I must say that the editing between the old and the new scenes is technically very good, the shots of original Moe being blended in quite nicely, the only giveaway being Moe's older face.)
     There are three yiddish jokes ( jokes? ) from Moe in the  three latest episodes:  in Muscle, he remarks that a case of matzohs have arrived just in time for Thanksgiving, in Space Ship Sappy he yells "gevalt!" which I think is yiddish for " help!", and here he mentions he got the rifle for his bar mitzvah, a very unusual bar mitzvah present, indeed.  Larry, over the years, slipped in a lot more yiddish under the guise of double-talk, and there was always a fair amount  sprinkled everywhere (as in "the domain of Tsimmes", the Emir of Schmow, etc. etc. ), but Moe does go three-for-three with this one.
     Sully and Palma are not horrible here: they're just actors reading their lines, doing their jobs, and incidentally unleashing more gunfire, or at least more gunfire sound effects, than the O K Corral.  Pretty much the same as Besser, doing the best he can with what he's given, and taking a decent amount of abuse, though he's not able to make it very funny.  I think the real problem is Moe's showing his age: as he staggers toward the camera in the final shot his eyes have more bags than a flight on Southwest.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

I promise to keep this shorter, but there's one more development that made the Besser shorts unpopular in my neighborhood: by, let's say, 1960, the kids knew that Curly and Shemp were both dead, and commercials were running during the stooge programs for their new movies, Have Rocket, Snow White, Stop Look and Laugh, and maybe by that point even Hercules.  My little friends and I were borderline too young to go to the movies as yet, but we knew from the ads that the new guy was Curly-Joe.  We were O K with that, we had it locked in, and the ads looked like fun, couldn't wait to go to the movies someday to see their latest.  Suddenly out of nowhere a whole new guy shows up, the shorts have a whole new look, they're talking about Elvis, and for a thousand reasons, the new shorts are not only not funny, they're almost alien, and I don't mean  Space Ship alien, I mean What Have You Done To The Three Stooges alien.  Was Curly Joe in the movies and this Joe on T V, or what?  They're platooning?  What?  And of course there was no information as such then, there were the shorts, the movies, and the ads for the movies, period, that was it, and as little info as was available, there was none at all about Besser's tenure, he was years gone by then.  This is unthinkable in the internet age, as it is now to me looking back, but there it is.  It took literally years to figure out what happened, and in the meanwhile, Besser was some interloping bum.  Come to think of it, it wasn't until Besser got a part in Joey Bishop's sitcom that we began to piece together who the hell he even was.  So much for my promise to keep this shorter.  Hope I added to the general store of information.

[Desmond Of The Outer Sanctorum]

Sorry, but I'm not going to be as tough on this one as others have been.

Up until now every Besser short has been totally original, but now we're getting into the (inevitable) remakes. These are kind of a mixed bag, and while they tend toward being among the lesser Bessers, they're really neither the best nor the worst of the era. And of course they range from being scene-for-scene rehashings of the originals to just using a few excerpts from them.

GUNS A POPPIN' is a fairly direct remake of IDIOTS DELUXE, though with a good bit of simplification (there are almost no outdoor scenes) and a new plot addition. Most of the old footage is incorporated fairly smoothly, although it's a little jarring when we first get a close-up of 1956 Moe after starting out seeing 1944 Moe.  (This is based on the actual filming dates.)

The Stooges basically function as a trio here, but the plot calls for a distinct separation between Moe and the others (as did the plot of original).

Joe's not terrible here, but for the most part he only does so much with material that's not particularly tailored to him. I find it interesting how much of the time he takes over Larry's role from the original, while Larry takes over Curly's role.

My favorite Joe moments in this short:
- "Sunny side over and don't turn 'em down. This guy is nuts!" (Joe's word swapping is listed in the Filmography as a goof, but I rather doubt it was. Either way, it's a definite improvement over just repeating Moe's line!)
- Cracking the eggs in the pan with a hammer (funny in a different way from Curly's similar action in the original)

[Side note: In my opinion there are some things (be they ever so small) that Joe just doesn't get enough credit for. One of them is his ability simply to look funny, especially in a hat. Think coonskin hat in this short, Jughead hat in MUSCLE or sailor hat in SPACE SHIP. (Not to mention wearing a wig in QUIZ WHIZZ or modeling underwear in TRIPLE CROSSED.)]

A few things in GUNS that I consider minor improvements over the original:
- The call of the wolf (with Larry howling);
- The others giving Moe his medication (especially the way Larry shakes Moe's head);
- Less time is spent showing the bear eating the honey.

The new addition to the plot, of course, involves the bandit and the sheriff. Others here have criticized it, but I think it may make for a sharper ramp-up to Moe's final meltdown than the events of the original. Too bad the actual ending ("My nerves!") is so much weaker.

