Punch Drunks

The amazing thing to me is that Larry finds a man on a Truck with a record player playing Pop Goes The Weasel.The Record never ends and even when Larry crashes the truck through a brick wall the song is still playing at exactly the right spot. And Al Hill was a professional fighter albeit with a career than ended about ten years before this comedy. And Curly was the Butterbean of his generation,on a smaller scale. Look for Maxie Rosenbloom as one of the Fighters that Curly knocks out in the Cafe. And when we watch we love how the little shove that Moe gives Larry ends up with him being about ten feet away,head first in the stream. One of my Favorite Stooge Comedies!

Punch Drunks (1934)

**** (out of 4)

Three Stooges short has the wimpy Curley turning into a mean fighting machine each time he hears Pop Goes the Weasel. This is certainly the best short I've seen from the Stooges and i doubt they made one that was better. The laughs are non-stop from start to finish the violent humor is great throughout as well. The site gags are also pretty good including Larry walking into the bar, pulling his hat off and a part of it remaining on. The boxing match at the end also contains plenty of laughs.

This, the 3 Stooges' second short for Columbia, is my all-time favorite. Perhaps it's because it's the only one that they themselves wrote. This was the first film to have the Stooges' famous "cure" for a tapeworm ("Four pieces of burnt toast and a rotten egg."). It also truly showcases Larry's violin-playing ability. The sight of Larry running down the streets looking for something playing "Pop Goes the Weasel" are hilarious. However, there were a bit of dangerous bits that came from this short: The actor playing Killer Kilduff actually bloodied Curley's lip and nose. The man on the truck that Larry takes to play "Weasel" broke his arm when he fell off the truck. Also, I think the ending has been cut, at least in the prints that I've seen. The ones I've seen show at least three or four other men stretched out in the ring with Kilduff at the end of the fight. Yet, no explanation of how they all got there. I'm thinking that PUNCH DRUNKS had a similar ending to the later GRIPS, GRUNTS AND GROANS, but is now cut for some reason. Has anyone ever seen the uncut version of this short? I'd really love to see it that way.

Have seen this episode over and over for more than 40 years and still remains my favorite Stooges short. Seems however, that some editing has been done in the end of the film where a bunch of guys are knocked out in the ring with no apparent reason. Curly knocked them all out but this footage seems to have been lost over the years. Anyone with a copy showing this action has a real treasure! Funniest parts are when Larry is serenading girl and Moe pours a bucket of water over his head. Moe crashes big wooden radio over Larry's head. Larry drives truck away with guy standing in back. Guy falls out onto street an actually breaks his arm in real life. Larry catches fish while standing on his head in a swamp.

This very early Three Stooges effort starts off differently than almost all their others in that the three don't know each other. Moe is a fight manager looking for boxer; Curly is a waiter and Larry a violinist. They all meet at this restaurant and when Larry starts playing "Pop Goes The Weasel," Curly goes nuts and punches everyone's lights out. Moe hires the two so he can get back into the fight game.

One day during some roadside training, they meet up with a pretty dame whose car is stuck in the mud. By playing the "Weasel" song, Curly lifts the car and solves the problem. She drives off as he jumps in the back seat!

The next scenes show newspaper headlines as "K.O. Stradivarius" (our hero Curly) beats all opponents and is now scheduled to fight for the championship.

The last bout is something to see: probably the goofiest fight scenes I've ever seen on film, which includes the great silent comics. Larry Howard ("Curly") was an underrated comic genius and shows it here early on in his career. It's the subtle things he does in this fight that had me laughing out loud.