Three Little Sew and Sews

Three Little Sew and Sews (1939)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Stooges join the Navy to see the world and meet women but they end up being nothing more than tailors. Curly puts on an Admiral's outfit and goes to a party where he and the boys get kidnapped by spies and forced to steal a submarine. This is pretty average stuff for the Stooges but we still get several gags that work well. I think the second half of the film is where the majority of the laughs are as the stuff inside the sub is pretty funny. The shots of the sub are incredibly fake looking but this helps the laughs as the thing is constantly jumping in and out of the water like you'd expect a fish to do. We also get a funny chase sequence inside the sub as the guys chase the spies in a small circle only to end with the violence we like. The first portion of the movie isn't too bad, although we get many familiar jokes including the boys trying to iron but burning holes through the clothes. The scene with Curly wearing the uniform and torturing Moe and Larry in jail was pretty funny as well.

Could be the first pre WWII comedy short, dealing with international spies. These stories were always bananas because the Stooges gave the goons a run for their money.

It all starts out with Moe, Larry and Curly working in a ship's tailor shop and just happen to get a hold of an admiral's uniform. Curly puts it on -- and all of a sudden he's a distinguished military officer(?), with Moe and Larry as his important aides. I agree with the last reviewer, from this moment on, the Stooges get into a ton of trouble that never stops, just the way all us big kids love it.

The guys wind up at a party, bumping into the spies who eventually trick them into stealing a submarine! Crazy crackers stuff, directed fast and furious by Del Lord. He was at his best with this type of episodic material. Also a Stooge first -- Curly, using his authority as an admiral(?), throws Moe and Larry into the brig! It's fun to see tough guy Moe not in charge for a few seconds.

Veteran actor Harry Semels is appropriately cast as the count, also British actress Phyllis Barry plays Olga. Keep an eye on these two slippery characters. Vernon Dent this time around plays a party guest and Bud Jamison back in form as a stone face cop. An early role for comedian Ned Glass, playing a sailor. Cowboy star Lane Chandler plays a shore patrolman.

Imaginative writing by Ewart Adamson, who wrote tons of short films.

See this one for Admiral Curly and laugh out loud. Always on Columbia dvd, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Big thanks to METV for running these super oldies Saturdays.

The boys are sailors working in a tailor shop on the base. At the last minutes, they are told to clean an Admiral's uniform. Curly finds a pass in the pocket and impersonates Admiral Taylor. The boys escape from the brig and steal uniforms to go to a party. Two spies assume that Curly is Taylor and try to entice him in espionage on a submarine.

The Stooges are rarely sticklers for reason and logic. This one takes the cake. One minute, they're at a party and the next, they're in a submarine. All too often, Stooges shorts are split in two but this one is a rather jarring jump. If they want a submarine Stooges short, just do a submarine Stooges short. Do the whole thing on the submarine. I would love to see the guys try to be imaginative doing all the slapstick on that one set. I still love the guys but this is lesser Stooges despite Curly being front and center.

The Three Stooges films rarely made fun of those in the military service. Yet, in January 1939's "Three Little Sew and Sews," they portray the message that simply wearing an officer's uniform commands utmost obedience, no matter what level the intelligence of the person inside the clothes possesses.

The Stooges' first released 1939 film premiered just as Europe was on the cusp of World War Two, making this short especially topical. Curly, a navy tailor, is the superior Stooge to the normally assertive Moe when he dons an Admirable's uniform just for the fun of it when he's tasked to clean and press the officer's uniform at an United States Navy base. All sorts of mayhem unfolds, including Curly ordering the "insubordinate" Moe and Larry to the brig for slapping him around. A pair of spies attempts to hijack a navel sub with the three in it, only to have all aboard meet their fate in heaven by a bomb explosion. Since Larry was the lightest in weight of the three, director Del Lord elected to have him positioned above Curly and Moe as flying angels while they were all suspended by piano wires. Afraid of heights and also worried his wire would snap sending him on top of the other two, he demanded to be placed below the others. Lord agreed, only to have the film crew hoist him above them. Screaming like a little child, Larry's frightful yells were met by Lord commanding, "You are up there and you are going to stay up there until we finish the gd shoot."

'Three Little Sew and Sews," whose title was a variation of the phrase "so and so," a comment on an undistinguished person, was the last time the tune 'Listened to the Mockingbird" was used in the Stooges'introductory credits. "Three Blind Mice" replaced the familiar tune to become their new signature song. In the film, Curly's tussle with a loose sofa spring attached to his backside, one of the few but memorable sequences such a prop was used, caused the film crew, heard in the background, as well as actor Vernon Dent to laugh hysterically. Compounding to the chaos is Curly, when the coil is at its most taunt, snaps him back to the sofa. He grabs a nearby small cocktail table which accidentally smacks him in the head, causing him to momentary lose his balance.

The naval uniforms look like USN-issue. You would think the Televanian navy would follow the same customs. The admiral, lieutenant, enlisted man, the Stooges and the radio man all wesr their covers (hats) indoors. Faux pas.