Cash and Carry

By their 25th episode, The Three Stooges had settled on a formula playing characters from the lower class, while at the same time ridiculing those rich people in the upper class. A prime example was in September 1937's "Cash and Carry," where the three are frustrated gold prospectors who return to their digs at the local city dump, only to find a handicapped boy with his older sister living in their quarters.

"Cash and Carry" is the first Three Stooges' film where they care about the less fortunate, breaking new ground for Moe, Larry and Curly. The Stooges find the little boy Jimmy (Sonny Bupp) inside doing his homework. His crippled leg needs surgery, and the normally apathetic trio show their sympathy for the boy when they spot Jimmy's handicap while he's walking out of the shack. Child actor Sonny Bupp later played Charles Foster Kane's son in 1941's "Citizen Kane," and was the last surviving cast member of the Orson Welles' classic, passing away in 2007 at 79. Discovering he and his sister (Harlene Wood) have $62 saved up for the $500 operation, the Stooges suggest an interest bearing savings account at the local bank. Unfortunately, they find out from a bank teller it would take over 100 years for their account to reach $500. Two unscrupulous men, played by actors Nick Copeland and Lew Davis, overhear their dilemma and con them into buying a map for $62 that details where to find pirate Captain Kidd's buried treasure in an abandoned house. The Stooges proceed to look for the treasure by the only way they can with picks, shovels and dynamite that ultimately results in the discovery of a horde of gold. Such action, however, lands them a personal meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Moe, Larry and Curly find a cripled boy and his sister living in there home at the dump yard and they need five hundred dollors to fix the little boys leg so the stooges meet these guys who trick them into getting lots of money, I won't say anything else cuz I will give it away so go watch it......NOW

Cash and Carry (1937)

*** (out of 4)

The Three Stooges find a crippled boy and his sister living in their junk yard so they go to deposit their money in the bank so that nothing happens to it. The boys end up trading the money away for a "buried treasure", which two con men tell them is in a house, which they soon destroy trying to look for the goods. This here is a pretty good short for the boys, which features a similar plot to the one that would be used in LARCENY, INC. (and later SMALL TIME CROOKS). The movie features plenty of nice laughs from start to finish even though there aren't any real loud ones. My favorite sequence is towards the end when all three men are down in this giant hole they dug when they realize they don't have any place to throw the new dirt so they decide to dig another hole just to put the new dirt in. Moe ends up getting beat up pretty bad by the other two who keep swinging their shovels. The opening stuff dealing with the junk car and its bad tires is pretty funny as well but the ending is where the film really works.

This one ranks right up there with 3 LITTLE PIRATES, as an excellent episode, a rather touching story, if you will, with our 3 boys doing what they can to help the little boy (Sonny Bupp). What makes it unique is that even though they hit each other with blunt objects, there's only a small handful of slaps and pokes, and no slapstick at all in any scene with the boy. Thoughfully arranged and worked out. A keeper in my book. Anyone unfamiliar with the Stooges, or who doesn't like them at all, should watch this one to see they could be relatively decent actors as well as comedians, in the way they interact with the boy and his sister. And accepting a pardon from FDR himself puts this one in the right historical context of the depression.

Cash And Carry was one of the best Three Stooges short subjects in their careers. It was also one of the few that touched on what was going on in the real world of 1937.

Moe, Larry, and Curly are back from the country looking for work, riding in their old jalopy which still has a crank starter in the front. They've blown their last tire just as they arrive in their residence which is a shack in the city dump. But when they get there they find that Sonny Bupp and his big sister Harley Wood have taken up residence thinking it was abandoned.

They stay and Sonny is lame and wearing a brace and they're trying to raise money for an operation. The boys offer to help, but remember this is the Three Stooges.

They take the money raised and some crooks chisel them out of it by selling them an abandoned house where supposedly 'treasure' was hid. So the boys go digging and you can imagine the possibility of gags with them using picks and shovels.

As for the rest of the film think of the Abbott&Costello classic, Coming Round The Mountain and you know how this comes out.

Except in the end they get a White House audience with a crippled president who needed a few laughs. FDR grants them executive clemency and they need it and offers to pay for Sonny Bupp's operation.

Cash And Carry has a bit more sentimentality than most Three Stooges shorts. But in focusing on the real problems of homelessness and the Great Depression the film is a cut above the usual slapstick comedy the boys normally do.