Half-Wits Holiday

HALF-WITS' HOLIDAY was Curly Howard's sad swan song. Riding high from his amazing performance in the previous Stooge short, THREE LITTLE PIRATES, it is hard to believe that Curly suffered a major stroke during the final days of filming. Curly has already suffered a minor stroke ten films prior to this one, and his performances were up and down after that. In some films, he was more or less his old self. In others he was sickly.

The short is a story remake of the Stooges' 1935 film, HOI POLLOI, in which a professor (Vernon Dent) wagers a colleague (Ted Lorch) that he can transform the Stooges into refined gentleman. The short itself is paced slower and more gradually than HOI POLLOI, which moves at a very brisk pace. Some of the action has been shifted from Curly to Larry, as Curly was no longer able to caryy our full sequences anymore, due to his illness. In this film, Curly's voice (which had been strained for his last few films) is more high-pitched than usual, and his actions are more natural. One would think that filming was happening simultaneously with THREE LITTLE PIRATES. Contrary to what author Jeffrey Forrester wrote in his book "The Stooge Chronicles," Curly's overall performance is not that sluggish. The first scene where they boys are working on the fireplace is an example on Jules White giving Curly's lines to Larry, as Curly remains mute for most of this scene, and doesn't have a line until nearly three minutes into the film (`Our father would never forgive us'). However, his mock eating scenes with Moe and Vernon Dent are his last great moments on film. There is a spirited `woo woo woo' when the butler (played by new character actor Emil Sitka) announces `luncheon is served.' Instead of having Curly handle scenes with a few others, he is reduced to sharing the screen only with Moe. Larry and Moe then handle the plucking of the hand hair under the table routine. Curly even gets a few close-ups of applying lipstick. Which unfortunately, reveal how badly his 42-year old face had been ravaged from his illness. Maybe his body was giving him a break before finally falling apart altogether. It starts to show by the party scenes. Curly is already looking tired and his voice is starting to deepen again. As documented in The Columbia Comedy Shorts, Curly was having serious problems mastering brief dialogue when first talking to party guest. Larry starts with `delighted,' followed by Moe: `devastated;' and then Curly: `Dilapidated.' The final result may look OK, but Jules White later commented `I had a devil of a time. I should have realized then that (Curly) was deteriorating even further.' Then, when Curly bends over to pick up the silverware that falls out of his tuxedo jacket, he looks like as old man. Curly had a stroke on the set during the filming of the pie fight. This explains his absence during this scene. Moe had found poor Curly with his head slumped on his shoulder. Moe had Curly rushed to the local hospital, and then completed the pie fie shots with Larry. One must watch Moe and Larry, realizing that while throwing pies, their thoughts were preoccupied with images of Curly's head slumped on his chest, unable to speak. What makes HALF-WITS' HOLIDAY all the more fascinating is that even though the film was a remake of HOI POLLOI, only the storyline is reworked. This would become the standard practice when it came to remakes during the Shemp until 1952, when entire scene were lifted from older Shemp films due to tightening budgets. No older footage is used here, which is commendable. During Curly's tenure with the Stooges, only one remake was made, and not out of budgetary constraints. Had this been a post-1952 remake, then footage of HOI POLLOI may have been inserted to make up for Curly's absence. Curly's premature departure from the filming of HALF-WITS' HOLIDAY actually helped the Stooges in the future, as the pie fight footage would be reused several times in the future. Without Curly in the shots, the footage was generic and had great flexibility. Footage from the 1941 Stooge pie film IN THE SWEET PIE AND PIE could easily have been inserted here to remind us that Curly was in this short, but Jules White never quite resorted to this tactic. HALF-WITS' HOLIDAY is a final word on Curly Howard as a full time Stooge. Though Curly's older brother Shemp would step into the act to keep the Stooges going, the films lost a special charm. Shemp was a gifted comedian, and added a different flavor to the Stooge comedies that many fans and critics have criticized him for, but the youth of the Stooges left with Curly's departure, ending the career of one of the greatest comics of his time.

Many people like to view Half-Wits Holiday as Curly's last performance and talk about how ill he was. I prefer to take a longer look and mention how funny it is. It has plenty of classic stooge mayhem and lines. The boys being regarded as three missing links; feeling ashamed at the prospect of being turned into gentlemen; Symona Boniface telling Moe, "You act as though the sword of Damocles is hanging over your head!"; and of course, a tidy pie fight.

I've always thought that Moe seemed to get meaner as he got older, and my personal suspicion was that he didn't like the fact that his brother Curly was forced to act and not rest in his last few years as a stooge. (And after Curly's death, Moe really took it out on Shemp.) I was also thinking it must have been difficult for him on a certain level to be hitting Curly when his kid brother was obviously not well.

Anyway, I think this short has one of the most classic stooge lines ever. It's when the boys are seated around the dinner table and being coached on proper dining etiquette but only pretending to use utensils and eat food. Curly turns to Professor Quackenbush and asks, "Pardon me, what are we eating now?"

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.

Half Wits Holiday ended the career of Curly Howard, easily one of the most remarkable individuals in Entertainment History. That may sound a little strong to some people, but I don't think it is.

I was working on a television special in Los Angeles just after the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 when we got a phone call saying that Curley's gravestone had suffered some damage from the quake, as had others around it. We took a camera crew over to a small Jewish Cemetery in East L.A. The area is Latino but 80 years ago was home to Jewish families from Brooklyn. I asked the manager of the place what all these people were doing there. She said :"Well we have the second most visited grave in Los Angeles.....people are here to help out..." The cemetery holds movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, Singer Fanny Bryce, Samuel "Shemp" Howard, and the second most visited grave---Jerome "Curly" Howard.

Marilyn Monroe gets the most regular visitors at Forest Lawn, then comes Curly in East L.A.

The grave is marked Horowitz not the later "Howard", and people were putting small stones and coins back on top that had fallen off. There were lines of old, young, middle aged, children, everybody. I could not believe the number of people who were there.

That afternoon we interviewed Joan Howard Maurer, Moe's daughter, who remembered vividly her Uncle Curly's strokes and last performances. And she knew plenty about the years when her father, Uncle Shemp, and Uncle Curly were Vaudeville superstars along with Larry Fineberg. She said Moe scripted the act, but Curly was the trigger that made it work. She remembered hilarious family dinners with her Dad, Uncle Shemp and Uncle Curly. Even the Marx Bros. have a hard time topping that !

And she remembered that it all ended too soon.

For film buffs, you would probably know this was Curly's last official short (though he did appear in a brief cameo in a short called hold that lion). True, it is still funny, but it is still sad to see Curly like this (while shooting the short, he had a stroke and most of his shots were filmed by a double). Not only because a great trio was split up, but because Shemp came in afterwards. No offense to Shemp (really), but Shemp did for the Three stooges what Gus Van Sant did to Psycho. Still, all that aside, this is a funny short, and it is nice to see them. One last time. A