Topic: Up In Daisy's Penthouse (1953)

[metaldams]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046484/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
http://www.threestooges.net/filmography/episode/143

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pMMQMc6OQOo

Watch UP IN DAISY'S PENTHOUSE in the link above.



      First off, did anybody catch the filming dates of this one?  1/21/52 - 1/23/52.  Curly died 1/18/52.  Obviously, the show must go on, but they must have been in mourning while filming this short.

      Really don't have much to say about this one, very much like 3 DUMB CLUCKS, the film this is a remake of.  It's an OK film, will never complain when it's on, but the plot is far from classic.  I think it's the whole third stooge double angle.  The constant jarring editing and stunt doubles you have to do to pull off this plot really disrupt the rhythm.  Connie Cezon is always a pleasure to watch and I agree with those who feel any highlight of this short has to do with alcohol.  Moe's strange names and talking about the time he had six of that drink is funny, as is Larry mixing alcohol in his hair as a sort of shampoo.  Funny stuff!

      Sorry, don't have much this week.  Like I said, a remake of a film I don't feel that strong about to begin with!  The next two weeks we enter the two strange half stock footage films. Til next time.

7/10

[Paul Pain]

This is another "love it or hate it" short.  This short has its moments, but overall it's really dissatisfying.  Somehow, Papa has managed to practically overnight divorce his wife, buy a swanky new mansion, and get a gunman's moll as his girlfriend.

One must give a shout-out to Shemp though as he really works well with the sack of turd part he's got here.  His best moment though is the King Solomon line.

Larry and Moe are just overall pretty bored with the plot too until we get to the scene where they're mixing the drinks.  This bit is funny and more Stooge like.  It's a recycled plot for them, so it's more or less going through the motions.

As far as supporting cast, I must give my credits to three men who played the thugs: John Merton, Jack Kenney, and Blackie Whitford.  They did well, especially John and Jack making the faces as they try to figure out Shemp's duplication.

The ending is really just a weak attempt to recycle footage from what was already a crappy ending.  But I must always giggle at moments where we are obviously watching dummies take abuse.  Unfortunately for Shemp, he's still married to that dame!

Overall I think this would have been a good short...

If Laurel and Hardy had done it.

6/10

[Lefty]

This is a weak remake of "3 Dumb Clucks."  Maybe it should have been titled "Up in Daisy's Outhouse."  The best part was the drink-mixing scene, especially with Moe telling us the gibberish ingredients.

[Shemp_Diesel]

Well, I guess I'll be the first to give this a glowing review. I've always preferred this to the original with Curly--maybe because the pace of the short is a bit quicker than Clucks, and some of the scenes from the original; like the overlong shopping for a hat scene, are replaced with better scenes like Moe & Larry getting into it while trying to get dressed. Or Shemp trying to get the stain out of Pa's trousers.

There's also little bits that always make a stooge short worthwhile--like that closeup of Larry after he says "Yeah, but we better be very careful." Or the whole business with the "Enar-Frapini" (I think I spelled that right) and Shemp trying to put away some silver muglets. I also enjoyed the bit with Shemp--or rather his stunt double--sliding up the stairs.

The only part where I would dock a few points is the closing minutes where Jules White tries to graft scenes from the original into this one--a bit lazy and rather sloppily handled, but that's only a minor quibble.

Overall, when it comes to remakes, I may put this one at the top--slightly ahead of Listen, Judge.

9.5 out of 10....

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

      Stock-footage Fest is upon us!  There's worse to come, as we all know, but besides the deplorable  stock footage, There are a couple of lines in the new footage that I'd like to point out  which show how tired and played out  (and perhaps, as has been suggested by some others, drunk ) the writers were.  Let's try this as an A-B comparison, A.) being Three Dumb Clucks with Curly, and B.) being Daisy's Penthouse with Shemp:

A.)  C: You think they mean me?
       M: They dont mean Me...
       L: Me either!

B.)  S: You think they mean me?
       M: Well they don't mean your uncle!

A.)  Thug: Daisy's waitin' for you downstairs!
       C. Oh, I better get down there!

B.)   Thug: Daisy's waitin for you downstairs!
        S: Well, I'd better get down there quickly.

     Looking at the first exchange, A.) is not really a joke, it's a bit of dialogue which, along with pretty good acting, ramps up the tension.  B.) is just a stupid,  amateurish, mean wisecrack by Moe which adds nothing to the situation and lands with a thud as a joke.
     In the second exchange, at A.) Curly is energetic and pops a good straightline, his energy matching the toss down the elevator shaft.  At B.) Shemp reads that line, which is ineptly written anyway, if indeed it was written that way, like someone inquiring about a library book, so affectless and unemotional is he.  It's tempting to think he muffed the line slightly, so humorless is it, but he enunciates smoothly enough that a gaffe is not obvious,  and it just comes off as a terrible reading of a terrible line, and, if you know the original, terribly unfunny.
     Look, guys, I hate reviling these things in print, and I know the circumstances that made them so bad, and I promise I won't be a buzzkill on most of them ( which is to say I won't be commenting at all  ) but every so often I'm going to have to vent.  Metal, you were kind enough to say you're looking forward to my Besser comments, thank you, but that's not going to happen much.  The Bessers are too depressing.
     I'll hang around, though, until the Curly-Joes, which I like, and with which I am probably all alone in the world.

[JazzBill]

I like this short but I was trying to figure out which one I like better, Up In Daisy's Penthouse or 3 Dumb Clucks. I have to call it a draw. Both Curly and Shemp are at the top of their game. I do like the hat scene in the Curly short a lot but Shemp does a great job also. Not a bad remake and I rate it an 8.   

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

There's nothing like abdominal surgery to make you aware of what things make you laugh: you quickly discover that you have to avoid those things, because the physical reaction of laughter is, for a time, intolerably painful. So watching this short the day after I had come home from the hospital turned out to be a bad idea. It did, however, make me aware of how much there is in it that makes me laugh, despite my having seen it several times before, and despite the whole thing being a remake of an even more familiar earlier short with Curly (Three Dumb Clucks). It was during the business of the boys breaking into their father's house, when Moe applies the sledge hammer to Shemp's posterior (it makes me laugh just to recall that bit), that I had to stop watching. A week later, I had healed to the point at which I could watch the whole thing. I would grant that whatever is good is in this one is just carried over from the earlier one. But it's still pretty good. Did other people notice the bit in which footage and sound track with Curly himself is spliced in? It happens when the boys are suspended from the flagpole. We actually hear Curly go, "Woo woo woo woo!" and see him for a moment.

[JazzBill]

Did other people notice the bit in which footage and sound track with Curly himself is spliced in? It happens when the boys are suspended from the flagpole. We actually hear Curly go, "Woo woo woo woo!" and see him for a moment.

I noticed stuff like that in a few shorts. One that comes to mind is in Triple Crossed with Joe Besser. When Moe fires up the chimney at Joe you can hear Shemp yell when he is shot. That yell is from the short He cooked His Goose. There's another short when Curly slides off a table and falls out a window. On his way down you hear a yell but it's Bud Jamisons voice. I can't remember which short that's from. Hope you're feeling better Dr.

[Lefty]

There's nothing like abdominal surgery to make you aware of what things make you laugh: you quickly discover that you have to avoid those things, because the physical reaction of laughter is, for a time, intolerably painful. So watching this short the day after I had come home from the hospital turned out to be a bad idea. It did, however, make me aware of how much there is in it that makes me laugh, despite my having seen it several times before, and despite the whole thing being a remake of an even more familiar earlier short with Curly (Three Dumb Clucks). It was during the business of the boys breaking into their father's house, when Moe applies the sledge hammer to Shemp's posterior (it makes me laugh just to recall that bit), that I had to stop watching. A week later, I had healed to the point at which I could watch the whole thing. I would grant that whatever is good is in this one is just carried over from the earlier one. But it's still pretty good. Did other people notice the bit in which footage and sound track with Curly himself is spliced in? It happens when the boys are suspended from the flagpole. We actually hear Curly go, "Woo woo woo woo!" and see him for a moment.

Post #600!

I hope you're feeling better, Doc.  As for major "abominable" surgery -- been there, had that.  It was 30 years ago, and when I made the mistake of waking up afterwards, I thought that the instruments had been left inside me, like for Dr. Graves in "Men in Black."  Three days after the surgery, still in the hospital, I tried to watch a Marx Brothers movie whose title I cannot recall, but I had to turn it off after ten minutes because it was too funny.

"Laughter is the best medicine" -- except in cases like ours.

[Dr. Hugo Gansamacher]

"Laughter is the best medicine" -- except in cases like ours.

Yes, it depends very much on the case, or at least the timing.

[Kopfy2013]

I liked the original better but this was viewable.  I give it a 6.

[luke795]

For some reason I prefer this short to the original.

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Poor, deluded boy.

[Paul Pain]

Poor, deluded boy.

I have heard of killing in cold blood, but Big Chief has his tomahawk in hand and is being quite ruthless with it!

[Big Chief Apumtagribonitz]

Naah.  See my comment to Luke on Rip Sew and Stitch.

[Larrys#1]

Anyone notice the poor editing job at the end to transition the old footage with the new footage? The stooges fall from the building and on top of "pa" on the sidewalk and then it cuts to the stooges falling into wet cement.

[metaldams]

Watching these 50’s Shemp shorts again and I may be overthinking things, but as some people mentioned, Curly’s “woo woo’s” are heard in the soundtrack when the boys are being cut down from the flagpole.  Gotta wonder if that was done as a tribute.  Like stated earlier, they started filming this thing three days after he died!

Whatever lack of energy some may see I would forgive under the circumstances.  Rehashing an old Curly script and Shemp playing his recently deceased brother’s duel role had to be a mindfuck of major proportions.  Like Schilling and Lane in PARDON MY TERROR, chalk this up as an impossible situation and the mere fact this is watchable is a miracle in itself.

[Dr. Mabuse]

Tired remake of a second-tier Curly short. The Stooges are fine (though I prefer Curly's "Old Man Howard"), but the material was never great to begin with. Jules really botched the ending thanks to some badly edited stock footage.

5/10

[Daddy Dewdrop]

While this one is no great shakes, I do prefer it to "3 Dumb Clucks."  Shemp has some good lines and the drink mixing scene is a highlight.

#150. Up In Daisy's Penthouse