Moronika
Film & Shorts Discussions => The Three Stooges - Curly Years => Topic started by: metaldams on August 10, 2013, 10:04:29 AM
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http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/16
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028076/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
If a good comedy can be measured by how much one laughs, then this one is a success. I laughed a lot while watching this short, especially during the crab scene. The boys confusing the crab for a spider or turtle is great, and that they eat the shell instead of the meat inside does a great job of showing off their stupidity. There is one shot of a sad looking Larry eating the shell that holds for about 10 or 15 seconds that is one of my all time favorite Larry shots, and Curly suggesting that the crab shell be refilled cracks me up every time. The fact Hilda Title is in the scene eating the crab properly is a welcome contrast to the antics of the The Three Stooges.
I think I just like old comedies aboard trains in general. A PAIN IN THE PULLMAN is a great example. Also, PARDON MY BERTH MARKS is my favorite of Buster Keaton's Columbia efforts, TWENTIETH CENTURY is my favorite screwball comedy, and CHOO-CHOO! is my favorite Our Gang short. I think there's something wonderful overall about comedies in trains because there are such cramped surroundings, so the comedy seems more frantic to me as a result.
This short contains the last appearance of Phyllis Crane, who is in a wonderful scene with a monkey and Curly. I love it when in her dream she mentions how her lover never writes and Curly mentions he doesn't know her address. While Christine McIntyre is the ultimate Stooge woman as far as the combination of looks and talent go, Phyllis Crane held her own in these early shorts and it's a shame she leaves the series after this. A shout out to James Morton and Bud Jamison in this one as well, who are both excellent. I see this is the second short in a row where they get some mileage with Mr. Morton in a toupee.
Finally, I always loved the little ethnic gag with the booking agents of "Goldstein, Goldberg, Goldblatt, and O'Brien." We have three Jewish names and an Irish name, and it's so funny how an obvious Eastern European Jew has to verify that he is O'Brien. That type of ethnic humor would not fly in today's overly sensitive PC world.
The boys are in great form in this one, and overall, another very fine effort.
10/10
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This is not an original line, but this is definitely the best "Joe" short. A swansong for the great Phyllis Crane & the first time we hear the immortal line "Wake up & go to sleep." Also loved "Oh Nelly, you're here at last" and Moe responding "You got me wrong stranger."
9 out of 10...
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Really one of the great ones. If you don't like this one, you don't like the stooges. James Morton limns a ham by hamming it up all over the place. Number one on the Phyllis Crane highlight reel. All great. I think the reason that Larry is eating so slowly and with such a look on his face is that he's eating a lemon wedge.
What is best about this short is that it is a true time capsule: this is a look at a completely vanished world.
Think about it: this is a film about a vaudeville troupe starting a tour on a sleeper train. None of those things exist any more in any form. Bud Jamison's position? Straw Boss. Doesn't exist anymore. At the time this film was made, these things were still going on - there is no nostalgic note inherent in the presentation - this was how some people still made a living in 1936.
Laurel and Hardy's Berth Marks covers the same subject, but this is a much bigger and richer and funnier and more energetic and just plain better film.
And of course the ending is nothing less than iconic. Helluva flick.
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Laurel and Hardy's Berth Marks covers the same subject, but this is a much bigger and richer and funnier and more energetic and just plain better film.
PAIN is a reworking/remake of Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts' SHOW BUSINESS (1932 Hal Roach), directed by Jules White.
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PAIN is a reworking/remake of Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts' SHOW BUSINESS (1932 Hal Roach), directed by Jules White.
I had no clue Jules White worked for Hal Roach. Interesting.
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I'm happy to find that this time I am in agreement with the majority in rating this short very highly. The setups are effective, the secondary roles, especially Messrs. "Pain" and "Johnson" are extremely well cast (not only are James Morton and Bud Jamison excellent in their respective roles but I would count their roles here among the best ones that either of them ever had in the Stooge shorts), the comic plotting moves naturally from one setup to the next, and the gags, some of them quite memorable, come at a steady pace.
