Moronika
Film & Shorts Discussions => The Three Stooges - Curly Years => Topic started by: metaldams on September 07, 2013, 12:36:07 PM
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http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/20
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028960/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
We're into 1937 now, and I gotta be honest, I don't have all that much to say about this one. I know some people are passionate about this short, but to me it's a fairly average Stooge short. My only real complaint is the Bustoff character. My problem is the fact the guy is laughing at The Three Stooges as they are comedy characters, and, well...they are! The thing is I like to the the one laughing and prefer the other characters to take the Stooges seriously. It just plays out better that way for me.
The highlights of the short are whenever Curly encounters Wild Hyacinth. His initial reaction in the resturant are great, especially when he flips over the table. Of course, what is well above average in this short is the ending! Pure Stooge mayhem, with Curly knocking that pile of bodies in the ring a true Stooge highlight. The final shot of the short is avatar worthy. I finally would like to throw a shout out to Curly being trapped in an ankle lock, which does not prevent him from stealing the lady's drink and sandwich.
7/10
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Well, I've lavished praise on this short before & I'm not going to stop now. This is my second favorite Curly film (after Disorder in the Court) and in my eyes one of the greatest pieces of comedy put to film. Curly's wrestling match alone is worth a 10 poke rating. So many great moments during that scene, such as when Moe says to the boss "He's a just warming up" and then they cut to a shot of Curly being flung through the air.
And as Metal mentioned, the ending with the pile of bodies is nonstop hilarity. Of course, there's a lot of great stuff before the wrestling match i.e. "Would you gentlemen like dessert? Yeah, another turkey."
And it's hard to believe Bustoff is the same guy who played A. Mouser in Ants in the Pantry, but Bustoff is a bit of a riot himself. Maybe I should add him to the pantheon of supporting players who should have been cast in more shorts along with the great Sam McDaniel.
And I might as well bring it up now, the scene with the stooges colliding with the baby carriage didn't put me off the same way it does some others. I guess if they showed a shot of a dead infant afterwards I would no doubt feel different, but in the cartoon world of the stooges, I have to think babies are as bulletproof as the stooges themselves seem to be in most shorts.
Overall, I would say this was the last great "Preston Black" short as the later Back to the Woods didn't do a whole lot for me, but I'll get to that when the time comes.
10 out of 10
Oh, and before I forget, is this the 1st appearance of Cy Schindell in a stooge short?
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Shemp Diesel, yes, this is Cy's first appearance. He is just an extra here, but he went on to do some good stuff. I always liked him.
As for the baby carriage tackle, I forgot to mention this, but yes, I am in the camp of that being offensive. I don't see any kind of humor in infants being tackled and horrified mothers or grandmothers picking the kid up. Not one of the better Stooge moments.
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Being a wrestling fan, naturally I like this short a lot. Back then, wrestling was at least semi-legitimate. Now it's basically 10-15 minutes of wrestling -- excuse me -- "Sports Entertainment" -- per hour of broadcast. Curly's championship match must have been No Disqualification, because the bout continued after he conked Ironhead with the bottle. And I counted 17 rings of the bell in the closing segment.
The Red Sox must have liked Bustoff, because so many of them now have beards like him. LOL
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I think all Stooge fans will agree that the best part of Grips, Grunts, and Groans is the grand finale of Curly's Wild Hyacinth-induced furor. The felling of his victims in increasingly rapid succession as he whirls the bell around by its cord and brings it down on their heads—CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!—is enough by itself to place the short among the most memorable ones, at least as far as Curly-centered action is concerned.
