Moronika
Film & Shorts Discussions => The Three Stooges - Curly Years => Topic started by: metaldams on September 12, 2013, 10:37:02 AM
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http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/21
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028791/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
I did say in a previous post that 1937 is a somewhat mediocre year for The Three Stooges, and I stand by that statement. This being said, a mediocre Stooge year can be a great year for just about anybody else, so naturally there are going to be great shorts. DIZZY DOCTORS is such a short. I've always maintained that 1940 - 1941 are the greatest Stooge years, and this is the first short to me, three years early, to have that era's feel. Directed by Del Lord, who was a big part of what I consider to be the peak, we have an incredibly fast pace of gags that work 100 percent of the time and manage to tell a coherent story at the same time, something missing from an earlier fast paced effort like MEN IN BLACK.
Man, I could go all day picking this short bit by bit, but I'll, try my best to get a few highlights and let some others connect the dots. The opening scene is brilliant. The boys are shown as lazy loafers, sleeping until 11:00 while their wives work, getting up only to eat and then going back to sleep again. Curly's half-assed slicing of the bread into a few pieces as food preparation is wonderful, again accenting the laziness. The wives themselves are great and it's funny how there's an older tall woman, a heavier woman, and a petite attractive woman, the difference in physical appearance of all three making a great comic effect. The throwing water on the sleeping Stooges only to have them merely react with Curly raising an umbrella is another classic bit. The lazy ways of the Stooges change the second the threat of losing their wives is established, as they become hard and enthusiastic workers the rest of the short! Incompetent, of course, but hard working nonetheless.
Another wonderful thing about this short is we get both Bud and Vernon in classic roles. This time Bud plays an Irish accent as a cop, and Vernon, as Dr. Harry Arms (!), is his classic angry self. Much like SLIPPERY SILKS, the Stooges mess with Vernon's property as they use Brighto to wreck his paint job on his car, only for Vernon to vow to get them back if he ever sees them again. Of course, as fate would have it, they do run into each other again.
The chase at the end of this short is fast paced and brilliant, and the final little bit I want to point out is that it's great that Larry gets a scene to himself with Bud Jamison. Larry was a talented guy who sometimes got underused in the Curly era, so it's great to see him shine. The missing leg bit is a nice touch.
Overall, a very rich short that frankly an entire article could be written about. I hope this one gets a lot of discussion, because it's a classic.
10/10
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This short probably has more classic lines than any stooge short that I can think of, a few off the top of my head:
"We looked for a job one day last year, there isn't any."
"And I haven't had a new dress since we've been married."
"Well, we only married 5 years."
"And that goes for you too, you weasel-faced porcupine."
As I said on another thread, I think 1937 was a strong year for the boys & this short delivers the goods. Aside from all the classic bits Metal mentioned, I think my favorite part might be when they boys are on the hospital intercom. "Are you listening? Bu-bu-bu-boom, bu-bu-bu-boom, *bop*.
8 out of 10....
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Truly an embarrassment of riches in this one. I'm sure that every one of us could recite this one almost frame by frame. No sense wasting words preaching to the choir here. This is as good as they get.
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DIZZY DOCTORS is an easy classic. It's high-end Curly-era stuff. I can't say anything negative about it.
I think the best Curly period was late '39-mid '42, basically CALLING ALL CURS through WHAT'S THE MATADOR.
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I think the best Curly period was late '39-mid '42, basically CALLING ALL CURS through WHAT'S THE MATADOR.
Basically the period where Del Lord and Jules White were trading off shorts exclusively. That's roughly the time period I consider the peak as well.
Like I said before, DIZZY DOCTORS has the feel of that era, but what we're currently in is the Del Lord/Preston Black era. Then we enter the Del Lord/Charley Chase era, while the late Curly/prime Shemp era is the Jules White/Ed Bernds era. Directors are an interesting way to view eras, and I notice in your time frame, the short before is the last Charley Chase and the short after is the first Harry Edwards.
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The Stooge offerings in 1937 are good for the most part. That said, perhaps they suffer a bit when compared to the years right before (34, 35, 36) and the prime years a few years later. The 34-36 period is the second best stretch in the Curly era (i.e DRUNKS, PIGKSINS, EASEL, BEERS, ALARMS, PULLMAN, POLOI, MANIACS, SHOOTERS, SCOTCH).
While a bit off topic, not only was 1940 arguably the best single year for the Stooges, it may have been the best year for the whole department.