My favorite gag in the whole short is the repeated one of Johnson being awakened in his berth by the shouting of his name by an increasingly agitated Paul Pain [correction added in editing: and various other incidents], and banging his head on the bottom of the upper berth. It's one of those gags that actually gain from the repetition of something completely predictable: the only thing that changes is that, every time it happens, you know that it has to hurt the character a little more! I think that the gag works on us by a complex reaction. We all know what it is like to hit our heads on something hard; we can at least imagine, if not actually recall, what it is like to hit our heads a second time on the same spot; and Bud Jamison's portrayal of Johnson's reaction is completely realistic. This is not exaggerated, unrealistic, conk-on-the-head-with-a-hammer Stooge violence but a real "Ow!" So initially, sympathetic distress may predominate in our reaction. But eventually, perhaps on the second occurrence of the gag, mirth prevails. At least, it will prevail if one loves the Stooges' humor: as Big Chief Apumtagribonitz very rightly says, if you don't like this short then you don't like the Stooges.
But when mirth prevails, we don't cease to feel sympathy. Instead, we now feel, on top of our contending sympathy and mirth, compunction: we feel bad (at least I do) for laughing at poor Johnson's suffering! Now, one doesn't cease to find something funny just because one feels bad about finding it funny. One must either follow one's conscience and repress one's laughter, which no one but a prig would do in this case, or abandon one's conscience and simply laugh, as if enjoying a holiday from moral scruples.
Stephen Jay Gould has an essay, "The True Embodiment of Everything That's Excellent," in which he discusses how in case after case, some lines in the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan that he had known and enjoyed since early in life only revealed their meaning to him years later. Citing a joke about Swiss churchgoers, who laugh in their pews on Sunday morning because that is when they get the jokes that they heard at the party on Saturday evening, he calls these occurrences "Swiss moments." I have had a couple of Swiss moments with this short. One occurred after I had seen it a few times, when it dawned on me that when Moe reproves Larry [correction: Curly] for jostling him in their bunk, he does not, as I had thought, make the bizarre remark, "Do you want to give me birth marks?", as if he thought that birth marks could be acquired in adult life. (I thought that funny enough as an exhibition of what you might call Stooge-pidity, like not understanding that "right" and "left" vary in their reference according to the direction in which you are facing.) Rather, he makes the perfectly lucid pun (already used in the title of another movie, as I understand, which is perhaps why Preston Black could count on viewers at that time to get the joke), "Do you want to give me berth marks?"
The other Swiss moment to which I confess shows even greater slowness on my part. As background, understand that I have come across people of surnames spelled "Paine" (e.g., Thomas Paine) and "Payne," but never "Pain"; so when I first looked at the transcript page for this short on this site and saw that the name of James Morton's character was written "Pain," I could not understand why that spelling, which seemed to me rather improbable, had been chosen. It did not occur to me to connect his name with the title of the short until I saw a transcription of Curly's answer to Moe's question, "What's a heartthrob?"—"A pain in the neck!" Only when I saw this in writing did I connect it with the title and with the name of the "heartthrob" in question. I had taken "pain in the Pullman" to be a simple play on "pain in the neck," or on the less polite phrase for which that one is a byword. Of course, it is the monkey that is pain in the neck to Pain, so that there is pain in the Pullman as well as a Pain in the Pullman.
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My dear Dr Hugo, as usual, I agree with you 96%. There is no need to feel any guilt or sympathetic pain over Bud Jamison's bumping his head endlessly as he starts up from sleep. It's important to remember at all times that this is a studio full of comedians on a train set who are busting ass to make you laugh. If there was anything realistic about this, Bud's forehead would have been even bloodier than his ceiling. As has been said repeatedly, this is as close to cartoon-style violence as human actors can get. Of course you are supposed to wince occasionally, but only while you're laughing. Unburden yourself: this laughter is guilt-free.