I share Metaldams's misgivings about the character of Bustoff to some degree. It is the audience, not the characters in the short, who are supposed to think that the Three Stooges are funny (setting aside those cases in which they put on a comedy act within the action of the movie—though often even then the other characters don't think them funny!). When Bustoff laughs at their antics and says, "You guys are funny!", it makes them, strangely, less funny. But I think that the character of Bustoff is a kind of experiment on the part of the writer (Clyde Bruckman) to play with the basic conventions of the Stooge shorts. I am pretty sure that, the first time I ever saw Bustoff, it occurred to me right away that he looked a lot like Curly. It seems to me that this is not just a setup for the switch that occurs later but a suggestion that Bustoff comes, so to speak, from the same weird planet that the Stooges themselves come from (they surely cannot have been born on earth!). This seems to me most clearly suggested when Bustoff concludes his first conversation with the boys by giving them a three-in-one slap in the face à la Moe (which he caps with a kind of salute or flourish as a parting gesture). He is, in effect, playing Moe with all of them for the moment. I'm not saying that this was a good comic idea. I'm certainly glad that it was not done in any other shorts. But it's an interesting angle on the basic premise of Curly having a physical double (not just another character played by the same actor, as in Three Dumb Clucks).
Bustoff is ostensibly unlike the Stooges in that he is indiscriminately, and fearlessly, violent toward anyone who thwarts him, as when he throws his boss's goon through a window into an open garbage can for knocking his drink from his hand. But, as far as this kind of violent spirit is from normal Stooge behavior, it is not much different from what Curly is transformed into when he is exposed to Wild Hyacinth.
I know that nobody watches Stooge shorts for the plot, but I think that comedy is well served when the action is coherent, and this short seems to me very well written in that regard. There are four main actions: (1) the Stooges, hiding aboard a box car, are discovered and pursued by guards; (2) they stumble into a job, or rather press Curly into one, at the Hangover Athletic Club; (3) Tony, the tiny but dangerous-seeming boss, compels them to take care of Bustoff, who drinks himself into unconsciousness and then suffers even worse damage when left in the care of Larry and Curly; (4) Moe compels Curly to take Bustoff's place in the wrestling match. Hilarity ensues. Each stage of the action leads naturally to the next, and Moe's pressing Curly into service is crucial not once but twice, and in the end he pays dearly for it. In this short, in contrast to most others, I can think of no superfluous details, no loose threads, and almost no unexplained or implausible turns of events at all. (The one detail that doesn't make sense is the fact that the railroad guards pursue the boys out of the railroad yard and into the street: why should they bother? It is not likely that they are paid by the head for the freeloaders that they catch!) I agree that having the Stooges run over a baby carriage when they are fleeing the railroad guards was an unfortunate choice of device for getting them into the athletic club. But there are so many good comic bits that follow that I don't dwell on that particular bit when I am watching the short.
Other funny bits:
- "Who's in there?"—"Nobody—just us horses!"
- "If I'm going to get beat up, I want to get paid for it!"
- Curly and Larry take care of Bustoff: "Give me something that will straighten me out!" —BING! BANG! BONG! And then they knock the locker over on him.
- Curly getting his foot twisted around like a corkscrew by the wrestler and taking and eating the lunch of the girl at the ringside.
Oddities and production errors:
- The railroad guards chasing the Stooges practically have to wait at the corner for them to "disappear" into the athletic club.
- Travel stickers on the Stooges' suitcase: "Little America" (Antarctica), "Paris," "Rome," "Hotel Berk, Watertown."
- Larry seems to have resumed the two-part hat that he sported in Punch Drunks: when he removes the crown, the brim stays in place.
- Does anyone else notice that the fighters at the Hangover Athletic Club—Kid Pinky and Bustoff—both seem mentally retarded, Kid Pinky especially? And that is in comparison with Curly!
- When the Stooges drag Bustoff out of the restaurant, the restauranteur throws the door shut against Bustoff's head. I always wince at that bit, as I don't think that the door was made of balsa wood or that the action was planned that way. But Harrison Greene suffers like a pro, without showing the pain he must have felt.
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This is a great short. The main reason it is a great short is because it had a plot and story line that made sense. The short moved along well.
I love the wrestling scene the best. I also like how Curly kept on stabbing the wrestler with the pin.
I like the sparring scene with the shoe untied trick. Curly nails him and hurts his hand. Also Curly laughing when his feet are being tickled is a great scene and another feather in his cap for the comedic genius.
I have no problem with Bustoff laughing at the Stooges. Here is the wrestling champion laughing, being a regular guy who just wants to eat, drink and have fun with the girls. The Stooges get to be in the company of this champion because he likes the Stooges and think that they are funny. Hence they hang out.
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2 More things:
For this short when checking Jim Pauley's great book on filming locations he does not mention where the Stooges are when they run over the baby carriage. Was it at the Columbia Ranch? It does not look familiar to me. Any light on this matter would be appreciated.
Observation: Under Stooge goofs it mentions the disappearance of the dumbell in Larry's hand when they are going to make Curly into Bustoff. Check how Larry handles the dumbell in the prior scenes. He handles them like they are Styrofoam (which they probably were), he switches them from hand to hand, twirls them a little, holds it different ways ... no way could he do that if they were real dumbells.
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I think all Stooge fans will agree that the best part of Grips, Grunts, and Groans is the grand finale of Curly's Wild Hyacinth-induced furor. The felling of his victims in increasingly rapid succession as he whirls the bell around by its cord and brings it down on their heads—CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!—is enough by itself to place the short among the most memorable ones, at least as far as Curly-centered action is concerned.
I share Metaldams's misgivings about the character of Bustoff to some degree. It is the audience, not the characters in the short, who are supposed to think that the Three Stooges are funny (setting aside those cases in which they put on a comedy act within the action of the movie—though often even then the other characters don't think them funny!). When Bustoff laughs at their antics and says, "You guys are funny!", it makes them, strangely, less funny. But I think that the character of Bustoff is a kind of experiment on the part of the writer (Clyde Bruckman) to play with the basic conventions of the Stooge shorts. I am pretty sure that, the first time I ever saw Bustoff, it occurred to me right away that he looked a lot like Curly. It seems to me that this is not just a setup for the switch that occurs later but a suggestion that Bustoff comes, so to speak, from the same weird planet that the Stooges themselves come from (they surely cannot have been born on earth!). This seems to me most clearly suggested when Bustoff concludes his first conversation with the boys by giving them a three-in-one slap in the face à la Moe (which he caps with a kind of salute or flourish as a parting gesture). He is, in effect, playing Moe with all of them for the moment. I'm not saying that this was a good comic idea. I'm certainly glad that it was not done in any other shorts. But it's an interesting angle on the basic premise of Curly having a physical double (not just another character played by the same actor, as in Three Dumb Clucks).
Bustoff is ostensibly unlike the Stooges in that he is indiscriminately, and fearlessly, violent toward anyone who thwarts him, as when he throws his boss's goon through a window into an open garbage can for knocking his drink from his hand. But, as far as this kind of violent spirit is from normal Stooge behavior, it is not much different from what Curly is transformed into when he is exposed to Wild Hyacinth.
I know that nobody watches Stooge shorts for the plot, but I think that comedy is well served when the action is coherent, and this short seems to me very well written in that regard. There are four main actions: (1) the Stooges, hiding aboard a box car, are discovered and pursued by guards; (2) they stumble into a job, or rather press Curly into one, at the Hangover Athletic Club; (3) Tony, the tiny but dangerous-seeming boss, compels them to take care of Bustoff, who drinks himself into unconsciousness and then suffers even worse damage when left in the care of Larry and Curly; (4) Moe compels Curly to take Bustoff's place in the wrestling match. Hilarity ensues. Each stage of the action leads naturally to the next, and Moe's pressing Curly into service is crucial not once but twice, and in the end he pays dearly for it. In this short, in contrast to most others, I can think of no superfluous details, no loose threads, and almost no unexplained or implausible turns of events at all. (The one detail that doesn't make sense is the fact that the railroad guards pursue the boys out of the railroad yard and into the street: why should they bother? It is not likely that they are paid by the head for the freeloaders that they catch!) I agree that having the Stooges run over a baby carriage when they are fleeing the railroad guards was an unfortunate choice of device for getting them into the athletic club. But there are so many good comic bits that follow that I don't dwell on that particular bit when I am watching the short.
Other funny bits:
- "Who's in there?"—"Nobody—just us horses!"
- "If I'm going to get beat up, I want to get paid for it!"
- Curly and Larry take care of Bustoff: "Give me something that will straighten me out!" —BING! BANG! BONG! And then they knock the locker over on him.
- Curly getting his foot twisted around like a corkscrew by the wrestler and taking and eating the lunch of the girl at the ringside.
Oddities and production errors:
- The railroad guards chasing the Stooges practically have to wait at the corner for them to "disappear" into the athletic club.
- Travel stickers on the Stooges' suitcase: "Little America" (Antarctica), "Paris," "Rome," "Hotel Berk, Watertown."
- Larry seems to have resumed the two-part hat that he sported in Punch Drunks: when he removes the crown, the brim stays in place.
- Does anyone else notice that the fighters at the Hangover Athletic Club—Kid Pinky and Bustoff—both seem mentally retarded, Kid Pinky especially? And that is in comparison with Curly!
- When the Stooges drag Bustoff out of the restaurant, the restauranteur throws the door shut against Bustoff's head. I always wince at that bit, as I don't think that the door was made of balsa wood or that the action was planned that way. But Harrison Greene suffers like a pro, without showing the pain he must have felt.
Great observations, especially on Bustoff! You did a great job of stating what I've always intuitively felt about that character.
You mention not dwelling on the baby carriage thing, but you and I are different. If they must knock down a child, the writers should at least have the decency to have the child show up later unharmed and getting some type of revenge. As it stands now, we are just left with concerned caretakers. A grown man getting knocked down I can live with, you assume he's OK, but a baby, combined with the reaction.....it just takes a few minutes for me to overcome that. Obviously I do by the end because this short does have one of the great Stooge endings.
I'm noticing less responses on this one. Are people getting bored overall with this or are we just hitting a slight dip in quality. I have to admit, 1937 as a whole, while it has a few real good shorts, is one of the, if not bad, then somewhat mediocre points for me. You'll find out what shorts make me feel this way in a bit, but overall, not one of the better parts of th Curly era. Does anybody else agree?
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I'm noticing less responses on this one. Are people getting bored overall with this or are we just hitting a slight dip in quality. I have to admit, 1937 as a whole, while it has a few real good shorts, is one of the, if not bad, then somewhat mediocre points for me. You'll find out what shorts make me feel this way in a bit, but overall, not one of the better parts of th Curly era. Does anybody else agree?
Well, just skimming through the filmography and looking at the list of shorts that cover 1937, I would say it was a very good year for stooge shorts. The only one I would say had a slight dip in quality is Back to the Woods, but overall it was a very strong year imo.
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I like this short a lot. I don't try to analyze every little detail of the shorts. They are what they are, two reelers pushed out on low budget and time restraints. I think the Bustoff charactor is hilarious. Even the baby carriage scene doesn't bother me. The short is fast paced and I like the ending. I rate this short a 9. ( Have a nice vacation Doug )
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Nothing new to add really; I just got done watching this one again and it still ranks as one of the funniest things I've ever seen by anybody. The ending may be the best of all stooge film endings. What was it the cop on the phone says at the end, I couldn't make it out I was laughing so hard.
I think it was "Forget the police, send the riot squad."
:laugh:
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What was it the cop on the phone says at the end, I couldn't make it out I was laughing so hard.
I think it was "Forget the police, send the riot squad."
"Quick! For the love of Pete, send the riot squad right away!"
That might be the best known, most widely used (and over used!) minced oath, ever.