Moe gets a lot of abuse here but doesn't put out a whole lot. Interestingly, other than getting bonked with the ax at the very end, Larry doesn't get any more abuse than Joe. What Joe gets is a trombone slide wrapped around his neck (along with Larry), salt on the tongue, spaghetti thrown in his face, head bonked (with Larry), and having the bandit's gun-firing hand on his head (which apparently "HURTS!").

Overall, not the best Besser short (or Besser remake), but not the worst either.

[metaldams]

I promise to keep this shorter, but there's one more development that made the Besser shorts unpopular in my neighborhood: by, let's say, 1960, the kids knew that Curly and Shemp were both dead, and commercials were running during the stooge programs for their new movies, Have Rocket, Snow White, Stop Look and Laugh, and maybe by that point even Hercules.  My little friends and I were borderline too young to go to the movies as yet, but we knew from the ads that the new guy was Curly-Joe.  We were O K with that, we had it locked in, and the ads looked like fun, couldn't wait to go to the movies someday to see their latest.  Suddenly out of nowhere a whole new guy shows up, the shorts have a whole new look, they're talking about Elvis, and for a thousand reasons, the new shorts are not only not funny, they're almost alien, and I don't mean  Space Ship alien, I mean What Have You Done To The Three Stooges alien.  Was Curly Joe in the movies and this Joe on T V, or what?  They're platooning?  What?  And of course there was no information as such then, there were the shorts, the movies, and the ads for the movies, period, that was it, and as little info as was available, there was none at all about Besser's tenure, he was years gone by then.  This is unthinkable in the internet age, as it is now to me looking back, but there it is.  It took literally years to figure out what happened, and in the meanwhile, Besser was some interloping bum.  Come to think of it, it wasn't until Besser got a part in Joey Bishop's sitcom that we began to piece together who the hell he even was.  So much for my promise to keep this shorter.  Hope I added to the general store of information.

Big Chief, as a child in the 80's and early 90's, still pre Internet, I had the exact same confusion concerning Joe and Curly Joe.  I would occasionally see a Joe short on TV.  Very few times, mind you, but enough to know Joe was after Shemp.  Then I saw THE THREE STOOGES MEET HERCULES as a kid and was confused by Curly Joe.  I knew it wasn't Curly but was not 100% sure if it was or wasn't Joe Besser.  Again, I saw Besser shorts only a few times at this point, and was confused they were calling him "Curly" Joe instead of Joe.  I was 14 when Derita died, and with all the news of the last of The Three Stooges passing away (that was how it was reported in the media at the time), I think I then finally figured it out.  These days it's so easy to differentiate since the films are readily available and we have the Internet, but yeah, it was a very different world in my childhood as well.

[metaldams]

I'll open this by saying Oh my, fucking GAWD!!!! When I made a promise to myself years ago after having seen some of these Besser stinkers like Horsing Around and Rusty Romes uncut for the first time, I wish to whatever deity you can possibly think of, that I had stuck to that promise in the case of this shit-fest.

And I usually don't try to go on profanity-laced tirades about even the worst of these Stooge shorts, but I'll make a big, fucking exception in this case.

First--since you brought this up Metal--I will say that having gone back & rewatched many of the "Derita Era" films (sans, Snow White) that I've actually found myself warming up to "Curly-Joe." And I still recognize many of the knocks people--like myself--still have with the Derita era as far as the Stooges being reduced to "children's entertainers," the toned down "violence," and Derita's somewhat lack of a strong personality." All that being said, I think Derita blended in with Moe and Larry light years ahead of Besser & there are flashes of Derita showing some comic presence--nothing coming close to the all-time greatness of Curly or Shemp, but in the end, I find myself saying that I actually like "Curly-Joe."

All that aside, back to this week's 15 or 16 minutes of pure fucking torture. For me, the original was close to being a stooge masterpiece and seeing this beyond torturous remake made me want to gouge out my own eyes afterwards. Nothing--and I mean nothing--comes close to duplicating the big laughs that Idiots Deluxe gave us. The very funny way Larry and Curly were seasoning the hell of out bread, Moe's great tirade when he thinks the other two ate all of the food he cooked--it is just horribly redone by Besser & it goes back (for me anyways) to Joe's reticence about being smacked around. Which for me is painfully obvious in this shit redux.

And the added subplot about the sheriff and Joe Palma is beyond stupid. And rather than steal Mr. Paul Pain's trademark about what this shitfest of a short film can go for eternity, I'll trot out something I used to say in the old reviews from years back--Find every negative of this short & incinerate them, so future generations can be spared this abomination.

I knew this rating was coming soon, but I didn't expect it this early....

0 out of 10 pokes (Man, I could really use a great Curly or Shemp right now to try to erase this stain from my memory)....   