They didn't get hurt. There was padding everywhere.
As far as the Pain-Paine-( Payne? ) puns go, I'm sure that yes, they're all buried in there somewhere, but if you begin to overthink it, you might miss the Amazon Woman hurling Curly into the berth, which is way better than the puns. These shorts don't reward that kind of thinking, anymore than Star Trek is improved by its fans wondering why the aliens speak English. Invite one of your stupidest friends over, slam a couple of boilermakers, stop thinking and start laughing. That's what I do, and look at me, I'm the Big Chief.
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TELEPHONE CALL FOR THE THREEEEEE STOOOOOGES !!!
Excellent short. I love the opening scene with Curly looking at the cookbook saying that there has to be something in here on how to cook a monkey.
I believe this is the first short where they play themselves. Also Hilda Title plays herself as the conductor calls her name as she is boarding the train.
Great points by all especially by Metal and Chief.
Curly continues to shine with his interaction with women.
I rate this a 10.
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My dear Dr Hugo, as usual, I agree with you 96%. There is no need to feel any guilt or sympathetic pain over Bud Jamison's bumping his head endlessly as he starts up from sleep. It's important to remember at all times that this is a studio full of comedians on a train set who are busting ass to make you laugh. If there was anything realistic about this, Bud's forehead would have been even bloodier than his ceiling. As has been said repeatedly, this is as close to cartoon-style violence as human actors can get. Of course you are supposed to wince occasionally, but only while you're laughing. Unburden yourself: this laughter is guilt-free.
They didn't get hurt. There was padding everywhere.
You misunderstand me. I was talking about the fictional character Johnson hurting his head, not about the actor Bud Jamison hurting his. E.g., I said: "Bud Jamison's portrayal of Johnson's reaction is completely realistic." To say that it was a realistic portrayal doesn't mean that it was real and not fictional. I think one has to feel somewhat sorry for Johnson in a way or to a degree that one does not feel sorry, say, for Curly (the fictional character, not Jerome Horwitz) when he puts the cooked shoe on his foot, which is not done realistically but is just a ridiculous stunt. But maybe my reaction is not widely shared.
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Another home run in my opinion. If you notice when Bud Jamison is calling out the passenger list, he uses the real names of a couple of the costars. ( Bob Burns and Hilda Title) Also in the scene when Curly is spitting out bits of crab shell, watch Hilda Title closely, she starts to crack up so she ducks her head down to hide her face. This short is high on my favorites list and I rate it a 9. On a side note, I used to live in a neighborhood on the south side of Chicago called Pullman. It was a town where all of the people that made Pullman cars lived. George Pullman owned the factory, the stores and the home you lived in.
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If you notice when Bud Jamison is calling out the passenger list, he uses the real names of a couple of the costars. ( Bob Burns and Hilda Title)
I did notice that. It makes me wonder if Columbia was trying to build them up by giving their names special mention? It could just be the writers being lazy as well, who knows, but it's an interesting bit of trivia either way.
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This short is perhaps Hilda Title's finest hour. She is one of my favorite minor players from any era of the Stooges.
I don't know what it is, but setting a short on a train never seemed to go wrong in those days. There are quite a few excellent "train shorts" from that era - this one, WOMAN HATERS, Keaton's PARDON MY BERTH MARKS, Laurel & Hardy's BERTH MARKS, Our Gang's CHOO-CHOO, Todd & Kelly's SHOW BUSINESS, all come to mind.
PULLMAN is an easy "A" effort in my book.
As Beastooge said, PULLMAN was a re-working/re-make of SHOW BUSINESS. That short is about equal, quality-wise.
