The Fire Chaser

Before Joe Besser became one of the Three Stooges following Shemp Howard's death, Besser made a string of short comedies for Columbia. Many of the solo films AND Stooges films were lazy remakes of previous Columbia shorts but of all of them, "The Fire Chaser" has to be the laziest and most pathetic remake of all!

Unlike other remakes, "The Fire Chaser" is actually a remake of an earlier Besser short, "Waiting in the Lurch"...which was actually a good film and possibly Besser's best. But it's so lazy that about 80-90% of the film IS "Waiting in the Lurch" and a few scenes were added here and there (mostly at the beginning and end) to make an 'all new movie'....baloney! All in all, there is no reason to see this short. In no way is it better than the previous one and is Columbia lazy filmmaking at its worst.

Christine McIntyre is all set to marry Joe Besser, but every time he hears fire trucks go by, he has to go see the conflagration.

It's a remake of 1949's WAITING IN THE LURCH, Actually, it uses most of the earlier short, but with a few new sequences shot, mostly involving Besser telling his tale of woe to a pretty nurse who wants to marry a rich millionaire like Besser.

Besser came out of burlesque, and can be spotted around as a supporting comic for Abbott & Costello in their TV show and as 'Curly Joe' in the last four or five years of Columbia's Three Stooges shorts. He's ok in small doses. With Vernon Dent, Joe Palma, and Stanley Blystone.