Funny how one person's strong opinion is another person's "meh."  As Desmond mentions, Joe does get smacked around in this one.  The more I'm watching these, it's not so much that Besser doesn't get hit, it's more so you don't see the extended one on ones with Moe.  With Besser, they are all short bursts, and he'll usually get the last word in.

To me, you're right, not a patch on the original, but the source material is good enough where this is watchable, if not necessary.

[Percy Pomeroy]

I enjoyed Guns A Poppin! because it's the first Besser that felt like a true Stooges feature. Of course, that it's mostly a remake of a classic Curly short, might have something to do with it.

I agree with Desmond that the old clips are seamlessly patched into this short. Moe and Larry do a great job rehashing the old script and Joe does a very capable, professional job in the Curly role. My opinion of him is changing after seeing him work with a fast paced, slickly written script.

My guess is that they didn't have the budget to shoot outdoors otherwise we probably would have gotten a total (money grab) remake of Idiots Deluxe. Thankfully, the new last act holds up pretty well when compared to the original material.

Really liked Joe as a human shield. Joe is such a wide body that he's perfect for this thankless job.  Was anyone else thinking that when Joe throws the dainty punch at Mad Bill, that oh shit, Joe pissed off the wrong guy now? But no worries, I remembered that Mad Bill has already shot Joe in the mouth and fragments of Joe's brain weren't splattered against the wall, so nothing really bad is going to happen to him.

Larry smacking himself in the face while trying to load the revolver is good too. This had to be an adlib.

I liked the sound effect of Moe being crushed by the guys standing on the door. Sounds the same as Shemp's head being squeezed in the letter press by the chick in Brideless Groom.

Big Chief's comment that there were more gunshots fired than that at the OK Coral made me laugh.

7/10. If it wasn't a remake, I would give it an 8.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Is this the most blatant instance of Moe being Jewish?  He admits he got the gun at his Bar Mitzvah.  OK, I'm quizzing you guys, are there any other instances of a Stooge being so up front about being Jewish?  I can't think of anything, but I trust someone here will remind me.  Shit, this is a boring short to discuss, maybe it will bring some conversation.

Well, there are all the Yiddish words and phrases used in the shorts, such as "meshuggeneh," "ferblondzhen,"  "shicker," "shlemil," "lantsman," "kibbitser," "Ver geharget!" "Gevalt!" "Hak mir keyn chaynik!" and, not least of all, the surname of the character whose name I have taken. (All of these are discussed in the thread "Attention Jewish Knuckleheads: Yiddish in Stooges Movies.") But most of these fly quickly past and would probably not have been recognized by most non-Jewish movie viewers during the time the Stooges were making these shorts.

I would say that the mention of matzoh arriving from Japan in Muscle Up a Little Closer is just as conspicuously Jewish as Moe's mention of his bar mitzvah, but the reference does not implicate the Stooges themselves in the celebration of Passover. So I would agree that Moe's reference to his bar mitzvah here identifies the Stooges, or one of them, as Jewish more conspicuously than anything else in the shorts.

I liked the sound effect of Moe being crushed by the guys standing on the door. Sounds the same as Shemp's head being squeezed in the letter press by the chick in Brideless Groom.

Yes, that crunching sound does manage to get a bit of humor out of (or into) the gag. Does anyone know how the sound was made?

[Paul Pain]

Curly makes a reference to his problems being "kismet" in one short, and don't forget the "beblach" in YOU NAZTY SPY.  Plus, much of Moe's mock German was really Yiddish.

I haven't access to this short for a while yet, so my review will come on Monday when I play Stooge catchup.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

Curly makes a reference to his problems being "kismet" in one short, and don't forget the "beblach" in YOU NAZTY SPY.  Plus, much of Moe's mock German was really Yiddish.

I haven't access to this short for a while yet, so my review will come on Monday when I play Stooge catchup.

"Kismet" is not Yiddish. It comes into English from Turkish and is of Arabic origin.

Whatever the boys are saying in that bit in YOU NAZTY SPY (I have never been able to make it out) sounds like, and probably is, a Yiddish word, but I have never heard of any such word as "beblach" and I can't find anything like it in the on-line Yiddish dictionary. Could it be "kreplach"?

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Kreplach is a pretty good guess, and strikes me as funny in its own right, but I don't think that's it.  I hear 'bedloch".  It may be just a bit of double-talk yiddish like ingenzomen or eenots or annacannapooner.  Kismet is definitely Middle-eastern, you're right, I remember that from the musical show.

[Shemp_Diesel]

I just thought of this--and I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong--but Moe calls Shemp a "matzo" head in Musty Musketeers...

 

[Lefty]

In one short which escapes my mind at this time, Larry says "Hak a tchynik for me too!"  That's not from "Mutts to You" where he and Moe are supposed to be Chinese.

