Mutts to You

Writer Elwood Ullman may have borrowed bits from the Laurel and Hardy comedy, PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES, only instead of hiding a baby from a welfare worker, they hide him from the cops. Just as insane, and directed by comedian Charley Chase, who just lets the camera roll, especially on Curly.

The Stooges are now employed(?) as dog washers, operating an assembly line. They run dogs through the wash and buff them up like a car. Pretty clever stuff, written by Elwood Ullman, who cranked out lots of gags. In the meanwhile, a baby is accidentally left on their doorstep and the guys take him home. Next, they hear the baby is missing, the cops looking for him, and they've got to get to the parents before they're arrested for kidnapping. Yes, Curly is back in drag, pretending to be the kid's mama!

Vernon Dent plays the hotal manager and Bud Jamison as a cop. Good role for Bess Flowers, known as the Queen of Movie Extras, playing the baby's mom and cowboy star Lane Chandler as the father.

Best gag; Moe speaking Chinese? Larry speaks Yiddish/Chinese pig Latin -- "Ikh bin ah China boychik!" You got to hear this. And was it a goofy poke at CHARLIE CHAN?

Always on Columbia dvd, generally by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes. Thanks to METV for running these oldies every Saturday.

He wanders, professionally washes the dogs, finds the baby on the doorstep and, thinking she is abandoned, takes her home. When they read in the newspaper that the baby is believed to have been abducted, they disguise themselves as Curly as the baby's mother and try to sneak past a local police officer. They are caught, but when the baby's parents show up and realize what happened, the result is a happy ending.

Mutts to You (1938)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Stooges short has the boys seeing a baby on a doorstep so they take him home with them as they think he has been abandoned. Soon they learn that the parents have reported him missing so they must find a way to return him without getting busted. This isn't one of the guys better shorts but there are enough laughs here to make it worth viewing at least once. I think the highlight of the film isn't really a laugh but we get a scene where the boys are running a dog wash. There's a Dalmatian that gets put on an assembly line where he gets washed, scrubbed and done up and I'm amazed by the performance of the dog. I was really surprised any mutt would sit there and let all this stuff happen to him and he does come across as a good sport. He sticks out more than the film itself as there aren't too many good jokes that work here. There are a few funny moments as the guys try to sneak the kid pass their landlord and another decent sequence when the boys try to escape from a cop. The rest of the jokes are pretty much misses including one where Moe and Larry pretend to be from China.

Larry, Curly, and Moe operate a dog washing assembly line. Mr. Manning comes to pick up his dog. Due to some misunderstandings, Mrs. Manning mistakenly believes that her husband had taken the baby to Palm Springs after leaving him on her doorstep. The Stooges pick up the baby to be brought to the police. Before that, they have to hide it from their landlord. Then, the Mannings report their missing baby as a kidnapping. It's a solid Stooges short. The story is a little too convoluted. It seems easier for the Mannings to leave the baby at the wash shop. It's also a little too easy for Mrs. Manning to realize that the boys didn't kidnap the baby. This is good if not great.

Something happened here. This was made right at the very pinnacle of their careers and yet if falls sort of flat. Excellent director in Charley Chase. He was by this time a real veteran of the two reel comedy format. He had making films for about twenty years by this time. The writers? Well, they used to steal bits and gags that were done about twenty years earlier and rework them for the Stooges. However, this particular short just doesn't have that spark, that Stooge zaniness that appears in most of their work. It does have it's moments though such as when they attempt to smuggle the baby into their apartment against the landlords' "no babies allowed" rule. That's a real funny bit with Larry concealing an inflated balloon under his vest and after inquiry by the landlord, tells him it must have been something he ate. The landlord immediately fixes him up with a mega dose of bicarbonate and has him drink it down. All the time Moe is attempting to "hide" an ice cream cone in his pants pocket, while standing next to an overactive steam radiator. Or during the obligatory chase scene with Curly and the baby in a laundry hamper being dragged by Moe and Larry. A cop suspects it's "the kidnappers" but Moe and Larry are disguised as Chinese laundry men and when he questions Larry, he answers him in Yiddish. The cop asks Moe for a translation and Moe answers, "Oh. He from China, east side!" Overall though, despite lacking the usual frantic fast pace, this is a generally good short.