Grips, Grunts and Groans

Although the chaotic ending of Grips, Grunts, and Groans is pretty much stolen from the Marx Brothers Animal Crackers it still works well. The Three Stooges throughout their career always were using stuff that other comics did and adapting for themselves. I think part of the reason is that they were not feature film comics like the Marx Brothers or Abbott& Costello, nor did they have the creative freedom that Laurel&Hardy did with Hal Roach. They worked fast and cheap and ground out the product and Harry Cohn at Columbia loved them for that.

The boys become trainers of a contending wrestler whom they accidentally knock out and Curly with false beard has to take his place. Curly has a phobia about the perfume wild hyacinth, some painful memories associated with same. It works on him the same way that the phrase Niagara Falls works in that famous 'Slowly I Turn' burlesque routine that Abbott&Costello use.

If you remember how Harpo demolished the entire cast of Animal Crackers than you know how this one ends. Grips, Grunts, And Groans I'd like to think is the Stooges homage to the Marx Brothers.

This is the Three Stooges short where they accidentally stumble into wrestling gym and to get money for a meal Curly volunteers to be a sparring partner. The champ Bustoff who trains at the gym happens to be watching nearby and finds the stooges hysterical. So he takes them out for a big meal but the stooges get him drunk and he can't go for his big match. So the Stooges have to dress Curly up as him. But Curly can only fight if Curly smells the perfume Wild Hyacinth and can only be stopped by tickling his feet.

The movie came out in the prime of the Three Stooges the Curly era. Not that Shemp isn't good in his own right it's just that the Stooges lineup is best with Curly in addition to the main stays of Moe and Larry.

The last five minutes of this insane Three Stooges story almost puts me in tears laughing, and I've seen it many times. It features Curly as a pro wrestler! Regarding those last few minutes, it's one of those "you have to see it, to believe it" cases. I've never seen Curly go this berserk before, which is saying a lot.

Actually, this Three Stooges classic isn't just pure lunacy at the end: it's crazy and funny from start-to-finish, with a great 1930s look and feel to it. From the opening bums-in-the-railroad car scene, to knocking over a woman's baby carriage to the boxing gym scenes, on and on it goes until the incredibly wild finish.

Included in this story was a theme - used in several Three Stooges films - in which Curly would go bananas by smelling something, or hearing something.....and then he would be unstoppable. This worked to great advantage in the ring, whether it was boxing or wrestling or whatever. In this story, he becomes a wrestler, only "out of soy-cumstance." The real wrestler, a bearded Russian-looking guy named "Bostoff," gets blitzed with a combination of alcoholic drinks and Curly - to save the Stooges butts from the mob boys who have bet on Bostoff - has to take his place.

What happens just kills me. As other reviewers here state, this is a classic Three Stooges, one of the best.

Grips, Grunts and Groans (1937)

**** (out of 4)

Three Stooges short has the boys finding themselves in a jam so they duck into a wrestling gym where the top guy takes a liking to them. The four go out for drinks but the wrestler gets too drunk and can't enter the ring so Curly has to take his place. Even though Curly doesn't know what he's doing he can still go psycho whenever he smells a certain type of perfume. The storyline is pretty similar to their Pop Goes the Weasel but I won't hold it against this film as it's certainly one of their funniest. There were countless scenes that had tears flowing from my eyes due to laughter and I'm not sure I've ever seen Curly go so crazy. There are countless great scenes here including one where the boys are being chased off a train and eventually run over a baby carriage. Another classic is the getting drunk sequence but there's no doubt the highlight is the final sequence where Curly smells too much perfume and flips out on everyone. This is certainly one of the funniest films out there.

The Three Stooges were already copying some hilarious sequences from their earlier shorts. But they ingeniously found a way to make these repeats refreshing. In January 1937 "Grips, Grunts and Groans," the trio revisit the theme of Curly going berserk during a contest when something sets him off. In this case, it's the smell of a woman's perfume, specifically Wild Hyacinth, that throws him for a loop. He later finds himself inside a wrestling ring getting mauled by his opponent when Moe comes across a woman in the audience dabbing some Wild Hyacinth on herself. He grabs her bottle and sprinkles the perfume on Curly's face, turning him into a raging physical maniac.

"I used to think 'Bull Durham' was the greatest sports movie ever made," writes reviewer Richard Hanania. "Now I think it just might be the Stooges' 'Grips, Grunts and Groans.' For one thing, even the title smacks of the Stooge aesthetic." The berserk motif was first introduced in 1934's "Punch Drunk," where the song Larry plays on his violin, "Pop Goes the Weasel," makes Curly crazy. Unlike a mouthful of cheese in the earlier short that calms him down, "Grips, Grunts and Groans" shows the tickling of the bottom of Curly's right bare foot settles him. Wrestler Ivan Bustoff (Harrison Greene, who's seen earlier in the Stooges' 1936 "Ants in the Pantry.") is the gangsters' wrestler to face opponent Ironhead (Casey Columbo), and they bet heavily on him. The Stooges become personal friends of Bustoff, who finds the three funny. They become responsible for his behavior before the match, which is challenging since Ivan gets absolutely blotto from drinking liquor on their watch. He passes out, requiring Curly to disguise himself as Bustoff to take his place in the ring. This sets off one of the screen's wildest melees. The film is included in Phil Hall's listing as '10 Notable Wresting Movies From the Golden Age of Hollywood.'