Three Loan Wolves

For years I've wondered if there was a more ungrateful cinema brat than the wiseacre kid from this short film. After all our stooges did raising this little chump when even his own mother apparently didn't go to any great lengths to find him, and what kind of thanks do they get--a triple slap to the kisser; and a slap that must have been edited before its initial release, but still noticeable despite the rough jump in the film.

At any rate, I'm looking over the cast credits and "Eggbert" was apparently the boy's given name in this story. "Eggbert Howard" or maybe "Eggbert Fine Howard"... with a name like that, maybe the kid had a right to be ticked?!

I rate this one higher than most, perhaps because I have bad taste (I've been told so a few times) or more likely I just think Larry owns in this episode. "The bag left me holding the babe."

That's Larry's version of "The Three Bears". The first two were heavyweight prizefighters and the third a famous sportswriter.

There are two fight sequences where Curly seems to be holding his own physically;other times when he just stands around and lets Larry take the brunt of the plot.

How do you stop a baby from crying? LARRY:"Lock the baby in the safe and you won't hear it!". Moe does not agree.

In addition to clumsily caring for an abandoned baby,the boys have to fend off protection racketeers on their pawnshop.

The head "tough guy" is knocked out with a bowling ball,placed ina baby carraige with a bottle in his mouth;and shoved out into traffic.

A good showcase for Larry,but 1942's SOCK A BYE BABY is much better.

"How did that baby get here?"

"Business as usual"

WHAT???

"I mean,the kid walks in and asks for a match and I say--"Nah,I don't smoke....."

Larry, Curly, and Moe tell their son of how he came to have three fathers. The guys inherit a pawn shop from their uncle. Hoodlum Butch McGee comes in to collect money for the gashouse protection society. Curly accidentally knocks him out. Molly and Butch are hiding from the cops. She's holding her sister's baby to throw them off. The criminal duo decides to leave the baby in the pawn shop.

I'm not a fan of gunplay with the Stooges. This one goes the next step by giving it to a baby. Larry seems to have a bit more to do in this one. He gets a few scenes by himself. Curly is probably struggling to carry his weight at this point. He still has a few good wacks in him. Otherwise, this is a solid Stooges short.

As most shorts with Curly when he was sick, this was pretty weak. The plot deals with the Stooges telling their adopted son a flashback story of who his real mother is, and how they found him. Not only was the plot weak (the "baby" theme was never one of the Stooges' stronger recurring themes). What's really strange about this is that Larry and Curly's roles appear to have been switched. Larry is the star of the short and gets most of the attention and lines, and Curly hardly has any lines and is pushed into the background. This was strange - it's usually the other way around. I'm guessing Larry and Curly's roles were switched because Curly wasn't up to following the original script. While Larry has some funny lines here, I don't think that he can really carry a short by himself. He's a lot funnier as the middleman, and he's had better shorts where he's shined (FUELIN' AROUND for example), and a lack of Curly in this short is too noticeable. Not a great short.

I agree that curly was forced to use comedy routines when he was ill having had at least one previous stroke(April 1945).His speech was impaired and he appeared to have difficulty getting out every word.He also didn't appear to be using his right upper extremity very well and appeared a bit befuddled.Even in March 1946 Curly needed extensive medical attention for his hypertension and we all know what happened May 6th,1946.This was also Harold Brauer's first short with the stooges. It appeared as though Larry Fine had taken some of the comic burden off Curly's shoulders and he was very funny,but Curly's performance was just sad.Despite this the short was not that bad on the whole;though it appeared to drag a bit and trick photography was used but surprisingly no old stock footage.