OK, others might disagree with my opinions on this one. Shoot, I might even disagree with my own opinions.
This one's a little odd, first of all, in that it's not a direct remake of a specific earlier Stooges short, but it does use a fair amount of footage from one (the very different, and mostly superior, LOVE AT FIRST BITE). In my opinion the flashbacks from Larry and Moe are rather cute (especially Moe's, with Christine McIntyre and her character's bad English), and this short does a good job of giving them a new context that somewhat changes their meaning.
Shemp's flashback in the original was rather brief and, in my opinion, wasn't as cute or memorable as the other two. Joe's new flashback here is hard to compare to it, though, because it serves a very different plot function. A few observations:
(1) I find it interesting how Joe is given "hair" here to look younger. (In real life, of course, Joe Besser was already bald by the time when this is set!)
(2) To me it seems wrong, and out of character, for Joe to check out the waitress while he waits for Fifi.
(3) As we all know, the reused footage, with Shemp's legs, shows an outdoor cafe while the new footage shows an indoor one.
Overall, the short doesn't really have much in the way of funny moments, and neither Moe nor Larry seems to be trying very hard. But I kind of like it anyway. It's certainly not a typical short from our stars of "Stage, Screen & Radar." The straightforward heartbrokenness of Joe's character here is an unusual emotion for the Stooges; I have trouble imagining it in the hands any of other Stooge. The situation with Fifi – a long lost love, now married to an unappreciative jerk – also seems very different from the usual role of women in Stooges shorts.
Besides the flashback scenes, I note that a brief scene of Moe pulling gum from his face is also reused from BITE, and is very smoothly incorporated here.
In this short Joe gets roughly as much abuse as Larry does. He even gets abuse from three different people. Larry bangs him in the head with the shaker, Moe bonks him on the head twice, and Fifi smacks him at the end. (He also gets gum on his face, gets pinched by Moe, and falls when trying to lean on Moe who has walked away.) And here we get introduced to a Joe catchphrase: "That's good for him!" (gets bonked) "That's bad for me!"
Overall, a silly, contrived, sitcom-type plot, with a happy ending that's not overly out-of-the-blue. Not great, but I don't think it's all that bad either.
