Half-Wits Holiday

Taken at face value, without knowledge of the history behind it, this is a lot of fun. The dining table & reading scenes are among the funniest Stooge bits I've ever seen, and the latter includes what has to be the strangest Stooge quote ever: "Tar yetridy eeth say. Glug zap snorglotz ramitz. Ronissance kibbaertz..."

The problem is, this is hard to take at face value. Even if one didn't know about Curly's career-ending stroke while filming this, one has to wonder why his character never comes back after walking off to go sit down -- his absence from the rest of the film is obvious and makes no sense.

This was just the beginning of what was clearly a hard period for Larry & Moe. It's hard to imagine them having to be funny on film for the next several years while seeing Curly waste away, or during 1956 having to pretend the late Shemp was still filming with them. Knowing these parts of their history can really overshadow the humor of some of their films.

This short is most memorable for two reasons, one is that this is Curly's last official stooge short (despite his cameo in Hold That Lion) due to a major stroke while filming and it's also the debut of long-time stooge foil Emil Sitka who plays Sappington the butler, Curly was obviously very sick throughout the short although at the scenes when the stooges were pretending to eat Curly shows little signs of his oldself which is a big plus and the reading scenes were funny, but at the party is the sad point of the short although when I watched this short the first couple times, I was wondering what happened to Curly (that was before I knew that he suffered a stroke) and when we get to the pie fight is when Curly suffers a stroke and Moe and Larry had to finish the scene without Curly.

Overall, at least that this short was Curly's last stooge short instead of Three Loan Wolves which was recorded a few months earlier and Curly's health was so bad that he and Larry had to switch roles although unfortunately they had to do a remake of this short with Joe Besser in 1958 called Pies and Guys which was filmed almost exactly 11 years later.

Pretty much a carbon copy of the classic short HOI POLLOI (1935). I don't like it when they re-do classics, although this is okay. But as we all probably know, Curly (who was already ill at the time from a previous stroke) suffered a second, more powerful stroke during the filming and had to be hospitalized and retired afterwards. While Curly was in the hopsital, the heartless Columbia-head bastard, Harry Cohn, forced Moe and Larry to finish filming the short without him. That must've been really hard for them to do, and it wasn't worth it anyway. The pie-fight may be pretty funny, but Curly's absense from it is too obvious, and the ending was pretty weak and out-of-place.

As a big Curly fan, it's not easy for me to see this comic genius struggling in his last few years, and watching this film knowing he had another stroke during the filming is hard. This short should have never been released, and they should've left THREE LITTLE PIRATES as Curly's last short, since he does a remarkable job there, even despite his ill health.

Also, a few more things: to the person who said they used a double for Curly for the rest of the short after he was sent to the hospital, that didn't happen. Maybe you're thinking of Shemp's death, where they used a double for him in 4 shorts after he died. And also, to the person who said that Shemp wasn't that great - you have to give Shemp another chance. Although Curly's my personal favorite Stooge, Shemp was very talented and funny in his own right, and he and Curly are both equally great. Plus, he was the original third Stooge anyway, so he already had experience, even before he re-joined in 1947. Now, Joe Besser, on the other hand, he was a pathetic Stooge from start to finish.

Two professors disagree on nature vs nurture and make a bet on it. When maintenance workers Larry, Curly, and Moe show up, Prof. Quackenbush offers $1000 to make them into gentlemen with help from his statuesque daughter Lulu.

This short fits well with The Three Stooges. It is most well known for Curly's devastating stroke during filming. It would mark the effective end of Curly with the Stooges. This one has as much joke telling as physical comedy. It does end in a pie fight and there is nothing as joyful as a pie fight. It's simple fun in a simple concept with a sad background.

Excluding a cameo appearance he has in "Hold That Lion", this is really the last 3 Stooges film ever to feature Curly. It is a satisfying swan song... if Curly had to end his acting career with a film, I'm glad it was this one. The premise is basically re-used from an earlier Stooges short "Hoi Polloi" (i.e. two professors bet whether environment or heredity determines social behavior and use the Stooges to settle their wager) but this film is, in my opinion at least, superior to "Hoi Polloi" thanks largely to Moe's acting contributions (he seems to be at his most vicious here; among other things, he dumps his cigar ashes down Curly's throat) and some new gags (the memorable dining table scene). Curly does not appear in the film's final moments (he suffered a stroke before those scenes were filmed) and the film suffers a little from that but this is still one of my very favorite Stooge flicks... historical aspects aside. RECOMMENDED