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I agree once again with you, Doctor Hugo, that one gets a bit more of a twinge from having a "straight" character take a hit than he gets from a stooge getting hit. But the laugh is that the straight character has entered into the Stoogiverse, and to his dismay is suddenly subject to Stooge Rules. This is exactly what happens to Bud's " Johnson ", pun not intended, kinda. But I would stress that while we are watching these episodes, we, like the original 1930's viewers, recognize the actors and their duties as soon as they appear. We see the first appearance of Bud Jamison as a boss, or a cop, British peer, or any authority figure, and we know what he's got coming. We know that he's gonna get it. And he does. As does Vernon Dent, Fred Kelsey, Stanley Blystone, Richard Fiske, etc. etc. The only cast member I can think of who deserves your kind of sympathy is the Marquis Chimp in Stop Look and Laugh who takes a pie in the face. That's brutal. ( Although it's also pretty funny. So shoot me. )
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Concerning Bud Jamison and the reaction to the head bump, it's fine with me because I agree with the principle it falls into the cartoon world of the Stooges. My issue with, say, HALF SHOT SHOOTERS, was that the military world can easily extend beyond the cartoon world, and HALF SHOT SHOOTERS stepped over the line for my taste. The Stooges had injuries that carried over into other scenes as well, which takes away the cartoon humor. Bud bumping his head is a cartoon like gag with no repucussions other than a quick laugh. It's not like the guy is dizzy or suffering a concussion in the next shot, so according to my personal taste, Bud's head bumps are just fine.
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Out of all 190 shorts, is this the longest one? I notice this clocks in at almost 20 minutes. I don't think any other short runs as long, tho I could be wrong.
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Out of all 190 shorts, is this the longest one? I notice this clocks in at almost 20 minutes. I don't think any other short runs as long, tho I could be wrong.
I'm 98 percent sure this is the longest running short.
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I'm 98 percent sure this is the longest running short.
Use the Filmography.
- Under the Filmography header at top of page, click on the drop-down option for "The Columbia Years"
- The 190 shorts will come up in chronological order. Click on "Length." They will resort by running time, ascending.
THIS is what you get (http://threestooges.net/filmography/index/COL/duration/).
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Use the Filmography.
- Under the Filmography header at top of page, click on the drop-down option for "The Columbia Years"
- The 190 shorts will come up in chronological order. Click on "Length." They will resort by running time, ascending.
THIS is what you get (http://threestooges.net/filmography/index/COL/duration/).
Thanks. What's your opinion on this short?
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The Stooges cause a riot on the rails in this one, the longest short they ever made for Columbia.
Highlights:
The first appearance of 'Filet of Sole and Heel'
The Stooges (along with their pet monkey Joe) terrorizing Paul Pain - the heart throb of MILLIONS!
Loading the trunk with a coat and hat
Moe cracking a crab...., uh, I mean, TURTLE over Curly's head
Stooges trying to get into their berths
and of course.......'JOHNSON!'
I always enjoy the ending too, watching the Stooges ride away on cattle (which would later be recycled in 'A Ducking They Did Go')
Not exactly my favorite, but good fun just the same.
Rating: 7/10
"I thought she wanted to play post office!"
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A good short overall, this one is.
When the landlady yells, "Telephone call for the Three Stoooooooooooges," my female cat's ears go back, just like when I would shout out "Choooooooooooooooch" when Carlos Ruiz (pre-Adderall) did something good for the Phillies (pre-sucking).
I seemed to have counted 7 times where Johnson (Bud Jamison) conks his head on the low-hanging steel.
The act of the Stooges' taking the edible part out of the crab/spider/turtle and eating the hard shells was reprised at least with Curly throwing away the good part of the walnuts and eating the shells in "Dizzy Detectives."
"Goldberg, Goldstein, Goldblatt, and O'Brien. O'Brien speaking."
The Amazon woman who tossed the Stooges back into their berth would help the Eagles' defense -- even though she's been gone 34 years.
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Remember this short for the most part, and I like it. And Lefty, don't forget the "yes? Yes yes! Yes!"
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Remember this short for the most part, and I like it. And Lefty, don't forget the "yes? Yes yes! Yes!"
When Curly did the "Yes" thing, he should have kept sticking both arms in the air for each "yes" with just the index fingers pointing up, a la Daniel Bryan. :P
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This short contains the last appearance of Phyllis Crane, who is in a wonderful scene with a monkey and Curly. I love it when in her dream she mentions how her lover never writes and Curly mentions he doesn't know her address. While Christine McIntyre is the ultimate Stooge woman as far as the combination of looks and talent go, Phyllis Crane held her own in these early shorts and it's a shame she leaves the series after this.
It's been nice to read all the appreciation for Phyllis Crane in these Discussions. There doesn't seem to be much out there on her, so I wanted to let her fans know to watch for the upcoming Three Stooges Journal for an in-depth article/biography on Phyllis. She has always been my Number One research subject, since the mid-1970's and I have learned a lot about her, so have finally written some of it down for The Journal.
Read about her childhood and early career as a child performer in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Read about when and how she came to Hollywood and some of her early film appearances.
Learn what she did after virtually disappearing from Hollywood in 1937.
Learn how she felt later about her film career.
I also provided some rare never-before published photos from her life and career, from age 8 (adorable, of course!) to the 1950's. Also a rare candid shot taken on the set of one of her Stooges shorts (and we all know how rare such photos can be!)
I'd appreciate hearing from any of her fans with any questions or comments about her.
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Can't wait to read your article Rich, when does the next Journal come out?
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Can't wait to read your article Rich, when does the next Journal come out?
Gary is always very prompt and on-schedule, so I'd estimate the new Journal should be coming in the next week or two. He usually sends out a notice when it is being mailed.
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Also looking forward to it.
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Got my Journal in the mail today. Have not finished the whole thing yet, but just wanted to say I enjoyed your article Rich, learned a lot I didn't know before. Thanks for your time & efforts researching Ms. Crane.
[cool]
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Got my Journal in the mail today. Have not finished the whole thing yet, but just wanted to say I enjoyed your article Rich, learned a lot I didn't know before. Thanks for your time & efforts researching Ms. Crane.
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the article. It really was the result of about 35 years of research!
I had even more to say about Phyllis, but unfortunately some had to be edited for space. But Gary did an excellent job, laying it out and placing the photos where he did, etc.
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Hope I get my Journal ... have not received yet....
"HMmmmmmmmmm Low Man Again !" [3stooges]
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If it had been remade in the Shemp era, can you imagine, say, Vernon Dent, playing the character originally played by Bud Jamison.
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I can't believe I never commented on my pompous namesake. I find this one to be a good short. Average maybe, but still good. 8/10 for having the stupid monkey. I hate monkeys, and anything with monkeys gets downgraded in my book (Yes, that means I would skewer Curious George for pleasure!).
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George Gray is the man on the ladder when the Stooges run from Mrs. Eggerley.
Johnny Kascier is seen getting on the train with the others, and appears in the berth with everyone else when the boys are getting escorted off the train by Laughton, Jamison and Morton.
Also in the berth: Bert Young and Charles Dorety. When everyone falls over in the berth, Bert is pretty much in the middle of the screen, while Charles appears WAAAY in the back when the boys are escorted. Both are also seen peeking their heads out (Bert out of the left, next to another; Charles to the right, putting hand to mouth and yawning) in the long shot of Pain calling for Johnson, right before the monkey crawls into his bed.
When Jamison/Johnson pulls the monkey (and the cord) towards the end, there is a woman's head in plain view who I think may be Elaine Waters?
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George Gray is the man on the ladder when the Stooges run from Mrs. Eggerley.
Johnny Kascier is seen getting on the train with the others, and appears in the berth with everyone else when the boys are getting escorted off the train by Laughton, Jamison and Morton.