Besides the Stooges, 1940 saw Charley Chase shorts like THE HECKLER and SOUTH OF THE BOUDOIR. Two of my favorite Keaton Columbia's, PARDON MY BERTH MARKS and NOTHING BUT PLEASURE, were also released in 1940. Harry Langdon's COLD TURKEY (1940) is another hoot. Andy Clyde and Shemp paired for two gems in 1940 -- MONEY SQUAWKS and BOOBS IN THE WOODS. There are a lot of Columbia shorts I haven't seen, but I'd imagine it would be hard to top 1940.
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Besides the Stooges, 1940 saw Charley Chase shorts like THE HECKLER and SOUTH OF THE BOUDOIR. Two of my favorite Keaton Columbia's, PARDON MY BERTH MARKS and NOTHING BUT PLEASURE, were also released in 1940. Harry Langdon's COLD TURKEY (1940) is another hoot. Andy Clyde and Shemp paired for two gems in 1940 -- MONEY SQUAWKS and BOOBS IN THE WOODS. There are a lot of Columbia shorts I haven't seen, but I'd imagine it would be hard to top 1940.
Agree completely about 1940 in general. It's Del and Jules competing at their peaks, and those are all great shorts you mentioned.
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So when I was going to rate this short I was wrestling between a seven or an eight. I thought it was a solid short. But to me nothing hilarious.
But when I read the posts here and also the book The Complete Three Stooges I decided to watch the short again. I changed my mind. I am giving it a nine.
The short is really put together and flows.
The continuity from scenario to scenario is smooth and believable. The Stooges show great enthusiasm and its only tempered by their incompetence and ignorance. The time spent in their metamorphosing from sleeping bums to beleaguered husbands to Brighto salesman to fugitives is a scant nine minutes. Such condensed narrative development both intensified by and expanded with verbal and physical gags and slapstick punctuation makes the Stooges films unparalleled in the history of the cinema. (I stole these lines from The Complete Three Stooges book but it is true.)
Some gags that I like are the umbrella, when Larry gets slapped when Curly yells 'Brighto!'. Curly checking the chest of the patient that has dandruff.
Sometimes it is good to watch the short twice. When I do that I usually end up giving the short a higher score. You appreciate it more.
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Curly checking the chest of the patient that has dandruff.
You want to hear something funny? My uncle always had dandruff problems all his life. When he reached his 40s, he started losing his hair and now, he's completely bad. So, just like that patient in this short, my uncle will never have trouble with dandruff again... or hair either.
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I seem to be alone in finding this short mediocre. I suppose that one's estimate of it depends on what one thinks of the style of humor of the early Men in Black, to which the Stooges return in this short as if the Los Arms hospital were a time machine. To me that style of humor, with its whimsical contrivances (traveling around the hospital in various conveyances, giving people traffic tickets, taking the role of radio host on the loudspeaker system, and so on), is weak and tiresome and drags down the overall quality of this short.
There is some good head-conking action at Los Arms, such as when Larry's contribution to the radio act of an unmotivated but completely innocent "Ubbubbubboo, ubbubbubboo" earns him a punitive blow to the forehead from Moe, and again at the bedside of the Rip Van Winkle wannabe (another bizarre Curly double), when Moe gives Curly a "See that?" with one fist and then bops him with the other one. But the Stooges seem to me to do better before they get to the hospital, first in their bizarre domestic arrangement of three couples apparently sharing a one-room and one-bed apartment, then when they sally forth to encounter Dr. Bright and try to hawk his product in the streets. I relish this bit of quasi-musical dialogue, even though the form was used more than once (was it in Uncivil Warriors, or am I thinking of the later Goofs and Saddles?):
Dr. Bright: This, gentlemen, is Brighto.
Stooges: Yes?
Dr. Bright: The savior of a nation!
Stooges: Yes, yes?
Dr. Bright: The scientific marvel of the age!
Stooges: No!
Dr. Bright: Yes!
This leads to an outbreak of spontaneous Stooge rhyme (recalling a similar bit in False Alarms):
Moe: Brighto! Brighto! Makes old bodies new!
Larry: We'll sell a million bottles!
Curly: Woo woo-woo-woo-woo, woo-woo!
Vernon Dent is in top form as the man, later revealed to be hospital director Harry Arms, who finds the boys taking the paint off his car in their attempt to polish it with Brighto. The action by which he gets hit in the face with pies is classic. As he shouts for the police, we see, in a wide shot, the Stooges breaking away from his car at the exact moment that a delivery man, a kind of diabolus ex machina, appears in their path drawing a tray from the back of a truck labeled "Mother's Pies." The setup could hardly be more obvious if the sign on the truck had said, "Pies for Vernon Dent's Face." The boys collide with the delivery man, sending his wares falling on the back of Dent's car. In the real world, this would be the end of the matter. But this is the Stooge universe, in which pies, once they get on camera, must hit someone in the face, and in which nothing attracts them more strongly than the face of a large, angry, blustering Stooge nemesis. So, of course, as Dent continues to shout for the police, pies or pieces of pie fall around him until at last a big one, following a trajectory that would be impossible in the real world, catches him squarely in the puss. Comic necessity triumphs over nature. [pie]
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This is easily one of my top favorites. If I had to pick a short to show someone who hadn't seen the Stooges before, this might be the one.