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I like this short, but somewhat less so than other Curly shorts. I like the part where Bustoff holds his drink at the restaurant, and we can see it's a real metal tumbler. Then the camera cuts away briefly, and when it comes back to Bustoff, we can see that the tumbler is just paper or cardboard, and not very much like the real one. I just read something about film mistakes which said that the goofs tend to go unnoticed when they are shown for fewer than a certain length of time. I think this is a good example of that.
Dr. Hugo Gansamacher, you wrote that Pinky and Bustoff seem almost mentally retarded. I think they're supposed to be punch-drunk.
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Everyone said everything. It's definitely an interesting short, but heavily overrated. The methods were being recycled yet again, but arranged to put a new spin on them.
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I recently read (somewhere on this forum) that "Grips, Grunts, and Groans" had/has extra sound effects
added to the short on the 2003 Columbia/Sony DVD, "ALL THE WORLD'S A STOOGE".
Is that true?
If so...
Are there anymore shorts (on the older Columbia/Sony DVDs) that had/have additional sound effects added-on?
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More match spectators: Arthur "Pat" West (a couple seats away from the lady with snack) and maybe John Rand (same shot, in the background next to Al Thompson).
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I recall seeing the short on TV years ago and the opening titles seemed to move back and forth while at the end the Screen Gems logo appears odd-the bottom half was on the upper part of the screen while the upper part, cursive A on top of the "SCREEN" part and all-was on the lower part. Sloppy editing I think.
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- Curly and Larry take care of Bustoff: "Give me something that will straighten me out!" —BING! BANG! BONG! And then they knock the locker over on him.
Doesn't Bustoff say, "Give me something that will STRIKE me out"? Because he keeps asking for a drink.
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Doesn't Bustoff say, "Give me something that will STRIKE me out"? Because he keeps asking for a drink.
From the many times I've watched this particular short, I agree it does sound like Bustoff says "Strike me out" and of course, the stooges give him a few strikes right on the noggin....
:D
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He says "Give me something that will straighten me out." [as in a hangover remedy/ another drink]
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From the many times I've watched this particular short, I agree it does sound like Bustoff says "Strike me out" and of course, the stooges give him a few strikes right on the noggin....
:D
Yeah; I always thought it was "strike me out" because he drinks at the restaurant despite being told not to twice, and when he wakes up in the training room he keeps asking for a drink. This is not someone who wants to be sober or straight, right? Wish these damn DVDs had subtitles.
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Yeah; I always thought it was "strike me out" because he drinks at the restaurant despite being told not to twice, and when he wakes up in the training room he keeps asking for a drink. This is not someone who wants to be sober or straight, right? Wish these damn DVDs had subtitles.
The only strikeouts are when the Phillies are batting.
It did sound like Bustoff said "straighten me out." And the closed-captioning does indicate that. Both of my TVs, which are "side by each" as Moose Dupont used to say, have C.C. on all the time. The only problem with my DVD collection is that McHale's Navy did not have any C.C.
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The only strikeouts are when the Phillies are batting.
It did sound like Bustoff said "straighten me out." And the closed-captioning does indicate that. Both of my TVs, which are "side by each" as Moose Dupont used to say, have C.C. on all the time. The only problem with my DVD collection is that McHale's Navy did not have any C.C.
Lefty, are you from Philly? I am in South Jersey about 10 miles outside of Philadelphia. Funny you should say that about them; last night that dumba$$ error that allowed four runs....
Okay; if the CC says "straighten me out" then I'll acquiesce.
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Lefty, are you from Philly? I am in South Jersey about 10 miles outside of Philadelphia. Funny you should say that about them; last night that dumba$$ error that allowed four runs....
Okay; if the CC says "straighten me out" then I'll acquiesce.