Also in the berth: Bert Young and Charles Dorety. When everyone falls over in the berth, Bert is pretty much in the middle of the screen, while Charles appears WAAAY in the back when the boys are escorted. Both are also seen peeking their heads out (Bert out of the left, next to another; Charles to the right, putting hand to mouth and yawning) in the long shot of Pain calling for Johnson, right before the monkey crawls into his bed.
When Jamison/Johnson pulls the monkey (and the cord) towards the end, there is a woman's head in plain view who I think may be Elaine Waters?
Revisiting this: definitely Waters, who I guess is one of the showgirls. Noticed Gray has a dual role; he's a train passenger as well.
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Nothing new to add really, except to say I watched this one again recently & had to bump up my original rating a little bit. James C. Morton may go down as "best reaction ever" after get poked in the eyes by Moe...
:D
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My favorite Jack White two-reeler — and favorite 1936 short — next to "Disorder in the Court," which makes it a shame he stopped directing the Stooges after 1937. With the exception of "Half Shot Shooters," Jack had a wonderfully anarchic style and his overall work was more consistent than Charley Chase's 1938-39 output. "A Pain in the Pullman" is great fun and one of the few times the boys added a pet monkey to the slapstick milieu. Another example of why Bud Jamison and James C. Morton were essential members of the Stooge stock company.
9/10
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My favorite Jack White two-reeler — and favorite 1936 short — next to "Disorder in the Court," which makes it a shame he stopped directing the Stooges after 1937. With the exception of "Half Shot Shooters," Jack had a wonderfully anarchic style and his overall work was certainly more consistent than Charley Chase's 1938-39 output. "A Pain in the Pullman" is great fun and one of the few times the boys added a pet monkey to the slapstick milieu. Another example of why Bud Jamison and James C. Morton were essential members of the Stooge stock company.
9/10
Have you ever seen the Zasu Pitts/Thelma Todd short SHOW BUSINESS? Almost the same script as this short and the only time Jules White worked at Hal Roach. I think I’ll be reviewing it this summer.
...and yes, a shame Jack White didn’t direct longer, agreed.
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Despite some nice pre-Code moments from Thelma, I found "Show Business" rather disappointing. It's slower paced than "A Pain in the Pullman" and nowhere near as funny.
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I found "Show Business" rather disappointing. It's slower paced than "A Pain in the Pullman" and nowhere near as funny.
I remember enjoying it, but I’m also partial to anything with Anita Garvin in it. Will give it a more critical eye come review time. I want to get deeper into the Roach catalog in general review wise now all these DVD sets are out.
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Funny stooge short that I've always liked a lot, the train scenes were hilarious along with Johnson constantly hitting his head after being woken up by Paul Pain complaining about the Stooges' antics, this is also one of the rare pre-stroke Curly era stooge shorts where I thought Larry was funnier than Curly, also do you find it strange that when Moe hits Larry and Curly in the head with a suitcase he actually hits Larry harder than Curly?
I give this short a 9/10 and it's my second favorite Preston Black short after Disorder In The Court.
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PAIN is a reworking/remake of Thelma Todd & Zasu Pitts' SHOW BUSINESS (1932 Hal Roach), directed by Jules White.
And Jules White would remake it again (though, very economically) in 1947 as Training For Trouble with Gus Schilling and Richard Lane. Sid Fields (best-known as Melonhead on The Abbott & Costello Show) played Paul Pain and Monte Collins (in his last acting role) was Johnson.
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Motion Picture Herald: "What the Picture Did for Me" (December 19, 1936)
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I think most fans over-rate this one a bit. It's good, just not an all-time classic as there are many more Curlys I rank higher. As it stands, I rank it at #80 on my list.
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AREN'T YOU GUYS ASLEEP YET?!?!
Certainly! We dreamed we saw a swimming pool, so we dove in!
WELL, DIVE BACK IN THAT BERTH OR I'LL MAKE YOU DIVE OFF THIS TRAIN!