Moronika
Film & Shorts Discussions => The Three Stooges - Shemp Years => Topic started by: metaldams on August 21, 2015, 05:10:42 PM
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http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/122
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042408/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8_nv4b1MQ3s
Watch DOPEY DICKS in the link above
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/14/Dopeydicks50.jpg/220px-Dopeydicks50.jpg)
I don't have an official top ten, but if I did, I imagine this would be on it. This has always, easily, been one of my favorite Three Stooges shorts. Why? I just love the pacing of this thing. It has the bang-bang, hyper edited yet still literate pacing of A PLUMBING WE WILL GO, just with a different third Stooge and a lower budget. From beginning to end, this thing never lets up. I also love the mad scientist/spooky house element to this thing as well. I'm a sucker for old horror films and old b films in general, and this kind of short must have played very well on a Saturday morning in the fifties to a theater full of kids. Throw this in with a Bowery Boys feature and a Lugosi Monogram flick and I'm in Heaven. I'm also born thirty years too late.
I love the beginning with Moe acting tired carrying a feather duster thirteen floors, but poor Shemp, too stupid to realize he's being suckered, has to carry everything but the kitchen sink. Moe then makes Shemp move forward with a nice push, but not before adding extra insult to injury by resting the aforementioned feather duster in front of Shemp's face! Other little parts I love...well, all of it, but leaving it at that makes a bad review. OK, Larry sleeping while standing with his elbow rested on the vacuum cleaner is always good for a laugh. Larry with his head sticking out of the table, Shemp's Main 2468 bit....you'd be shocked there really are people that dumb. I have a job where one of the things I do is create a temporary password for a website that's ABCD1234 and you'd be shocked how many people struggle with that! I always think of Shemp struggling with Main 2468 when that happens. There's Larry with the flower in his mouth, Larry as the human lantern, Christine damsel in distress bit, (which speaking of The Bowery Boys, was used verbatim in one of their films after this, an Edward Bernds one if memory serves correct, I'll research this). The Shemp and Moe curtain scene involving puter......just so many great bits. Really a chase film like FROM NURSE TO WORSE, but for some reason, the more limited setting of this one is even better to me.
Stanley Price and especially Phil Van Zandt are wonderful here. The scenes where Moe and Phil are in the closet together and earlier on when Phil tries to chop Moe's head off, it's almost as if Moe is the straight man because Phil is so crazed. I always wish The Three Stooges could have worked with Lugosi and Karloff the way Bud and Lou did, and the Van Zandt role would have been great with Lugosi especially, but Phil Van Zandt is so great here I honestly don't mind.
Awesome short. The early 50's have more 10's than the 40's Shemp stuff, but the occasional clunker prevents this era from being as good as the '39 - '42 peak. Still, shorts like this, just fun, Saturday morning mindless entertainment, are always good to put a smile on my face.
10/10
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The Bowery Boys film I was thinking of is PRIVATE EYES. Directed by Edward Bernds. Written by Edawrd Bernds and Elwood Ullman. Bernds also wrote DOPEY DICKS. Not only did silent film writers later recycle gags in Stooge films from their earlier works, but in Bernds's case, he recycles a Stooge routine and puts it in a later film of his.
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Well, I'm all for most of the shorts that have Moe, Larry and Shemp playing detectives, or pretending to be detectives. While I'm not quite as high on this one as compared to a Who Done It? or the later Tricky Dicks, this one is a goodie regardless.
I think the biggest laugh to be had from this one is the part Metal already mentioned--Larry's supposedly disembodied head scaring Shemp (they got him and he's still talking).
I've heard some say that this was a reworking of sorts from Bernds earlier A Bird in the Head. I guess there is some parallel in that short and Dopey Dicks if I was to sit down and analyze both shorts. Phil Van Zandt makes for a great mad scientist & Stanley Price is very good as his assistant.
8 out of 10....
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Well, I'm all for most of the shorts that have Moe, Larry and Shemp playing detectives, or pretending to be detectives. While I'm not quite as high on this one as compared to a Who Done It? or the later Tricky Dicks, this one is a goodie regardless.
I think the biggest laugh to be had from this one is the part Metal already mentioned--Larry's supposedly disembodied head scaring Shemp (they got him and he's still talking).
I've heard some say that this was a reworking of sorts from Bernds earlier A Bird in the Head. I guess there is some parallel in that short and Dopey Dicks if I was to sit down and analyze both shorts. Phil Van Zandt makes for a great mad scientist & Stanley Price is very good as his assistant.
8 out of 10....
The thing that's similar with A BIRD IN THE HEAD is a mad scientist wanting to chop off a Stooge head to use their brain for science.
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This one is the perfect Stooge mix of comedy and horror. We have the usual Stooge tomfoolery, but this time we have Phil Van Zandt as the villain, the perfecter of the mad Stooge villain, and maybe all Stooge villains. The beauty and skills of Christine McIntyre balances this all out. In short, this is the kind of comedic horror the Stooges were more suited too: scary villains, whereas L&H thrive in an environment where it is just them being frightened by noises.
The title challenges the censors, but "dicks" was used then as we use "cops."
[poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] 10/10
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Just like everyone else so far, I enjoy this short immensely. Larry's head sticking out of the table and MAIN 2-4-6-8 are great scenes. Christine McIntyre, awesome as always. The mechanical man can't see where he's going, so make him a baseball umpire.
As for Moe carrying the duster while Shemp had to lug everything, that reminded me of a Hogan's Heroes episode where Schultz was carrying tons of suitcases for Klink, so Klink took a small, soft briefcase to make it easier for him.
Moe: "It's 5:00 o'clock."
Larry: "I'm awake!"
In my case, that would be 3:00, or 2:00 on bowling Fridays. :laugh:
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As Gilbert and Sullivan discovered, decapitation is good for laughs if you treat the subject the right way ("Chop it off! Chop it off!"). Instance: Moe reaching into the hole to fetch back his head, which he thinks has been cut off. And, of course, the seemingly disembodied head of Larry calling to Shemp from the table.
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I give this short a seven. It does not work with me for some reason. I do not consider it bad but not good either. It seems rushed and I don't like the storyline.
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Well, I've been randomly cherry picking shorts from Volume 6, and this is one that I watched again & have to up my grade significantly. A great blend of the detective theme with some noir elements as well as the scare routines that generally I don't care for, but here they work tremendously.
One of the cream of the crop as far as Moe, Larry and Shemp playing detectives...
9 out of 10...
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Once again, I find myself in the minority on not thinking this is a classic. It has its moments though. Overall, the laughs just aren't there for me most of the time. And laughs is what I watch these for.
#148. Dopey Dicks