Saved by the Belle

It's the sleepy tropical kingdom of Valeska. Larry, Curly, and Moe are salesmen for King Winter Outfitting Co. They have no passage home until they sell all of their stock. It's revolutionary times and the boys are brought in for suspicions of being spies. Sympathizer Rita helps them escape from prison. This is a fine Stooges short. You can't go wrong with a Curly Stooges.

This short seemed pretty weak to me. The problem is too many things that were supposed to be funny failed to make me laugh. There were a few good parts as there are in any Curly short, but this one just had too many unfunny scenes for a stooge short.

Grade: D+

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!

Saved by the Belle is fair Three Stooges short. LeRoy Mason, Carmen Laroux, and Vernon Dent are in this one. Laroux has some good and funny scenes with The Stooges. Mason plays some character! If you are a Three Stooges fan then watch Saved by the Belle for some good performances!

For those of you younger cinema fans don't think for one moment that this Three Stooges short Saved By The Belle has anything to do with a school named Bayside out in California. This film takes place in some unnamed South American country where our three intrepid heroes are salesmen trying to sell winter apparel in the tropics. The country also is on a shifting tectonic plate where sudden earthquakes seem to happen at the strangest and most opportune times for The Three Stooges.

Their antics manage to aggravate hotel owner LeRoy Mason when they can't pay their bill. Of course the company that gave them this territory won't provide them transportation back until they get rid of their winter stock. But they manage to endear themselves to South American siren Carmen Leroux who is involved in the revolution that's brewing. She gives them a mission, like is this woman out of her mind?

Western fans might recognize LeRoy Mason he was in many a western at this time usually as a bad guy, he was in several John Wayne films for Republic and Monogram. The short is directed by silent screen comedian Charley Chase and he brings the best out in Moe, Larry, and Curly.

Film comics throughout the ages have used the destructive power of dynamite, which has the potential to kill scores of people, as a prop for their visual jokes. The Three Stooges proved such explosives can elicit belly-laughs by the caseloads. In two straight 1939 films, the three displayed such a dexterity in handling dynamite that once their viewers saw the sticks with the word on them they expected the jokes to be flying fast and furious.

The Stooges used dynamite to great effect in June 1939's "Saved by the Belle." In this last directed Stooges short of Charlie Chase's, who died the following year of a heart attack at 47, the three are traveling salesmen in the fictional South American country of Valeska. Accused of plotting to kill the country's leader, the Stooges escape prison thanks to revolutionary member Señorita Rita (Carman Laroux). They take a rolled up map (they think) of the government's military positions to the revolutionary leader, only to present a calendar instead. Escorted to a wall where they think they're about to have their picture taken, Curly says to Moe, "I'm gonna send one home to Elaine," who in real life was his wife Elaine Ackerman. They finally realized an execution squad was about to fire upon them. The Stooges commandeer an ammunition truck before Curly casually flings a match he used to light a cigarette into a crate of dynamite, igniting a fuse. After chomping on some grenades, whom Curly thinks are pineapples, the dynamite explodes, sending the three onto a swayed-back horse, galloping away.

"Saved by the Belle" featured Mexican actress Carmen Laroux. The highpoint in her screen acting career which began in 1927 in silent movies was appearing alongside John Wayne in 1935's low-budget 'The Desert Trail.' This was her second-to-last film before she appeared as the maid in Orson Welles' 1941 "Citizen Kane." She committed suicide on August 1942 at 32 by swallowing ant poison.