How High Is Up?

Larry, Curly, and Moe are the Minute Menders using scams to get by. They look for small jobs working out of their slap-dashed truck. They sleep under their truck at night. They get jobs as riveters on the 97th floor on a construction site.

This one is not for people with vertigo. It's fun but it leaves me with butterflies in my stomach. It's a little exciting which is an interesting addition to a Three Stooges short. It has a bit of Harold Lloyd feel. It's good fun with some thrills.

In a year when defense plants were starting to crank out material for war and employment was near full capacity, there were three guys who couldn't find work. I think you know who they are.

Ten years earlier the sight of Moe, Larry, and Curly sleeping under their truck no one would have noticed or bothered them. But in 1940 a cop tells them to move and they have to move even without repairing their flat tire on the truck with a salami. Don't ask about that one.

Anyway the boys in eluding some other working stiffs whose lunch pails they punched holes in, they get themselves hired as construction workers with Larry serving up hot rivets as a specialty. Don't ask about what Moe and Curly do with them.

With seeing the Three Stooges in How High Is Up doing construction, no wonder the women of America rose to the challenge and Rosie the Riveter was born. After seeing the boys why couldn't women do a better job.

But not in comedy, this is one of the best Three Stooges shorts ever.

(*Curly quote*) - "Did you see where I landed!?"

Without even a moments notice - The ever-adaptable Stooges make a U-Turn and immediately switch careers from being incompetent "Minute Menders" (at a nickle-a-hole) to that of being 3 of the best riveters who ever riveted a rivet.

Now high up on the 97th floor of a skyscraper still in its early phase of construction - We find Curly frantically dealing (as best he can) with his deep-rooted acrophobia (a fear of heights). While Moe (right on cue) dishes out the face slaps, eye-pokes, and insults as only he could possibly deliver them.

All-in-all - I'd definitely say that (without a doubt) 1940's "How High Is Up?" ranks right up there as being the Three Stooges engaging in some of their better moments of classic slapstick comedy from yesteryear. (Nyuck! Nyuck! Nyuck!)

The Three Stooges were masters in creating memorable skits by stretching the simplest of tasks and making them sidesplitting hilarious. A prime example finds Curly struggling to get his tight sweater off in July 1940's "How High is Up?" Moe and Larry lend a hand, only to compound his problems. The three are paid tinkers who think they can do any job that comes their way-except for removing sweaters.

Between jobs, Curly's tight-fitting sweater causes him fits. Instead of simply pulling off the sweater over his head, Curly's head can't fit through the neck opening. Moe has the bright idea of using tools in his company's arsenal. Wedging two crowbars around Curly's neck, Moe and Larry attempt to slip the sweater over the tools, but instead press his nose between the two bars. Moe then takes the tactic to hit Curly in the head with a giant hammer while lifting the sweater in an attempt to smash down his skull through its neckline. Alas, after several wacks, Moe's hammer still hasn't produced the intended results. Finally, Moe opts for pulling the sweater over Curly's head and cutting his prized apparel with scissors. The plan has its disadvantages by destroying Curly's valuable sweater. But he finds himself with two mittens out of the carnage.

"How High is Up?" gets its title from the Stooges standing on the 97th floor of a building under construction. To drum up work, the three tinkers come across a construction site where the workers lunch pails are lined up. As Larry pokes holes in the containers, Moe offers to fix the workers' pails before the targets realize they've been had. Ducking into the site where the foreman (Edmund Cobb) is hiring riveters, Moe brags how he and his two colleagues are proficient in the task. One of the extras waiting in line for a job is actor Bruce Bennett, an Olympian silver medalist shot putter who played in the Rose Bowl for the University of Washington football team. He was picked by MGM to be its first sound version of Tarzan. But he broke his shoulder while filming the 1931 movie 'Touchdown,' and was replaced by Johnny Weissmuller. He later played roles in such classics as 1945's "Mildred Pierce" and 1948's "The Treasure of Sierra Madre."

Nearing to BIG 50. The Stooges 48th classic comedy short, and really, really trippy stuff. Let's put it this way -- had this been real life, these guys would have been TOAST.

This one is terrific. Absolutely. Moe, Larry and Curly get hired(?) as riveters on the 97th floor(!) of a skyscraper under construction. Director Del Lord's super camera work gets you paranoid at times, it seems so real. Curly, without fail, is the menace to society here, messing things up big time for Moe and Larry, not to mention nearly having them all fall off the building! There's always food around -- because these guy are hungry all the time -- and watch for the sausages, mistaken for rivets? The best gag.

Their hot tempered boss, Mr. Blake, is played to the hilt by Vernon Dent, the guy all us kids loved to hate. Look for actor Bruce Bennett as one of the workmen. Bruce would go onto appear in many Warner Brothers film classics, like TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE.

BEST comes at the end -- the Stooges use parachutes to escape the 97th floor!

Beautifully written insanity by Elwood Ullman, one of their best writers. Notes indicate the aerial shots of the building were filmed at the Empire State Building in New York City.

Thanks so much to METV for running these oldies Saturdays non stop. Always on dvd, remastered Columbia box set. Generally boxed by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes.