Slippery Silks

One thing I learned about watching the Stooges for decades, DON'T ask questions.

Here's why...

It all starts out with the guys working as skilled carpenters(?), assigned to a rare, antique cabinet, yes, probably worth a million bucks today! How did they land this gig? Moe and Curly literally destroy the thing (in the tradition of Laurel and Hardy) and run for their lives from the clutches of the owner, Mr. Morgan (Vernon Dent).

Luck comes knocking at their door? Their late uncle happens to leave them a fancy French boutique, worth a fortune, and the guys become overnight fashion experts. How can that be? Answer: Just roll with it.

BEST part to follow; Moe, Larry and Curly stage a fashion show with the help of Mrs. Morgan (Symona Boniface), the wife of the guy who wants to wring their necks!

Don't ask about that coincidence either. A positively insane chain of events.

I agree. This culminates with one of the wildest cream-puff fights, the sloppier the better. Moe commented many years later he had perfect aim when it came to pies, saving the studio a fortune in re-takes. Whatever the prop department put in the pies and puffs made an expensive MESS. Symona Boniface, perfect exasperated foil for the Stooges, was often compared to Margaret Dumont and her escapdes with Marx Brothers. A salute also to hot headed Vernon Dent. In a class by himself. Actress June Gittelson returns, now playing a "plump" party guest. June was becoming a fixture in the films, and we loved her.

Written by Scottish Ewart Adamson, who excelled at writing comedy short films and screenplays for decades. His screenplay is a minor masterpiece. Directed by Jack White, alias Preston Black, who must have had a blast setting this one up.

Always on Columbia dvd, remastered and released generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks again to METV for running these oldies Saturday nights. You make our weekends.

Larry, Curly, and Moe are carpenters tasked with reproducing a $50k chinese box. They accidentally cut it in half. Everything goes wrong and they're on the run. It just so happens that the cops are looking for three missing boys who look like the Stooges. Now they have new lives in a fashion house. It all ends with a cream fight with the upper crust. This is a standard Stooges short. I want more done with the ridiculous Stooges photo. It would be funnier to have the boy somehow forced into those school boy costumes. As for the food fight, they have better ones than this. All in all, this is solid but not necessarily the best.

The last entry in the Columbia 2-Disc Set of Three Stooges shorts is a standard affair, watchable but not exactly a classic (to be honest, very few of these, if any, were!). The boys cause havoc at a shop selling rare items, then discover they've inherited an atelier; the funniest bit is the climax, with the exhibition of their surreal models – dressed in clothes resembling furniture (complete with drawers wherein to keep their cosmetics)!

These shorts are essentially pleasant and certainly harmless – but they're not in any way on the same plane as their contemporaries Laurel & Hardy; one film of theirs I'd love to rewatch, however, is WE WANT OUR MUMMY (1939) – which I used to watch as a kid (my father owned a copy on Super 8!)...

December 1936's "Slippery Silks," the Stooges perform their first pie throwing sequence. Technically, however, their first 'tossing substance in the face" routine is seen in their earlier 1935's "Pop Goes the Easel," where the boys throw sculptor's clay at everyone. In their latest incarnation, the three are carpenters designing and building unique furniture. They soon learn they've inherited a fancy dress boutique from their uncle right after they've destroyed a customer's valuable antique Chinese miniature cabinet. Once ensconced in the new boutique, they're asked to hold a fashion show where the models display the latest in Parisian fashion. Included in the presentation are a couple of dresses designed by Larry that look like cabinets. The show is interrupted by the owner of the valuable Chinese antique the Stooges had destroyed, setting off the hysterically humorous cream puff and pie fight.

Moe Howard claimed he was the only one who threw all the pastries into the actors' faces since, he bragged, he was the most accurate thrower on the set. Over 100 cream puffs were thrown, Moe recalled. But the studio ran out of pastries, so "they had to scrape every ounce of cream off the floor, along with the dirt and sawdust, to finish the short." (Possibly a slight exaggeration on Moe's part). He stated during an interview on the Mike Douglas TV show the "studio auditors claimed I had saved them tens of thousands of dollars with my accuracy in the pie throw." The elder Moe demonstrated his pie-throwing technique to Douglas and his guest Ted Knight while the audiences howled at the antics taking place before the cameras.

The story begins with the police looking for the boys. No, it's not because they broke any laws but they've inherited a women's fashion shop...and they're trying to notify them. In the meantime, you see that the Stooges are carpenters...and they've just destroyed a $50,000 ancient Chinese box! When the police catch them, they think they're going to jail...but it's just about the inheritance.

Now that they are the proud owners of a very upscale ladies shop, the trio naturally blow it because all they understand is carpentry...and how to be idiots. See how all this degenerates into a huge fight involving mostly cream puffs...and an occasional pie.

This is pretty lowbrow...even for the Stooges. I am not saying it's bad but sometimes slapstick takes the place of laughs or plot...especially the last five minutes or so of the short. Not among their best nor worst comedy shorts.

By the way, the perception by many is that in the old days (particularly silent films days) that pie fights were relatively common. This really isn't the case and only a few films featured this gag.