Playing the Ponies

Larry, Curly, and Moe run a bad restaurant. Larry and Moe are tired of the complaints. The guys get tricked into trading the restaurant for a horse. The horse is a dud until Curly mistakenly feeds it hot peppers.

The comedy is a bit slow especially during the horse race. The start and stop flow makes the comedy also start and stop. As for the restaurant, Curly works mostly in the kitchen by himself and that keeps the jokes disjointed. This is mostly fun.

Who doesn't like a goofy race horse film?

Yes, it's nuts.

The Stooges have a decision to make. Continue running their restaurant (called the Flounder Inn) which sells lousy food? -- OR trade it for Thunderbolt(?) a winning racehorse? A couple of crooks dupe Moe, Larry and Curly into giving up their business, and now they're stuck with an old, worn down racehorse.

But wait, there's more! Curly happens to feed Thunderbolt a bunch of chili pepperinos (aka REAL HOT PEPPERS) and the horse goes nuts! Thunderbolt has to bolt to the nearest bucket of water to coooool off! Comes the idea; why not enter him in a race with lots of water waiting for him at the finish line? Crazy on steroids idea, and riding Thunderbolt to victory is noneother than Larry! Finally, Larry comes off as a hero, deserving a little recognition every now and then.

A gotsta' see from start to the finishline, written to max by Elwood Ullman, who later wrote several films for the BOWERY BOYS.

This was director Charles Lamont's second and last film with the Stooges, who moved to Universal Pictures and had his greatest success with ABBOTT AND COSTELLO.

Some familiar faces; silent screen comedian Charles Dorety in the background, also 6 foot 4 Jack "Tiny" Lipson, who appeared in scores of films, showing off his height. Listen for the voice of Billy Bletcher, unseen as the racetrack announcer. Billy became a star voicing (now legendary) cartoon characters for Walt Disney.

This film short was remastered and colorized by Columbia. Always on dvd, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks always to METV for running these golden oldies Saturdays.

In The Three Stooges' short film, October 1937 "Playing the Ponies," the trio are owners of a seaside restaurant called The Flounder Inn that's financially struggling. Similar to their previous film, the Stooges are approached by two conmen (played by the same actors Nick Copeland and Lew Davis). Their offer is to trade the pair's racehorse for the Stooges' Flounder Inn. Reading about the high payoffs for first place racehorses, the Stooges immediately agree to the deal, only to find their prize winning horse, Thunderbolt, is really a saggy-backed aging horse. But when they accidentally feed hot pepper nuts to Thunderbolt, the sluggish horse suddenly runs double-quick to the water trough to quench his thirst.

Veteran director Charles Lamont took the reins on "Playing the Ponies." Lamont, who broke into film in 1923 working for Mack Sennett, handled most of Buster Keaton's short films at Educational Pictures before moving over to Columbia Pictures. Lamont directed only two Stooges' films, this and 1935's "Restless Knights" before he realized "I had an intense hatred for Columbia's president Harry Cohn," and eventually joined Universal Pictures. He directed the later pictures of Abbott and Costello as well as the Ma and Pa Kettles series.

The Three Stooges has always been some of the many actors that I have loved. I love just about every one of the shorts that they have made. I love all six of the Stooges (Curly, Shemp, Moe, Larry, Joe, and Curly Joe)! All of the shorts are hilarious and also star many other great actors and actresses which a lot of them was in many of the shorts! In My opinion The Three Stooges is some of the greatest actors ever and is the all time funniest comedy team!

This is one of My favorite Three Stooges shorts with Curly! All Appearing in this short are Billy Bletcher, Nick Copeland, Lew Davis, Charles Dorety, William Irving, and Jack 'Tiny' Lipson! This one is so hilarious! Curly has a great performance here and in My opinion its one of his best. I strongly recommend this Three Stooges short!

Playing the Ponies (1937)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The Stooges are running a junky restaurant where no client leaves happy or willing to tell their friends to visit. The boys overhear a couple con men talking about a horse and end up trading their restaurant for him. It turns out the horse is a total bust until Curly ends up feeding him some hot peppers. This here is certainly middle ground as far as the Stooges go but there are a few nice laugh scattered throughout the film. This certainly isn't a short I'd be going back to watch over and over again but there's enough here for at least one viewing. I found the first half with the restaurant to be the best as we get Curly doing several nice gags including the fishing bit as well as him constantly eating the salted peanuts. The customers in the film also get to deliver some nice lines as all of them leave the restaurant very unhappy about their "mud like" coffee and various other issues. The scene with the horse and feeding it hot peppers really didn't make me laugh even though it was mildly cute.