Listen, Judge

This short creatively combines plot elements from 3 different Curly shorts(A Plumbing We Will Go/Ache in Every Stake/They Stooge to Conga)and the finished product equals what I consider the best remake by the boys. Many of the gags taken from 'Conga' for instance, are even funnier in this short.

Great Moe insult: Go'wan you french poodle, your father's got fleas!

9.5/10

As I'm sure every stooge fan knows, this short creatively combines plot elements from three different Curly shorts & the results are one of the best stooge shorts ever made & one of Shemp's best performances as a stooge.

Things starts off with the always capable Vernon Dent (the greatest Three Stooges foil) playing a judge who oversees the case of the boys being brought up on charges of chicken stealing. I especially enjoyed Vernon's line "I'm not going to make these poor unfortunates the victims of your prejudice & guesswork. You're free boys." Then of course, a live chicken comes flying out of Shemp's jacket.

After that the short takes plot elements from "An Ache in Every Stake" and "They Stooge to Conga" as the boys destroy the house of some poor, unfortunate lady trying to fix the doorbell then get the idea to fix her dinner. Special mention must be made of Shemp's turkey stuffing scene which I thought was equal to Curly's from "An Ache", particularly his method of soaking the bread & all his little ad-libs (this one's got pits).

Even better is Moe's reaction when the turkey comes out of the oven: "Listen, if the cake in that oven turns out like this, you're going to be the next one to broil in it. And I'm going to baste you with nitric acid."

Overall, a great reworking of tried & true stooge material and a film any lover of the stooges should enjoy.

Listen Judge finds Moe, Larry and Shemp before Judge Vernon Dent on a chicken stealing and vagrancy rap. Later on the boys decide to go into home repair as itinerant workers, usually the kind in the real world that are labeled scam artists. Anyone that hires these guys ought to have their head examined.

But a woman who does all of a sudden is thrown for a loop by a surprise party she has to throw for her husband. Naturally the boys are ever willing to help.

Some really good gags are Shemp getting charged up and then having Moe short circuit him. Also Larry and Shemp try to deal with a floating cake that these geniuses reflate with gas.

The finale is when said cake explodes on TV's Perry White from the Superman series, John Hamilton. Seeing that always dignified man dripping in cake remnants is a great laugh.

Stooges fans the world over will love this one.

Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard are door-to-door handymen. They are brought in front of Judge Henderson for chicken stealing. They escape the court and barges into a house to fix the doorbell. Of course, the boys' antics cause more damage. It turns out to be the judge's home and he's hosting a party for his political re-election.

There is general Stooges destruction. It's solid work for a Shemp Stooges short. I like the cake premise although I wish it could actually blow up. The room should at least be destroyed. I need some chasing around before the Stooges jump out the window. This is good standard work, but it could be more.

First, this particular short is yet another splicing of three earlier shorts all with Curly. The courtroom scene is taken from "A Plumbing We Will Go", the fix the doorbell bits are from "They Stooge to Conga" where they inadvertently infiltrate a Nazi hideout, and then the cooking scenes are from "An Ache In Every Steak". What a mish mash! If during the years that the first three were made, such a concept had been presented, I'm sure it would have been rejected by everyone involved including the Stooges. But now, the lean, cold 1950's, everyone just wants to get this over with and get their money. Jules White is certainly to blame for all this since the man never did display a true sense of real comedy no matter who he was involved with directing, be it the Stooges or Buster Keaton during his fade out years. This short is so disjointed in storyline that an undergrad creative writing student would most likely flunk out if he handed in something as banal. Watch the originals and forget this one. No offense Moe, Larry and Shemp but you really should have known better.