The timing of all this is pretty good considering Rosh Hashanah is just a few hours away, for year 5777.  L'Shana Tovah, one and all!

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

I just thought of this--and I'm sure I'm spelling it wrong--but Moe calls Shemp a "matzo" head in Musty Musketeers...

 

This, too, is mentioned (by me, in fact) in the thread "Attention Jewish Knuckleheads: Yiddish in Stooges Movies"--to which I again direct attention.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

@ Lefty, I think Larry says that on the way down the stairs in Pain In The Pullman, although the deeper I get into typing this, the more doubtful I get.  Definitely a major Larry Yiddishism, I can hear it like an earworm, even if I'm wrong as to where it occurs.

[Paul Pain]

"Kismet" is not Yiddish. It comes into English from Turkish and is of Arabic origin.

Whatever the boys are saying in that bit in YOU NAZTY SPY (I have never been able to make it out) sounds like, and probably is, a Yiddish word, but I have never heard of any such word as "beblach" and I can't find anything like it in the on-line Yiddish dictionary. Could it be "kreplach"?

http://Https://www.google.com/search?q=beblach+yiddish&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Paul Pain, I'm sure you have a valid and interesting point, but on my machine your point can not be reached.

[Paul Pain]

Paul Pain, I'm sure you have a valid and interesting point, but on my machine your point can not be reached.

It seems odd that a search for "beblach yiddish" pulls up results referencing YOU NAZTY SPY and claiming that "beblach" is Yiddish for "beans."  Yet searching separating for "yiddish word for beans" pulls up different results.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

It seems odd that a search for "beblach yiddish" pulls up results referencing YOU NAZTY SPY and claiming that "beblach" is Yiddish for "beans."  Yet searching separating for "yiddish word for beans" pulls up different results.

I find that in the on-line Yiddish dictionary, "bebl" is given as one of two words for "bean." The other is "bob," which is Russian. "Bebl" would be a Germanic diminutive form derived (by an unrounding of "böbl") from "bob." The "-ach" ending is the Russian genitive plural. Russian root, Germanic diminutive, and then Russian genitive pluralization. So that is how "beblach" could mean "(dish) of (little) beans," or, simply put, "beans"!

Of course, if I knew someone who knew Yiddish, I could just ask them, "Does 'beblach' mean 'beans'?"

[Kopfy2013]

 I agree with Desmond -  Joe does look funny with his hats.

 I give this a three. And that might be generous.  Good splicing however.

[Tony Bensley]

I found the repetitive older-to younger-to older Moe shifts quite jarring, and it took me out of the film!

On the other hand, I still preferred GUNS A POPPIN' to HOOFS AND GOOFS (1957). Thus, it gets a slightly higher score of 5/10.

CHEERS! 

[Dr. Mabuse]

"Idiots Deluxe" was never one of my favorites, but it's a masterpiece compared to this pathetic remake.  Jules was scraping the bottom of the stock-footage barrel . . . and it painfully shows. Oh woe is Moe as he ages 12 years from one shot to the next! The two-reeler might have worked slightly better with DeRita instead of the miscast Besser.

1/10

[Woe-ee-Woe-Woe80]

4/10, I did like the moments with a sheriff going after Mad Bill Hookup along with what happens after the sheriff apprehends Mad Bill Hookup, I also like that Besser takes a decent amount of punishment in this film.

I didn't like the abrupt ending when Moe goes "my nerves" as the episode fades which lowers my grade of what could've been an average stooge short.

[Daddy Dewdrop]

Coming in at #179 on my countdown is this fairly lame remake of one of my lesser-favorite Curly shorts, "Idiots Deluxe".  Besser is actually okay in this one (I love how he's used by the bad guy as a shield), it's just that we've seen it all before.  I've now entered an overwhelming stretch of Besser shorts.  All about the same (lower) quality compared to the classic Curly and Shemp years.

#179. Guns A Poppin!

[Shemp_Diesel]

I'm only laughing because I'm sure if most--if not all of us--did a countdown from Worst to First with the Stooge episodes, that most of the worst would be compiled with the Besser period, so you have my sympathies.

I am surprised that your countdown hasn't produced a Curly episode from 1945-46 yet (unless I missed something)...

[Daddy Dewdrop]

I'm only laughing because I'm sure if most--if not all of us--did a countdown from Worst to First with the Stooge episodes, that most of the worst would be compiled with the Besser period, so you have my sympathies.

I am surprised that your countdown hasn't produced a Curly episode from 1945-46 yet (unless I missed something)...

I viewed all 190 shorts in chronological order, so the Bessers are freshest in my mind.  I actually have one of those little clicker counters and hit it every time I laughed (seeing as how that's what I watch these for, is the laughs).  I also considered how many times I'd want to view each one again and that's how I came up with my rankings.

BTW, those later Curly shorts are coming.  There's actually a couple I rate pretty highly.