Yes, MrsMorganMorgan, I was born in Philly and live in Bucks County. (Why live in the city if you work outside it? LOL)
And the Phillies just submerged victorious over the O's 2-1, ending their 9-game losing streak. Now we can only hope that the Cardinals hacked the Phillies' database so the Phillies can beat them this weekend. I just heard that Cole Hamels will not pitch tomorrow due to some hamstring thing ("lower body injury" in hockey parlance). So, Phillippe the Great, a/k/a Awful Aumont, will be recoiled to lose that one.
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Yes, MrsMorganMorgan, I was born in Philly and live in Bucks County. (Why live in the city if you work outside it? LOL)
Hey; why live in the city if you can live somewhere worse? I live in Camden County; an armpit of the US and a blot on the butt of mankind!
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Seems being a Southerner and a Stoogephile is unusual...
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Seems being a Southerner and a Stoogephile is unusual...
We can be oddballs together since I'm the female Stooge fan.... :-*
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Seems being a Southerner and a Stoogephile is unusual...
Well, as theah's no othah place around the place, ah reckon this must be the place, ah reckon! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! [3stooges]
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Well, as theah's no othah place around the place, ah reckon this must be the place, ah reckon! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk! [3stooges]
Way down south in New York City The cotton grows on the trees so pretty On the trees On the trees In the South South Brooklyn!
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Hey; why live in the city if you can live somewhere worse? I live in Camden County; an armpit of the US and a blot on the butt of mankind!
Are you casting asparagus on Bucks County? Well, there is Bristol, and Morrisville, and Doylestown Burro.
I thought the city of Camden itself was the armpit, not Camden County as a whole (hole?). I've never had a problem in Cherry Hill. Of course, there is the Tacony-Baloney Bridge which opened up early this morning to let a boat shoot a torpedo at Pennsauken. [pie]
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I live in Northern Delaware, and I've been to plenty of concerts in Camden. Can't think of a more ideal setting for a Slayer show.
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Are you casting asparagus on Bucks County? Well, there is Bristol, and Morrisville, and Doylestown Burro.
I thought the city of Camden itself was the armpit, not Camden County as a whole (hole?). I've never had a problem in Cherry Hill. Of course, there is the Tacony-Baloney Bridge which opened up early this morning to let a boat shoot a torpedo at Pennsauken. [pie]
I live down the White Horse Pike; not in Camden but I did attend Rutgers there before the waterfront became "cute". It was kill or be killed down there; I once assaulted back a thug who tried to assault me IN a college building. Several decades after that my mom bought a house in that simmering POS city and me and sibs had to get her out of there; another story for another day but that city is a huge stinking piece of sh*t and no amount of Enterprise Zone bucks or waterfront cute-ifying will fix it. I live down the WHP in an area that is now seeing its super fair share of Section 8 and government housing encroachment; big druggy apt complexes and lots of drugs and murder. So yeah; my town is in competition with Camden!
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I had some druggies for classmates, and I'm in Florida!
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One of their best shorts, that about sums it up. 10/10
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I know a lot of stooge fans seem to have rave about what a great episode "Grips" is, unfortunately for me it was never one of the shorts I was wild about, there were some amusing moments in this short but that was about it, I always thought 1937 was one of the weaker years of the Stooge shorts considering how great the stooge shorts were from late 1935-36 and again from 1939-42
I give this short a 6/10
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Love this one. 9/10.
My favorite thing about Grips, Grunts and Groans is that it showed just how dangerous it would be to befriend the Stooges. The Stooge's have a certain charisma, so who wouldn't want to hang out with them? They seem harmless enough, right.
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"If I'm gonna get beat up, I wanna get paid for it."
A partial reworking of the immortal "Punch Drunks" (1934), this Preston Black/Jack White short has plenty of wild energy along with some nice interaction between Curly and Larry. The wrestling climax is hysterical — one of the great Stooge endings. "Grips, Grunts and Groans" may lack the iconic stature of "Punch Drunks," but it's damn funny and moves at a faster pace.
9/10
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Another solid short from start to finish. Curly's energy is something to behold.
I rank this #36 overall.