I think the short describes what the Stooges were about. That some things are better left alone. While they are in bed at home they are harmless to society. But as soon as they are forced out into the world, all hell breaks loose. At the end of the short, when you see them jump thru the window and go back to bed, you know the outside world is once again safe. I rate it a 10
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One gag that hasn't been mentioned and that to be honest is underplayed down to nothing in the film itself, is that this substance, which we have seen can easily and quickly dissolve fabric, melt the paint off a car, and rearrange the cell structure of a man's scalp, is actually meant to be SWALLOWED.
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Miscellaneous comments:
--A couple of other respects (in addition to those I mentioned in my first post) in which this short reprises the style and setup of Men in Black are (1) the repeated gag of the Stooges breaking something of glass (here a stack of bottles, there a door panel) every time they leave their boss and (2) the fact that they are equipped with mallets (here suddenly produced for use on the head of the patient who wants to return to sleep).
--Another excellent bit of head-bopping action at Los Arms comes when Moe sits down at the microphone to use the public-address system. He picks up a mallet that for some reason is lying ready to hand, applies it serially to each of the three skulls that for some reason decorate the desktop, thereby producing the tones of the NBC chimes, and finally caps this musical introduction with a rap on the living skull of Curly, which emits a sharp wooden noise instead of a chime.
--I love the way in which Moe terminates the discussion of what Brighto is for--"It's for sale! Now get busy selling it!"--by using his two hands in simultaneous movement to give Larry and Curly in quick succession a downward-swinging fist to the belly (sound effect: "Boom!") and an upward-swinging fist to the forehead (sound effect: "Pock!"). It's a little thing, but it's the sort of action that makes Moe such a delight to watch.
A couple of comments on Metaldams's first post:
This time Bud [Jamison] plays an Irish accent as a cop
I can detect no Irish accent in Jamison's speech in this short--and Jamison was not subtle when he did accents! I think you have confused his character in this short with the unmistakably Irish cop that he plays in Mutts to You.
the final little bit I want to point out is that it's great that Larry gets a scene to himself with Bud Jamison. Larry was a talented guy who sometimes got underused in the Curly era, so it's great to see him shine. The missing leg bit is a nice touch.
I agree. We get to see something of Larry's particular manner of characterization in this bit that we don't see so clearly when we see him only in relation to the other Stooges. He doesn't assume a highly specific and clearly artificial persona, like Moe's combination of punitive aggression and self-conceit or Curly's combination of bizarre manners and extreme dimness: he's just a slightly crooked down-at-heel guy trying to sell what he thinks is a household cleaner to a cop, and he reacts with very natural dismay and fear when he sees the result. To me, Larry is the "everyman" of the Stooges, the one who is most nearly like a normal human being--even though it has been said that "any resemblance of the Three Stooges to regular human beings, whether living or dead, is a dirty shame" (Don't Throw That Knife).
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Great episode. Love the beginning with the stooges and wives. Love the part where the boys "polish" the car. And Larry with his "gone but not forgotten" leg, lol. The hospital bit was fun too especially when they balded the dandruff patient. Curly singing and rubbing the hair off the guy was hilarious. And the Rip Van Winkle patient was funny too.
8.5/10
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Always great to see a scene with Vernon Dent and Bud Jamison together-albeit a very short one. Dizzy Doctors is one of my personal favorites.
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"Cheese? That's soap!" "I thought it tasted kinda strong."
"Do you know what it's really for? It's for SALE, now get selling!"
This one is perfection from start to finish. Firstly, I want to know how the Stooges did not flinch when the pan of water is thrown on them! Curly cutting the bread with a mallet....the first piece falling on the floor is listed on ThreeStooges.net as a mistake; come on!! I love some obscure things in this short; I love the hairstyle on Dr. Bright's assistant; the pretty blond chewing the gum: "Well, everybody's working since prosperity is back. I love Larry hauling ass down the road after burning a hole in Bud's police jacket with Brighto after his breakout scene in front of the fence (If you have a knickknack with a nick in it, you can knock the nick out of the knickknack with Brighto.....I just found out it cleans Panama hats and furniture. .....I think I got something! Or something's got me...) The little American Austin Roadster that picks up Curly and drops him off across the street... After escaping in the ambulance, Curly says, "Brighto?" and Moe wails Larry in the face.... "I want to go to sleep, put me to sleep!" "Boys, Put!" "Take that scowl off your face. What's the matter with him?" "Oh, he's got dandruff" The head massage that Curly lays on this guy is hysterical, and the guys reactions are awesome; not overplayed. I'll even forgive Jules White's worst overdub ever of Vernon Dent....."Those are the men that wrecked my car; get 'em, boys!!" Altogether, a 10.
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[pie] I also want to remark......the three skulls on the reception desk isn't a great advertisement for the hospital..... And I'm glad the receptionist just leaves the PA system are when three strange guys are hanging around....
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DIZZY DOCTORS is an easy classic. It's high-end Curly-era stuff. I can't say anything negative about it.
I think the best Curly period was late '39-mid '42, basically CALLING ALL CURS through WHAT'S THE MATADOR.
I back up that statement. Curly was better during that time period.
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George Gray is clear in the background when the Stooges are running around the street corner selling Bright-o (after leaving Bright's office). Thought I saw William Irving again, too (light-colored hat), but I'm not sure.
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My second favorite 1937 stooge short after "Cash And Carry", to me this short seems to feel more right at home with the classic late 1935-36 stooge, I loved the scene where the stooges were on the intercom and both Curly and Larry were getting on Moe's nerves!
While 1937 was never one of my favorite years for the Stooges the only great episodes from that year are this, "Cash & Carry" and "The Sitter Downers".
I give this short a 10/10
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DIZZY DOCTORS is an easy classic. It's high-end Curly-era stuff. I can't say anything negative about it.
I think the best Curly period was late '39-mid '42, basically CALLING ALL CURS through WHAT'S THE MATADOR.
I've thought there were some great Stooge shorts that came out in the second half of 1942 to much of 1943, "Three Smart Saps", "They Stooge To Conga", "Higher Than A Kite" and "I Can Hardly Wait" are IMO up there with the best Stooge shorts.
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Not much to add, except this short was aired last night on MEtv & I was laughing my ass off not only at this, but the fact that they aired a Joe Besser short right after it & even though I flipped channels, I could tell they did some major editing on Guns a Poppin'...
Not that I'm complaining.... ;)
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Not much to add, except this short was aired last night on MEtv & I was laughing my ass off not only at this, but the fact that they aired a Joe Besser short right after it & even though I flipped channels, I could tell they did some major editing on Guns a Poppin'...
Not that I'm complaining.... ;)
Funny timing, I just watched this with my nephew on Friday night.
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A Stooge classic I never tire of watching. Del Lord made some of the fastest two-reelers in cinema history and "Dizzy Doctors" moves at warp speed. Charles Nelson's editing is spot-on (he won an Academy Award for "Picnic" in 1956) with nary a wasted frame. If there's a faster-paced comedy short, I haven't seen it.
10/10
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I guess one of the great Unsolved Stooge Mysteries is who exactly dubbed Vernon Dent's voice for the line "Those are the birds who wrecked my car."
I used to assume it was maybe Del Lord himself, but having seeing a clip of Del Lord being interviewed, the voices were totally different...
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I guess one of the great Unsolved Stooge Mysteries is who exactly dubbed Vernon Dent's voice for the line "Those are the birds who wrecked my car."
I believe it was Jules White.
https://columbiashortsdept.weebly.com/the-three-stooges.html
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I believe it was Jules White.
https://columbiashortsdept.weebly.com/the-three-stooges.html
Mystery solved--thanks for the link... 👍
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I was amazed to discover I never reviewed this short, but I decided to see if my opinion had changed.
DIZZY DOCTORS has all the energy of its original base, MEN IN BLACK, with a straight Stooge flavor from start to finish. We get great outdoor shots, some fun scenes of individual Stooges hawking the snake oil, and tandem chaos. This has the pace, the constant humor, and the great acting of a classic short, and we're better off for having it.
10/10 [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke] [poke]
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Just being redundant here (is anybody ever "dundant?") --a classic short, a Stooge Top Ten, proof that yes! The Three Stooges can be just as funny as Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers! An "Introduce Non Believers to the Stooges" winner!
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Looks like I'm in the minority yet again (no surprise). While I've always found this one enjoyable, I just can't rate it as an all-time classic. More smiles than belly laughs for me.
#92. Dizzy Doctors
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If I recall correctly, this film marks the first time all three Stooges are married.
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An all-time favorite. During my sophomore year in college, my roommate and I had recorded a few scenes from the Stooges, Slap Shot and Python...onto an audio cassette (well, it was the 80's).
The second half of this short was the Stooges contribution. Curly's la la la la cadence change amidst his failed dandruff remedy application was the clear highlight. If the dorm was a bit noisy at bedtime, on went the tape. Falling asleep laughing was a good way to go.